Link Roundup #20: 10 Things to Know This Week

Accelerate your personal finance knowledge with this regular feature on Ringgit Oh Ringgit – the Link Roundup! I promise you’ll find these 10 links informational 🙂

1. 7 Ways To Deal With Burnout, According To Science – Bustle 

“There are.. three main elements to burnout: “exhaustion, cynicism (less identification with the job), and feelings of reduced professional ability.”

The last one, woah. That one hit me hard the last time I experienced major burnout. It wasn’t fun. I remember overcoming it by deciding to do focus on passion projects in 2018, but I wish I knew about these tips earlier. The recommendations in the article are solid advice:

1. Do emotional intelligence exercise
2. Understand the roots of burnout
3. Take control of your commute
4. Prioritise rest
5. Challenge perfectionism with cognitive behavioural therapy
6. Practice mindfulness
7. Challenge organisations to do better

Not all of the tips may apply to you. For example, as a self-employed person who works from home, #3 and #7 doesn’t apply to me. Maybe you can’t reduce your commute time. Maybe you are not able to carve in more sleeping time. Still, I think it’s a good starting point.

Hugs to everyone reading this who’s feeling overwhelmed and burned out right now. You’ll be alright. This is temporary.

2. Science Has Just Confirmed That If You’re Not Outside Your Comfort Zone, You’re Not Learning – Inc

If you’re not challenging yourself, you’re not learning. We kinda knew this right? No pain, no gain and all.

But what I love about the article is the section on how to add strategic instability in your life. Great suggestions all around:

• Travelling abroad. Learning guaranteed, especially about your own capabilities, likes, and values.

• Changing your routine. Even a new lunch joint or afternoon activity might jolt your brain into learning mode, helping you master new skills or see old ideas in a new light.

• Starting a new project. It might fail but you’re guaranteed to learn something.

• Searching out weird, new ideas. Here’s a list of sources.

• Talking to people you disagree with. It’s both an empathy and a learning booster.

Personally, I’m obsessed with learning new things – it helps that I score high on the ‘openness’ trait under the Big Five Personality Dimension. I go to one or two new countries almost every year – in fact, at writing time, I just came back from a short trip to Luang Prabang, Laos. And I did start a new project, the Best Deals Malaysia website (which might fail, but yes I did learn something, so no regrets).

Tell me how you challenged your comfort zone recently?

3. Malaysia has become the world’s top destination for plastic waste – Al-Jazeera English

Malaysia has become the world’s top destination for plastic waste. pic.twitter.com/gSt3fz4Xu9

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) January 28, 2019

WHAT. Since when?? How many of you know this? I didn’t!

Ok, beyond the yes plastic waste is obviously bad for the environment and we should do better and climate change and all (do join the Zero Waste Malaysia FB group to see how everyday Malaysians reduce their plastic usage), I also want to talk about… unsexy industries. I don’t think many people grow up thinking, hmm you know what I’m really passionate in? Plastic waste disposal.

There are many, many industries out there that only exist because the founders saw the gap in the market and decided to capitalise on it. Despite the ethics of plastic waste disposal, I actually find myself admiring the type of people who create a lucrative business in industries that not many people hear about, let alone want to go into. They just saw opportunities, took the risk, and if it pays off, it pays off well.

What other industries do you know of that are fairly ‘unsexy’?

4. No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there – The Guardian

There is an ongoing discussion on the ethics of hoarding vast sums of money. It divides people – on one end, some people argue that wealthy people ‘deserve’ their wealth because they ‘worked hard and smart to gain that money’. On the other end, why would one keep that much money untouched knowing that billions of people around the world still lack access to the most basic things to survive – food, water, medical attention, etc?

This (bloody good) article illustrates exactly how wealthy people have been ‘leveraging’ on the effort, time, and yes, lives of others in order to increase their wealth. It’s a good rebuttal to the ‘trickle down economy’ argument. And it exposes the sheer greed which exists in the financial system that we all have no choice but to be a part of. I’m pissed off by how much wealthy people have gotten away with.

5. 6 secrets from highly ambitious (and successful) people – Ladders

Ambitious people make fascinating conversation partners. I love talking to them. They tend to be unapologetic about how they want to live their life, even if it may be a bit ‘unconventional’. I also love finding out their ‘why’, their motivation to succeed, one of the ‘secrets’ in the article.

If you want to be more successful in what you do, and even if you don’t consider yourself ambitious (I don’t), read the article for some tips. Some of the paragraphs made me think. I hope it does the same for you.

6. Government to Regulate Low-Cost Property Prices and Rental – Property Insight Malaysia

What I learned from the article:

• Putrajaya will be introducing the Rent Control Bill to clamp down on profiteering, and aimed at low-cost homes
• Rent will be capped at 25-30% of household income (note: B40’s household income? B40+M40 combined? Not sure yet)
• The move was made because enough people (‘property investors’) have been snapping up cheap properties to flip them for profit, or renting them at high prices, making rent affordable for the people who’s supposed to benefit from low-cost housing

7. Money (Personal Finance) in 9 Diagrams – Mr Stingy

Simplifying vague concepts into visuals is not an easy task, but Aaron did it. I got a couple of ‘aha!’ moments myself, too!

8.  Julian NG’s 5 Money Pro-Tips: “Rent, Don’t Buy a House” – BBazaar Blog

Julian Ng’s five tips are:

1. Automate your investments to get rich
2. Buy insurance policies online
3. Rent, don’t buy a house
4. Don’t buy a car
5. Learn to cook

Disagree with any of the tips above? Do me a favour and comment after you understand where Julian is coming from – watch the videos in the article.

You can get more of Julian at the Very Long Run and on BFM’s The Breakfast Grille.

9. The Ethics of Design: Fyre Festival – UX Collective

Just because something looks good and appeals to you, doesn’t mean it’s the best for you.

Something to keep in mind, because the companies love telling you how they only have your best interest at heart. They want you to think they are the best for you. Nope, not always. Doesn’t hurt to be more sceptical in this day and age.

10. 5 Tips to Make Your Employees Feel Appreciated – Enterpreneur

That’s it for this round, catch you next time! Want to submit a link you thought was great? Reach out to me on FB or Twitter.

To read past link roundups, please click here.