Book 5 The Power of our Belief Systems

Dear readers

I decided to introduce Book 5 towards the conclusion of this book and using some of the images in it. To study the cases of Mother Teresa and Harriet Tubman, their life-time work should be our inspirational to us today as much as we often shunt heroic actions of great men and women as events of the past and has very little relevent to us today.

What Are Beliefs That Can Determine Our Fate?

Dreams are the maidenhand of our beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviours, habits, whims and fancies as shown in as shown in Figure 5.1. It appears that our beliefs, which have been painstakingly forged through the process of trial and error, contain the seminal seeds of many of our inadequacies. Beliefs are the by-products of our children dreams.

When we are unable to fulfill all our dreams, the residues of unfulfilled dreams become our inadequacies that continually haunt and plague us in the future. They hold us back from attaining higher goals in life. You may ask where these childhood dreams come from?

These unrealized dreams may stem from our genetic makeup, family upbringing, lack of social integration, old wives’ tales, superstition, inadequate formal education and other environmental factors. The outcome of an individual’s character mould is a hybrid or by-product of all these influences.

This is the reason why we must never underrate the influence of any kind of external pressures on us, no matter how small or insignificant it may at first seems to have our mental well-being.

A parent may almost innocently comment to friends that his child is “good for nothing”, but the potential for long-lasting damage to the child is evident if the child is repeatedly downgraded in this manner. 

Book 5 is also another good way to begin any of the 12 books that you may wish to purchase as it’s lively and full of illustration. I hope you will enjoy Book 5 as much as I did. Here is how I would like to begin about Book 5.

This philosophy of life, expounded by Montapert, answers the basic challenge we posed in this book of how to attain a better life. We earlier saw the problems John faced with his manager in Paradise Enterprise. As mentioned before, the issue is not a moral question of right or wrong. Rather, the ugliness and incompetence exhibited by John’s manager is in conformity with the general law of survival of the fittest.

John ought to have taken heed to this law and adopted appropriate measures to deal with the situation. To survive in this world, we have to sometimes be a little selfish by placing our own interest before others first. A practical working example of this principle can be seen in the standard operating procedure of flight attendants during decompression of an aircraft in flight.

When this happens, flight attendants are required to attend to themselves first by using the oxygen mask before they offer any assistance to the passengers. However badly we are treated by other people, we always have a choice in the way we act or react to them. This is why it is necessary to avoid the temptation of blaming others for any failures in our lives but ourselves.

The laws of nature essentially mean the laws of cause and effect. Translated into scientific terms, it means that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We must reap (effect) what we sow (cause). The laws of nature dictate that the sure path to real happiness in life is often the longest.

It requires patience, prudence and careful thinking, planning and execution to realise one’s goals in life — in short, good, sound fundamentals of self-governance in our everyday lives. Ask any successful person and you will discover that there are no short cuts in the realisation of dreams.

Montapert believed that things do not just happen by themselves from nowhere. They are usually the result of deliberate thoughts and actions unless it’s an instinctive reaction. If mistakes are made we should face up to them. He said: “We are the arbiters of our own destiny. Things which we allow to lodge in our heart and life are the seed, and the seed will mature a harvest according to the law of ‘like produces like’”.

I extracted various illustration from this book to tell about the rest of the chapters.

Book 4 The Threat to our Hope for a Better Life

We are All ‘Prisoners’ of our Own Destiny

Escapism is imprisonment within the very walls of your own prison!

WE HAVE all been ‘escapees’ trapped in our own prisons at some point in our lives. This brings to mind my two-year stint as a prison officer at a Reformative Training Centre.

A prisoner, who had been convicted of manslaughter, managed to escape from his cell late one night. Since I was living in the staff quarters nearby, I was rudely awakened by the ear-blasting alarm call to emergency duty. I, together with a dozen other officers, had the awesome task of finding a jailbird on the loose.

I dashed out of bed immediately with one hand fumbling to pull up my trouser zip as I joined the frantic team, clutching a torch on the other hand. At the guard house on this fateful night was Kubla Singh, the duty officer, looking all agitated and sweaty, as he issued instructions while reporting on the phone to his immediate superior about the unfortunate incident.

The Chief in turn briefed his superior, the Superintendent of Prisons, who in turn reported up the line to the Minister of Home Affairs. This system of reporting up the pyramidal hierarchy is a well-known fact of life, which we see installed in all modern business organisations and institutions.

The Many Deadly Inadequacies of the Survival of the Fittest

I knew the escapee because he was in my care. Let’s call him Kiasu because he had been through enough failures in his life and had probably decided that he was not going to be a failure again, ever! He was short and small built, aged 21, with a stunning, colourful display of dragon tattoos all over his body. In a fit of rage, he killed someone who had played him out over some bar-girl he knew at an infamous girlie bar in Katong.

He was caught barely days after his escape and was locked up in solitary confinement as punishment. It transpired that the reason he escaped was due to the constant taunts he had received from the other inmates, probably because of his diminutive size.

In prison, it is quite common for the prisoners to while away their time ‘gambling’. As they would usually have no money to gamble, they would issue “IOU” notes, which were redeemable on their release from prison. Unfortunately for Kiasu, he had issued so many IOU notes that he had to repay his debts in kind by allowing his body to be sexually abused by his ‘creditors’.

The indignity and intolerability of submitting his body to the abuse forced him to hatch out a plan to redeem his ‘face’ or honour — thus his determination to escape. The moral of this story is that there are many deadly inadequacies in our lives that we need to take control of before they destroy our lives. It is all too easy for us to shift the blame on to other people or, worse, escape from the problems that are gnawing away into our lives, eventually destroying it.

My examples of John and Kiasu are good examples of the different aspects of escapism that we sometimes resort to out of desperation. John was deeply unhappy with the insensitivity and lack of managerial competence shown by his superior. He found himself imprisoned within the four walls of a desperately depressing and unhappy work environment.

So he did what many of us in his position would have done — he ‘escaped’ by quitting from his job on the spur of the moment. Kiasu’s escape was less symbolic although more dramatic. Besides escaping from the regimental life of the prison, he was also escaping from the unhappy ‘culture’ of life in there, which he found to be abusive and dehumanising. He wanted to preserve his honour as well as his liberty. Kiasu is no different from you and I.

We all try to run away from the painful realities of life rather than take them face on. Whenever we shirk our domestic or work responsibilities, we are effectively no different from John or Kiasu in their bid to ‘escape’. Kiasu’s behaviour was an abnormal reaction to the outside world, which had derailed his childhood dreams of a better life.

To ensure our survival beyond the narrow confines of our ignorance, we must step out of our smug and comfortable nest and get into the practical world by taking charge of our lives. If we wish for some of our cherished dreams to materialise, we must attempt to address two critical areas of potential harm that was inherited from our long evolutionary origins:

1. The self-defeating self and the dangers it poses

2. The ugly side of mismanagement.

Book 3 Survival of the Fittest:Present Philosophy

I BELIEVE that the cause of the rift or polarisation in every stratum of society dates back to the dawn of time. This rift has been handed down through successive generations right up to the present. If we truly desire for ourselves a better life, we need to firm up our resolve and double our efforts to claim it.


A better life is not an unassailable right that comes about automatically. Mankind has undergone different phases of evolution, from the most primitive Stone Age culture to the relatively more modern pre-historic ‘industrial’ phase of the metal ages (iron, bronze, etc) through the Middle Ages to the present post-modern era.


Among the many legacies we have inherited over the centuries is a professional check-and-balance system, which still dominates our lives till this day.


This professional system exhibits the following chronology of events:


1. The primary survival instinct of all living species, including man;

2. The arrival of civilisation where logical thinking and division of labour began;

3. The arrival of scientific and modern management;

4. The arrival of McGregor’s Theories X and Y;

5. The arrival of logical thinking versus lateral thinking.

Primary Survival Instinct of Living Beings

Over the generations, the survival and perpetuation of living species have been reliant on basic instinct. Everybody possesses some basic level of survival instinct.

Living things that possess less survival instinct will, in accordance with the natural laws of nature, die without any chance of propagating their species and genes.

If you observe the mating ritual of animals, you will discover that the female is likely to choose a mate that is bigger and stronger than the other pursuers.

This instinctive natural selection ensures her offspring of the best genes for survival in an inhospitable environment.

Another consideration is that a stronger partner is more likely to be able to protect its offspring from harm.

The basic ingredient of survival, then, is adaptation, of which man has skilfully mastered the art over the years. Man’s primary instinct to survive is closely linked to an awareness of his average lifespan, based on the normal biological life cycle of birth, growth, saturation and decay as shown in Figure 3.1.

Man has accepted the eventuality that one day he will have to die. This is an immutable fact of life. But given the finite nature of life, man should seek to add more colour to his life if he cannot add length to it.

It does make logical sense that since quantity is finite — and we have little direct control over length — we should really be focusing our attention and energies towards improving the quality of our lives.

And there is much more you could learn from this series.

Book 2. Our Dream For A Better Life - By Dr Alvin Foo

EVERY achievement worthy of accomplishment starts out as a dream. My dreams for a better life began as a child in a humble, picturesque setting of a united and love-filled household.

It was before the industrialisation of Singapore. Three important ingredients existed in most families at the time.

First, the foundation of the family unit rested on a firm bedrock of trust. This was because the husband/father took a job that often required his absence from the family for long stretches at a time.

Second, the womenfolk gladly undertook their role in the family of housekeeper and child-minder with a sense of contentment and matronly pride.

Third, children in those days were not overly stressed by the demands of an exacting academic regime. The school system in those days was rather laid back and relaxed.

Children had time to explore the simple joys of growing up, being surrounded by nature. They were forced out of necessity to make things for themselves for their own enjoyment and amusement.

Self-styled storytellers were aplenty in those days. It was an indulgence that enabled many of the village ‘old guards’ to while away their time. I vividly recall the experience of having my fortune read by one of these elders.

Imagine my sheer horror when I discovered that I had achieved the rare distinction of bagging in “Fs” in almost every department of human affairs, including health and intelligence! Whether in fulfilment of these predictions or from a psychological resignation to fate, I performed poorly in both the academic and athletic pursuits at school.

The foretelling left an indelible mark on my future development — it was a psychological ‘scar’ or stumbling block, if you like, which, if it had been left unchecked, would have become self-fulfilling. Thankfully I proved to be a late bloomer! And bloom I certainly did, much later in life.

Like any kid, I had my heroes. I was enthralled by the exploits of the freedom-fighter and father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen. I was particularly attracted by his liberal ideologies, which he used to dismantle the closed, centuries-old feudal system existing in China then.

Another role model I have great reverence for is Lee Kuan Yew, the founder and former Prime Minister of modern Singapore. I am attracted by his formidable skills as a statesman and the dynamic qualities he displayed as a world-class leader.

His acute vision and sharp insight has shaped Singapore, as we know it today, from the enslavement of sovereign servitude through and beyond the communist insurgencies.

It was not until my later years that I was finally able to shake off the shackles of doomsayers when I decided to take stock of my life. I reasoned to myself, “Well, if these smart alecks are as clever as being able to foretell our fortunes, why can’t they predict their own destinies?”

As I developed in maturity through a long and painful process, I was able to shake off the carefree spirit and complacency of idyllic youth. I began asking many searching questions such as who I was, the greater meaning of life and how I fitted into the general order of things. I realised the importance of having a game-plan for survival.

I cannot over-emphasise the need for a strategy for living. It seems to me a curious anomaly that in our desperation, the louder we shout or the harder we try, the less we seem to achieve. William Shakespeare expressed this point very aptly when he likened such frantic efforts to “all sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

We can easily be caught up in the nervous energy of seemingly achieving something in our desperate struggle, yet gaining nothing of any worth in the end. I wish life was easier for all of us so that we are rewarded by our efforts and input.

But we all know that life seldom works in such a way. Struggle or try as we may, we always seem to achieve very little if we do not have a game-plan or strategy for guidance.

Book 1 Reasons for writing this book...

THE impetus for writing this book stems from a genuine, personal conviction that I have something to offer you about what it takes, not merely to survive but to sustain in this often cruel and inhospitable world.

Naturally there is an innate quest in each and every one of us to desire a better life for ourselves as well as for the generations to come.

Like most people if not all, I hope to leave this place a much better place than when I came. In this lifelong quest my underlying message is that there are neither shortcuts nor quick fixes. Neither does the quest for a better life depend on chance, as many want to wager their lives on the dice of uncertainty.

Too many people have pursued the quick and easy way out of their problems. They leave things to chance, only to discover with a rude shock later that their problems have been exacerbated rather than alleviated or mitigated.

I am reminded of the gutsy gambler who stakes his fortune at the casino on chance, of which he has absolutely no control. Yet he allows himself to be controlled by it, staking more and more money on Lady Luck — either to make good his loses or, less probably, to increase his winnings. What fool, if he only knew! Does he not realise that the only things stacked up for him are not winnings, but the odds against him!

We have inherited a rich and ancient legacy of many cultures that have evolved and been refined through the centuries — a treasure trove of insights and examples that can be gleaned from the well-worn (if not torn!) pages of history — of triumphs of the human spirit that we can emulate and apply in our daily lives as well as of pitfalls to avoid at all cost.

The basic human instinct of self-interest has not only ensured man’s survival but has created an environment that demands the survival of only the fittest. It is nature’s self-renewing process, if you like, which allows the perpetuation of only the best genes for succession. The marginalised and impoverished in society face an increasingly difficult if not impossible task of getting out of their predicament.


The “Big Fish Eats Small Fish” Syndrome.

I recall the often recited children’s fairytale about The Three Little Pigs that was told to me as a child. One of the morals of the story is that complacency can sometimes prove destructive. Also, we often fail to use basic resources invested in us like common sense, insight and hindsight to prevent, if not solve, many of life’s problems.


The Promise of a Better Life Ahead

This book is specially written for the faint-hearted, be he a professional, manager or employee of whatever description or position in a company or caretaker of the family’s welfare. I have employed some management theories, but these principles are just as valid within the framework of a domestic context as they are in the workplace.

In life we all need self-motivation — the single most important driving force that propels us to achieve heights we previously thought impossible to attain. Self-motivation is necessary if we are to achieve a better personal life, which comes from adopting a healthy lifestyle and achieving productive work ethics.

I shall attempt to capture and expound on the secrets of self-motivation, based on the Organised Belief Model.

So You Want A Better Life?

Hello and thank you for coming.

"So You Want A Better Life" is a series of 12 short books which is about development of every aspect of relationship in our life.

This book is not about one man's opinion but based on human sciences and is a truly remarkable book once you are able to grasp the amount of studies, facts and events that are presented clearly and sometimes humorous in these 12 books.

“So You Want A Better Life” perceptively brings into play for our motivation, foundation of corporate leadership and personal development; nurturing relationship among your peers, personal development or at home.

The applications are wide ranging and offer realism into our life. Often in my life-coaching work, candidates aspire to one conclusion for these 12 books – building the direction to achieve the “Right Attitude”.

“So You Want A Better Life” series will inspire the “RIGHT ATTITUDE” in us passionately when you work on your own self development using these books. In essence these books are awesome as it is not just a “yester years” hypothesis but you will find those topics equally relevant today as in 20 or 30 years ago.

These topics are as refreshing as new from one generation to the next but it is "dried" to those whose mindset are closed to ideas and doctrines of human sciences or even spiritually. We often draw conclusion about life or business from our failures instead of understanding what is being presented.

It is sad that we absorb our failures into our life quickly and build ill-preconceived ideas against the right from wrong. No one could argue that if we constantly dwell in our failures, our life is then probably made up of insecurities, suspicions and even God would become bad or non-existent.

Tragically this is also same trench of thinking that will derive their decision making process to the wrong conclusion about life and businesses. Ever heard of "plain stubbornness" and blind arrogance to push one opinion to another person just because he or she failed at their relationship or business?

I founded VeryGood.com.sg which acknowledges the work of Dr Alvin Foo, the author of “So You Want A Better Life” Series. “So You Want A Better Life” is a 12-book series which shows you the many ways you need to winning in life.

It goes beyond these crazy tenets: work hard, work smart, and work intelligently until you are burnt out. But rather our life should be fulfilling; and ready for eternity.

Dr Alvin Foo drives out your fear of failure and shows you how to put right your organised values to work for you with this self-helped BETTER LIFE VALUE.

“So You Want A Better Life” puts you in driver’s seat and back in control of your life. Anyone can do this at your own pace and own level of success and accomplishment in life.

The 12 self-help book titles of the “So You Want A Better Life” Series are:

Book 1 – Reasons for Writing This Book
Book 2 – Our Dreams for a Better Life
Book 3 – The Existing Survival System
Book 4 – Threat to our Hope
Book 5 – The Power of our Belief Systems
Book 6 – Our First Critical Success Factor - Sincerity
Book 7 – Our Second Critical Success Factor – Leading Ourselves and Others
Book 8 – Our Third Critical Success Factor – Managing Ourselves and Other
Book 9 – Our Fourth Critical Success Factor – Building and Creating Strong Partnerships
Book 10 – Our Fifth Critical Success Factor – Education as a Lifelong Pursuit
Book 11 – Our Sixth Critical Success Factor – Expressing Ourselves
Book 12 – Freedom of Choice

Like so many who have been successful in our reseller's program, you can learn how to achieve this for yourself and to help others to achieve the same from these 12-book series of “So You Want A Better Life”.

The extract from each book is located on the right of this blog