Financial/Economic Crisis : What I learnt from them ?

I was born in the year when there was the oil crisis (1973). Then my parents got retrenched in 1985 economic crisis. I survived the 1997 Asian financial crisis. At the end of year 2000, I was retrenched (my first) due to dotcom bomb. I was jobless the following year spending time everyday writing to companies and sending applications via snail mail, emails and job portals everyday. The September 11 2001 incident made it worst for me even though a happy moment happened on that day which was my graduation with Masters of Business (IT) form RMIT University (Melbourne).

I managed to get a job in February 2002 and life went on good until I was retrenched again (due to orgainsation restructuring and the fact that the financial manager did not want an indian guy to continue in that IT job and wanted my manager to replace me with a Chinese guy. I will not blame my manager as he was at a difficult position and had no choice but to oblige the financial manager but he gave me a good testimonial). Was the economy doing well that time (2004) ? It was. Withing 6 months, I got another job. This time, with a friend, I started to build a backup venture to fall back on as the job I got was a contracted for 1 year. If in case the contract was not renewed, I still had something to fall back on and continue working. The renewal did not happen (due to racial biases) but that did not worry me. Life went on great with the backup plan. Then recently that backup plan started to be very much affected due to financial crisis of its own and so I had to make a decision to look for another job frantically and got one in June this year, before the current financial crisis surfaced. Of course, in between I married my beloved darling and got a home too.

So much I went through.. till the rock bottom.. almost near ground zero, but managed to survive. How was that possible ? What I learnt (and put to action of course) from all these crisis ?

1. Reflection time to see what has happened so far in my life and what I learnt from these incidents that will made it better to progress into the future.

2. Financial education. What are my assets and money left and how long could it last. What are the options available for income flow. How to stretch each dollar for better utilisation. How to negotiate with the relevant financial institution to postpone loan repayment temporarily, and refinance the loan. Saying no to credit cards and if I have credit cards (thank god I do not have one so far), then destroy them for good and not accept any new ones.

3. Improvement to current skill-sets and learn new relevant skill-sets to progress into the future.

3. Watching lots of comedies and reading more jokes to take the jobless state stress out of the mind.

4. Healthy living to keep the medical cost to near null.

5. Developing a positive thinking attitude/minsdet for a better outlook of life. Having faith in god and spirituality. Let us not forget that god will only help those who a willing to help themselves.

6. Not being shy to approach my contacts and my contacts' contacts including MPs (Members of Parliament) and grassroots organisations for help. This is in addition to our friends and families.

7. Not being embarassed in being temporarily jobless as it is a norm nowadays to loss a job and then find one. That is the downside of many companies' hire-and-fire policies.

All these are easier said than done. I know as I have gone through them not once, but more that 2 times. No harm trying though. That is where discipline helps.

When there is a will, there is a way.

These are just my thoughts and views and some of my experiences.

Kumaran RN