Saturday, October 29, 2016
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
This is how you’ll pay for things in the future
Interesting read... 'they' are here already..
Are we saying goodbye to the traditional online shopping cart?
If some recent developments are any indication, it’s likely that in the future, paying for our purchases will look more like messaging a friend than the checkout experience we’ve become used to — and there may be no need to visit a retailer’s website to do it.
Friday, September 16, 2016
Hong Kong Billionaire Li Ka-Shing: An In-Depth Interview
Hong Kong Billionaire Li Ka-Shing: An In-Depth Interview
Thursday, July 14, 2016
11 daily habits of self-made billionaires anyone can adopt
If you want to get rich, start by studying the
people who have already done so.
“The only person who can teach you how to think
like a millionaire is a millionaire,” writes Steve Siebold in his book, “How Rich People Think.”
The same could be said about billionaires.
Below, we’ve rounded up 11 habits of self-made
billionaires. You may notice that none of them require dramatic life changes —
a few tweaks here and there to your daily routine could result in huge gains.
They meditate
Science says that
meditation has a number of mental and physical health
benefits, from improving memory to boosting the immune system.
Ray Dalio, founder of
Bridgewater Associates, told The
Huffington Post, “Meditation, more than anything in my life, was the
biggest ingredient of whatever success I’ve had.”
Dalio is not alone. Jack Dorsey, CEO of
both Twitter and Square, and media mogul Oprah Winfrey say that they practice meditation daily.
They’re charitable
“The world class set
their sights on impacting the world with their wealth,” Siebold writes. “Some
do it through philanthropy, others through business or various financial
vehicles.”
A handful of
billionaires have taken to philanthropy, including founder and CEO of Bloomberg
Media Michael Bloomberg, who has donated $3 billion over
his lifetime.
And then
there’s the Giving Pledge, which Warren Buffett and Bill and
Melinda Gates created in order to invite the world’s wealthiest people
to pledge more than half of their wealth to charitable causes either
during their lives or in their wills. Some have even pledged to give away more than 99% of
their fortunes.
They wake up early
There may be some truth
behind the age-old adage, the early bird get the worm.
The wealthiest people tend to
be early risers. Take Jack Dorsey, who wakes up at 5:00 a.m. to
meditate and work out. Or Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin
Group, who wakes up at 5:45 a.m. to exercise before starting his work day.
Branson and Dorsey
aren’t the only successful people who wake up
before the sun. In his five-year study of rich people, author Thomas C. Corley found that nearly 50% of them woke up at least
three hours before their workday actually began.
They stick to routines
Take John Paul DeJoria,
cofounder of Patron tequila and Paul Mitchell hair products, who starts every day with five
minutes of quiet reflection.
“Doesn’t matter where
I’m at, which home I’m in, or what hotel room I’m visiting,” he says. “The very
second I wake up, I stay in bed for about five minutes and just be.”
They live below their means
Just because they have
billions in the bank doesn’t mean they have to indulge in overspending — in
fact, some of the world’s wealthiest people choose to live frugally.
As Murray Newlands wrote
at Entrepreneur, “Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, famously
drove around in a 1979 Ford F150 pickup truck … Mark Zuckerberg owns a modest
$30,000 Acura TSX entry-level sedan … Bill Gates was known to fly commercial
for years.”
Then there’s legendary
investor Warren Buffett, who is notably down to earth — he still lives in the same $31,500 home, and
chooses a flip phone over a smart phone.
They pursue their passion
“You’ve got to find what
you love,” Apple cofounder Steve Jobs said during his 2005 commencement address to the graduates of Stanford University. “The
only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet,
keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when
you find it.”
Jobs isn’t the first to
emphasize the importance of pursuing your passion. Author Napoleon Hill, who
studied over 500 incredibly rich people in the early 20th century, wrote in his
bestseller, “Think and Grow Rich“: “No
man can succeed in a line of endeavor which he does not like.”
They read
Investing legend Warren Buffett reportedly
spends about 80% of his day reading, and continues to include book
recommendations in his annual shareholder letters.
In 2015, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg resolved to read a book every two weeks
… Media mogul Oprah Winfrey selects a book every month for readers to
discuss online as part of “Oprah’s Book Club 2.0,”
and when tech billionaire Elon Musk is
asked how he learned to build rockets, he reportedly answers, “I read books.”
They develop multiple streams of income
The richest people focus on
earning — so it comes as no
surprise that they develop additional streams of income.
Richard Branson, the
billionaire chair of the Virgin Group, epitomizes this habit, Corley
explains in “Change Your Habits, Change Your
Life.” Branson has overseen about 500 companies and his
brand is on somewhere between 200 and 300 of them.
Branson “puts the rich
habit of having multiple streams of income on steroids,” Corley
writes. “His desire to expand the Virgin brand is really a desire to
expand his streams of income. Branson learned very early on that this rich
habit creates the most wealth.”
They’re self-employed
Along the same lines,
billionaires tend to be their own bosses. They’re typically self-employed and determine the size of their own
paycheck.
Mark Zuckerberg has been
working for himself since age 19, when he first launched Facebook
as a Harvard sophomore in 2004. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who is the youngest billionaire in the
world, had a similar path — he created the popular
photo-sharing app with two of his former Stanford classmates and has been
his own boss ever since.
“It’s not that there
aren’t world-class performers who punch a time clock for a paycheck, but for
most this is the slowest path to prosperity, promoted as the safest,” says self-made millionaire Steve Siebold, who has
also studied over 1,200 wealthy individuals. “The great ones know
self-employment is the fastest road to wealth.”
They exercise
Highly successful people
don’t just push themselves in the office — they push themselves physically,
outside of the office.
Mark Cuban, “Shark Tank”
investor and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, does cardio for at least an hour,
six to seven days a week, he told The Dallas Morning News.
Branson credits exercise for giving him at least four additional hours of
productivity each day. Science concurs: Working out can boost your memory,
concentration, and mental sharpness.
They hang out with other successful people
The wealthiest people
like to stand next to the smartest person in the room, notes author and podcast host
James Altucher: “Harold Ramis did it (Bill Murray). Steve Jobs did
it (Steve Wozniak). Craig Silverstein did it (Who? Larry Page). Kanye West did
it (Jay-Z).”
After all, “In most
cases, your net worth mirrors the level of your closest friends,” Siebold explains.
Saturday, July 9, 2016
Robert Kuok – The world’s shrewdest businessman
Kuok Cools on China as Tycoon Exits Hong Kong Media
Traditional Asian business leaders appear to be giving way to homegrown Chinese billionaires hungry for acquisitions.
Robert Kuok's move to sell Hong Kong's leading English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, to Chinese Internet giant Alibaba may be the start of a new trend of tycoons selling their assets in China.
HONG KONG—Malaysia’s richest man, Robert Kuok, built his fortune by transforming his father’s sugar-trading business into a property-to-logistics empire focused on China, securing prime real estate after being an early foreign investor and loyal friend to Beijing.
Now, Mr. Kuok’s decision to sell his media assets in the Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. reflects a potential changing of the guard as traditional Asian tycoons, whose investments helped forge China’s economic success, give way to a new breed of homegrown, acquisition-hungry billionaires who come from within the Chinese system.
The 92-year-old Mr. Kuok has also considered selling some of his real-estate holdings in China and Hong Kong, people familiar with the matter said, as a slowing economy and rising competition have weighed on results. Profit fell last year at seven publicly traded companies in Mr. Kuok’s portfolio, although most saw an upturn in the first half of this year.
Mr. Kuok’s flagship Kerry Properties Ltd. has cut back the amount of property under development in China every year since 2012, according to company filings. Separately, Mr. Kuok’s luxury hotel chain, Shangri-La, has been impacted in China by lower revenue amid a persistent anticorruption campaign, with profits slumping 54% last year to $181 million. Increasingly, Shangri-La is opening in locations further afield, from London to Istanbul, and is planning more openings in India, the Philippines, Qatar and Sri Lanka.
Mr. Kuok’s companies are also building up their networks in Africa and Oceania, including constructing a large, mixed-use development near the airport in Accra, Ghana. The shift to a more global focus is reminiscent of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, whose downsizing of his exposure to China and Hong Kong in favor of billion-dollar assets in Europe stirred criticism from China’s media earlier this year.
“You should see quite a number of Hong Kong businessmen trimming their China businesses in the next year or two, because profitability in China is declining,” said Eric Huang, partner of property-investment firm HCG Capital Partners, who has worked with wealthy Hong Kong families.
However, older tycoons with long-held investments in China are likely to sell at a measured pace, analysts say, wary of being seen to be reducing support for China. Mr. Kuok is likely to remain heavily committed to China, according to people familiar with his thinking.
Mr. Kuok and the Kerry Group companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Over the past few years, new Chinese billionaires have increasingly sought assets outside of mainland China as they look to diversify and broaden their investments. One of the more high-profile acquisitions in recent years has been U.S. theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., which was purchased by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group in 2012. Some mainland billionaires are taking Chinese assets off the hands of Hong Kong tycoons. Earlier this month, Hong Kong billionaire Cheng Yu-tung’s New World China Land sold three Chinese property projects to mainland billionaire Xu Jiayin’s Evergrande Group.
By investing in logistics and infrastructure in Southeast Asia and Africa, Mr. Kuok is also tapping into Beijing’s more recent plans. The government wants to grow Chinese companies overseas and increase trade and influence through its “One Belt, One Road” initiative that spans dozens of countries as far as Europe.
Mr. Kuok’s firms are now reapplying his China strategy in other emerging markets, brokers and analysts said.
“They assist the local government and its people in developing the cities,” said Terence Tang, managing director at Collier International Capital Markets in Asia, who has worked with the Kuok family. “Thus, they are very much welcomed by the governments from these emerging markets.”
Mr. Kuok initially built his empire on sugar, as tycoons in Southeast Asia focused on traditional industries such as commodities, shipping and infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s. He first advised Chinese leaders how to resolve a sugar shortage in 1973, according to an academic paper written by Malaysian professors. When Deng Xiaoping announced economic reforms in the late 1970s, Mr. Kuok was among the first tycoons to invest in China.
Mr. Kuok is known for developing close relationships with political leaders, including Singapore’s founder Lee Kuan Yew, said Lee Poh Ping, a professor at the University of Malaysia who has studied the tycoon.
Mr. Kuok began developing the landmark China World Trade Center in Beijing in the mid-1980s, now one of many flagship developments in prime locations in first-tier cities. After some foreign businesses pulled out of China and Hong Kong after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, when the army violently crushed student protests, Mr. Kuok continued to invest in China as a political statement to show that he wasn’t worried about the country, Mr. Lee said.
In 1993, Mr. Kuok expanded into Hong Kong’s media industry by purchasing a stake in the publisher of the English-language South China Morning Post from News Corp., parent of The Wall Street Journal. The paper proved to be a cash cow in the 1990s, stacked with company notices, job listings and advertisements. He bought a bigger stake in the company in 2007.
Managing the South China Morning Post, however, has gotten more complicated in recent years, as anti-Beijing tensions have flared up in Hong Kong and the Internet has decimated traditional advertising revenues. The newspaper has been blamed by Western media-watchers for not being tough enough on Beijing, yet at the same time, it has been blocked in China for coverage disapproved of by Chinese authorities.
“The newspaper has declined in the past few years,” said Ying Chan, director of Journalism and Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong. “Robert Kuok was happy to sell.”
Mr. Kuok told Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper in an interview last month that the sale was purely a “business decision.”
Write to Wei Gu at wei.gu@wsj.com and Wayne Ma at wayne.ma@wsj.com
Traditional Asian business leaders appear to be giving way to homegrown Chinese billionaires hungry for acquisitions.
Robert Kuok's move to sell Hong Kong's leading English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post, to Chinese Internet giant Alibaba may be the start of a new trend of tycoons selling their assets in China.
HONG KONG—Malaysia’s richest man, Robert Kuok, built his fortune by transforming his father’s sugar-trading business into a property-to-logistics empire focused on China, securing prime real estate after being an early foreign investor and loyal friend to Beijing.
Now, Mr. Kuok’s decision to sell his media assets in the Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. reflects a potential changing of the guard as traditional Asian tycoons, whose investments helped forge China’s economic success, give way to a new breed of homegrown, acquisition-hungry billionaires who come from within the Chinese system.
The 92-year-old Mr. Kuok has also considered selling some of his real-estate holdings in China and Hong Kong, people familiar with the matter said, as a slowing economy and rising competition have weighed on results. Profit fell last year at seven publicly traded companies in Mr. Kuok’s portfolio, although most saw an upturn in the first half of this year.
Mr. Kuok’s flagship Kerry Properties Ltd. has cut back the amount of property under development in China every year since 2012, according to company filings. Separately, Mr. Kuok’s luxury hotel chain, Shangri-La, has been impacted in China by lower revenue amid a persistent anticorruption campaign, with profits slumping 54% last year to $181 million. Increasingly, Shangri-La is opening in locations further afield, from London to Istanbul, and is planning more openings in India, the Philippines, Qatar and Sri Lanka.
Mr. Kuok’s companies are also building up their networks in Africa and Oceania, including constructing a large, mixed-use development near the airport in Accra, Ghana. The shift to a more global focus is reminiscent of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, whose downsizing of his exposure to China and Hong Kong in favor of billion-dollar assets in Europe stirred criticism from China’s media earlier this year.
“You should see quite a number of Hong Kong businessmen trimming their China businesses in the next year or two, because profitability in China is declining,” said Eric Huang, partner of property-investment firm HCG Capital Partners, who has worked with wealthy Hong Kong families.
However, older tycoons with long-held investments in China are likely to sell at a measured pace, analysts say, wary of being seen to be reducing support for China. Mr. Kuok is likely to remain heavily committed to China, according to people familiar with his thinking.
Mr. Kuok and the Kerry Group companies didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Over the past few years, new Chinese billionaires have increasingly sought assets outside of mainland China as they look to diversify and broaden their investments. One of the more high-profile acquisitions in recent years has been U.S. theater chain AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., which was purchased by Chinese billionaire Wang Jianlin’s Dalian Wanda Group in 2012. Some mainland billionaires are taking Chinese assets off the hands of Hong Kong tycoons. Earlier this month, Hong Kong billionaire Cheng Yu-tung’s New World China Land sold three Chinese property projects to mainland billionaire Xu Jiayin’s Evergrande Group.
By investing in logistics and infrastructure in Southeast Asia and Africa, Mr. Kuok is also tapping into Beijing’s more recent plans. The government wants to grow Chinese companies overseas and increase trade and influence through its “One Belt, One Road” initiative that spans dozens of countries as far as Europe.
Mr. Kuok’s firms are now reapplying his China strategy in other emerging markets, brokers and analysts said.
“They assist the local government and its people in developing the cities,” said Terence Tang, managing director at Collier International Capital Markets in Asia, who has worked with the Kuok family. “Thus, they are very much welcomed by the governments from these emerging markets.”
Mr. Kuok initially built his empire on sugar, as tycoons in Southeast Asia focused on traditional industries such as commodities, shipping and infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s. He first advised Chinese leaders how to resolve a sugar shortage in 1973, according to an academic paper written by Malaysian professors. When Deng Xiaoping announced economic reforms in the late 1970s, Mr. Kuok was among the first tycoons to invest in China.
Mr. Kuok is known for developing close relationships with political leaders, including Singapore’s founder Lee Kuan Yew, said Lee Poh Ping, a professor at the University of Malaysia who has studied the tycoon.
Mr. Kuok began developing the landmark China World Trade Center in Beijing in the mid-1980s, now one of many flagship developments in prime locations in first-tier cities. After some foreign businesses pulled out of China and Hong Kong after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, when the army violently crushed student protests, Mr. Kuok continued to invest in China as a political statement to show that he wasn’t worried about the country, Mr. Lee said.
In 1993, Mr. Kuok expanded into Hong Kong’s media industry by purchasing a stake in the publisher of the English-language South China Morning Post from News Corp., parent of The Wall Street Journal. The paper proved to be a cash cow in the 1990s, stacked with company notices, job listings and advertisements. He bought a bigger stake in the company in 2007.
Managing the South China Morning Post, however, has gotten more complicated in recent years, as anti-Beijing tensions have flared up in Hong Kong and the Internet has decimated traditional advertising revenues. The newspaper has been blamed by Western media-watchers for not being tough enough on Beijing, yet at the same time, it has been blocked in China for coverage disapproved of by Chinese authorities.
“The newspaper has declined in the past few years,” said Ying Chan, director of Journalism and Media Studies Center at the University of Hong Kong. “Robert Kuok was happy to sell.”
Mr. Kuok told Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper in an interview last month that the sale was purely a “business decision.”
Write to Wei Gu at wei.gu@wsj.com and Wayne Ma at wayne.ma@wsj.com
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Best marketing strategy ever! Steve Jobs Think different / Crazy ones speech
Brokop.com has made subtitles for this 1997 speech of Steve Jobs, because it has such bad sound quality and that is a pity because it is the best marketing speech in the world.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
The fascinating life of Elon Musk, captured in one giant infographic
A good overview of Elon Musk, the next Steve Job...
From getting bullied and thrown down the stairs in grammar school to becoming “Earth’s most future-oriented person” and earning billions of dollars in the process, it’s hard to wrap one’s brain around just how much Elon Musk has managed to stuff into his 44 years of life. But that’s where this massive infographic, created by information designer Anna Vital, comes in. Read the full article.
“In a hundred years, when most people reading this and the person writing this are long gone, Musk’s cars and rockets will still be circling the Earth and the skies,” writes Anna Vital from the Funders and Founders blog. “How can such a person get started against all odds is the question I ask here. And, more importantly, what can we learn from him?”
The illustrated life’s journey, which leans heavily on Ashlee Vance’s book, winds through several milestones and inflection points, like when Musk sold his first videogame and the time he left Stanford’s PhD program after just two days.
And, of course, it also mentions how Musk, after reading “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” decided his life’s mission would be to save humanity.
Those are just a few of the highlights. It’s a huge visualization , so we broke it down into some notable sections.
The rough early years, capped by a nice profit at the age of 12:
A youthful existential crisis and getting his hands dirty:
A formal education and some dues-paying:
Grappling with tragedy, pondering Tesla and making the bucks:
Still to come:
Still to come:
For now, Musk is basking in the glow of what looks to be a huge success with the upcoming Model 3, a more affordable Tesla TSLA, +1.05% aimed at the mass market. The company has already taken in hundreds of thousands of preorders for a car that won’t be delivered until 2017 at the earliest.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Saturday, March 5, 2016
WHAT MEDITATION DOES TO YOUR BRAIN
What meditation does to your brain? The benefits of meditation are well known. You get calmer, you can focus better, your stress levels are reduced and you can sleep better. But the benefits of meditation do not end there. This seemingly simple exercise of closing the eyes and tuning inwards can actually make lasting physical changes in your body. Specifically, it can literally change your brain!
What is Meditation
Let’s get one thing straight first. Meditation is not about thinking about nothing, or trying to quiet the mind so that there are absolutely no thoughts. Rather, meditation is about training the mind to focus, it’s about gaining awareness about the thoughts, and creating some distance between you and your thoughts. When you can observe your thoughts, and observe the reactions you have to your thoughts, you are getting to the point.
Training the Brain
The brain, like the rest of the body, is growing and developing all the time. Just like we can train the muscles in our body, we can also train the brain. Some time ago scientist thought that the brain is what it is after our childhood, but recently the miracles of neuro-plasticity are more known, and there are more and more research results for the ability for the brain to develop and change.
New connections in the brain
Grey matter is the part of the brain where the neurons are connecting to each other and this part is activated when we are learning new skills. When we meditate, we are stimulating growth of new brain cells, which means more grey matter. As we age, we are naturally losing some of the mass of the grey matter, but meditation is said to slow down this process.
Improved long term memory
Research has also found that this increase in grey matter forms in the hippocampus, the area of the brain that turns short term memories into long term memories, eg. helping us to learn and internalize new skills and information.
Keeping the emotions in control
Meditation affects the pre-frontal cortex of your brain, which is busy making decisions and analyzing life around you. This part of the brain is responsible for problem solving and regulating emotions. The more grey matter we have in this part of the brain, the better we are able to deal with our emotions and feelings.
Reacting less to stressors
One thing that reduces as we meditate, is the size of the stress centre of the brain, also called the amygdala. When we are stressing about something, this part of the brain is activated, and the so-called Fight-or-Flight response is initiated in the body. With meditation, we can reduce the activity of the amygdala, which means that we don’t get overly anxious and stressed about things for no apparent reason. When we meditate, also the connections between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex get weaker, which means that we get less reactive to stressful stimuli.
How much should we meditate?
To get all these wonderful effects of meditation, how much should we meditate? You can start with 5 minutes few times a day, and build up to 15-30 minutes daily.
Meditation and mindfulness bring a certain level of calmness into your life, and give you space to reflect on what is happening around you, instead of reacting continuously to every single stimulus that might pass you by (including your own thoughts). You are in better control of your thoughts, your emotions and your reactions, which makes you better able to navigate in life with a purpose, instead of just drifting from one sensation to the next. Well worth those few minutes a day, don’t you think?
13 things mentally strong people don't do - Business Insider
13 things mentally strong people don't do - Business Insider: GettyNavy SEALs possess extraordinary mental toughness.Mental strength isn't often reflected in what you do.It's usually seen in what you don't do.In her b
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
How to Swim Faster – The Six Principles of Fast Swimming
Have you been wondering how to swim faster for months or even years without ever finding a satisfactory answer? If this is the case, well, you are in good company. This article describes six principles that will allow you to swim faster without becoming exhausted too quickly.
Swimming Smarter not Harder
For many coaches, swimming faster is the result of gradually increasing the length and intensity of swimming workouts so that the general fitness level increases.
While conditioning has its place, this is not all there is about swimming faster, because swimming is a very technical sport. There are a few gifted swimmers that instinctively learn how to move efficiently in the water. Given enough time and practice, they will always improve.
But most of us only have a vague sense about our efficiency in the water. Remember, we are land animals! Because of this, swimming lots of laps will often only make our bad habits more permanent, while our swimming technique only improves slowly or even not at all.
So what do we need to do? In fact, to learn how to swim faster and better with less effort, we need to swim smarter, not harder. Specifically, we need to work on two facets of our technique:
Decreasing Drag
The importance of swimming with the least amount of drag is often neglected. However, this is an area where we can greatly improve our efficiency in the water.
Water is much more dense than air. Drag in the water increases by the square of the speed at which we swim. So there is quickly an upper limit on how much force we can apply against the water to increase our speed.
On the other hand, reducing drag requires skill rather than force. So there’s a lot of room for improvement there. That’s why it should be the first priority for learning how to swim faster.
Principle #1: Improving Your Balance
The first and most efficient way to decrease drag is to improve your balance. This means that you try to stay as horizontal as possible while moving through the water. When you do this, you disrupt the least amount of water molecules on your path, which translates into reduced drag.
As an example, while swimming freestyle, swimmers often lift their head to breathe or look ahead. When they do this, they lose balance and their hips and legs drop. Their body is less streamlined and generates more drag while moving through the water. Additionally, they need to kick harder to keep those legs up. Needless to say, a lot of energy is wasted while doing this.
Note that being as horizontal as possible is especially important for the freestyle stroke andbackstroke. For the breaststroke and butterfly stroke, things are a little bit different because of thebody undulation that is used in those latter strokes.
Principle #2: Swimming Taller
The next way to decrease drag is to make yourself as tall as possible in the water. The theory behind this is that for the same mass, a long tapered object moving through the water creates less turbulence than a short compact object. In fact this principle has been used by naval engineers since hundreds of years.
To swim taller in the freestyle stroke, you enter your recovering arm early in the water once it has passed your head. You also make sure to completely extend your recovering arm forward underwater before starting the downsweep and catch.
Principle #3: Compact and Efficient Kick
In world-class front crawl swimmers, the kick contributes for up to 10% of propulsion, while the arm stroke contributes for the rest. So an efficient kick is important for fast swimming, but less than what is commonly believed.
What is equally important is a compact kick, meaning that it should neither break the water surface nor move too low below the body line. Otherwise unnecessary drag is created which will only slow you down.
Improving Propulsion
Once you have reduced drag to a minimum, you can work on improving your propulsion. Again, this is mainly done by improving your swim stroke mechanics, not by building bigger muscles.
Principle #4: Swimming More on Your Sides
The first way to improve propulsion is to roll more from side to side with each arm stroke. Rolling more on your sides allows you to better engage the large back muscles in addition to the shoulder muscles. However, floating on your side is counter-intuitive at first and requires some practice for getting used to.
Principle #5: Using Your Core
This is another secret of how to swim faster. You should engage the large back, hip and torso muscles while rolling from side to side. The synergy between your core muscles and arm muscles allows you to apply more force to your swim stroke.
It is a little bit like a baseball pitcher when he throws the ball: first his body twists backward, then his hips initiate a rotation forward which is channeled through his upper body into his shoulder, arm, hand and finally into the ball, with an acceleration at each step.
Once you have integrated this technique, you will be able to swim longer and faster and tire less quickly, as your core muscles have more endurance than the ones in your shoulders and arms.
Principle #6: Anchoring Your Arms
This is the last piece of the puzzle on how to swim faster with less effort. Before applying propulsive force in the water with your arm, you need to make sure that your hand and forearm are aligned and facing backward. You can then effectively move your arm backward like big paddle.
This swimming technique is often called the "high elbow catch" in the freestyle stroke because you need to keep your elbow above your hand to be able to successfully do this.
Conclusion
That’s it, you now know the principles of how to swim faster with less effort. You can start to integrate those principles in your stroke by following our sequence of swimming drills for the freestyle stroke. Have fun!
Swimming Smarter not Harder
For many coaches, swimming faster is the result of gradually increasing the length and intensity of swimming workouts so that the general fitness level increases.
While conditioning has its place, this is not all there is about swimming faster, because swimming is a very technical sport. There are a few gifted swimmers that instinctively learn how to move efficiently in the water. Given enough time and practice, they will always improve.
But most of us only have a vague sense about our efficiency in the water. Remember, we are land animals! Because of this, swimming lots of laps will often only make our bad habits more permanent, while our swimming technique only improves slowly or even not at all.
So what do we need to do? In fact, to learn how to swim faster and better with less effort, we need to swim smarter, not harder. Specifically, we need to work on two facets of our technique:
- We need to decrease drag in the water.
- We need to improve propulsion in the water.
Decreasing Drag
The importance of swimming with the least amount of drag is often neglected. However, this is an area where we can greatly improve our efficiency in the water.
Water is much more dense than air. Drag in the water increases by the square of the speed at which we swim. So there is quickly an upper limit on how much force we can apply against the water to increase our speed.
On the other hand, reducing drag requires skill rather than force. So there’s a lot of room for improvement there. That’s why it should be the first priority for learning how to swim faster.
Principle #1: Improving Your Balance
The first and most efficient way to decrease drag is to improve your balance. This means that you try to stay as horizontal as possible while moving through the water. When you do this, you disrupt the least amount of water molecules on your path, which translates into reduced drag.
As an example, while swimming freestyle, swimmers often lift their head to breathe or look ahead. When they do this, they lose balance and their hips and legs drop. Their body is less streamlined and generates more drag while moving through the water. Additionally, they need to kick harder to keep those legs up. Needless to say, a lot of energy is wasted while doing this.
Note that being as horizontal as possible is especially important for the freestyle stroke andbackstroke. For the breaststroke and butterfly stroke, things are a little bit different because of thebody undulation that is used in those latter strokes.
Principle #2: Swimming Taller
The next way to decrease drag is to make yourself as tall as possible in the water. The theory behind this is that for the same mass, a long tapered object moving through the water creates less turbulence than a short compact object. In fact this principle has been used by naval engineers since hundreds of years.
To swim taller in the freestyle stroke, you enter your recovering arm early in the water once it has passed your head. You also make sure to completely extend your recovering arm forward underwater before starting the downsweep and catch.
Principle #3: Compact and Efficient Kick
In world-class front crawl swimmers, the kick contributes for up to 10% of propulsion, while the arm stroke contributes for the rest. So an efficient kick is important for fast swimming, but less than what is commonly believed.
What is equally important is a compact kick, meaning that it should neither break the water surface nor move too low below the body line. Otherwise unnecessary drag is created which will only slow you down.
Improving Propulsion
Once you have reduced drag to a minimum, you can work on improving your propulsion. Again, this is mainly done by improving your swim stroke mechanics, not by building bigger muscles.
Principle #4: Swimming More on Your Sides
The first way to improve propulsion is to roll more from side to side with each arm stroke. Rolling more on your sides allows you to better engage the large back muscles in addition to the shoulder muscles. However, floating on your side is counter-intuitive at first and requires some practice for getting used to.
Principle #5: Using Your Core
This is another secret of how to swim faster. You should engage the large back, hip and torso muscles while rolling from side to side. The synergy between your core muscles and arm muscles allows you to apply more force to your swim stroke.
It is a little bit like a baseball pitcher when he throws the ball: first his body twists backward, then his hips initiate a rotation forward which is channeled through his upper body into his shoulder, arm, hand and finally into the ball, with an acceleration at each step.
Once you have integrated this technique, you will be able to swim longer and faster and tire less quickly, as your core muscles have more endurance than the ones in your shoulders and arms.
Principle #6: Anchoring Your Arms
This is the last piece of the puzzle on how to swim faster with less effort. Before applying propulsive force in the water with your arm, you need to make sure that your hand and forearm are aligned and facing backward. You can then effectively move your arm backward like big paddle.
This swimming technique is often called the "high elbow catch" in the freestyle stroke because you need to keep your elbow above your hand to be able to successfully do this.
Conclusion
That’s it, you now know the principles of how to swim faster with less effort. You can start to integrate those principles in your stroke by following our sequence of swimming drills for the freestyle stroke. Have fun!
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Effective Leadership
From CEO of 8IH, Ken Chee own words...
[Effective Leadership]
[Effective Leadership]
How does one ensures that a major event will be successful? Based on my limited experiences, a leader and the core team should take note of the following;
1. Rally Battle Cry. Before beginning of major event, the core team (the whole team would be better) should gather and align together with the key leaders. It's the same like sport teams with their coaches in the locker room before a major game. On a larger scale during olden days before a battle, field marshal will inspect the troops, swearing under oath with blood and wine for leading the troop to victory. Remember, this exercise is not a briefing of tasks, instead it should accomplish A) Stating the intention and core purpose of the event so that everyone is aligned with one heart, B) Showing the team that the leader is there with them throughout the baptism of fire, C) Boosting Morale which is extremely critical because often, this is the deciding factor between success or failure right from the start.
2. Empowerment. Preparation should be done way before the key event. During the implementation stage, stay away and let your key captains to execute. Do not micro manage. Your focus should always be the bigger picture of objective set.
3. Instant Correction. There must be a measuring mechanism set in place to measure the objective throughout the event process and this measurement must be reported constantly. Once you discover the results fall below expectations, you should step in with your key captains to discuss and do instant correction. Focus on processes, identifying the right challenge rather than tagging the problem with people. This ensure fighting spirit and morale remain high.
4. Lastly, Acknowledgement and Celebration. Give all credits to your team and celebrate all small wins no matter the big outcome. Many small wins will lead to a Big Victory.
I find that if a leader can accomplish these, the team will find a deep sense of fulfillment and self motivation to do more apart from monetary reward.
These are some of the practical stuff on Effective Leadership that you will never learn in textbooks nor any MBA courses. And how did I learn it? Through team sports, organizing club activities and as an officer in the army. I guess it is a great blessing that I gain all these distinctions outside the classroom environment especially when I am not academically inclined during my younger days.
Share if you like it.
Inspire someone today.
Inspire someone today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)