by Dinesh Senan: Published: The Business Times: 16 August 2003

‘IF you can’t evolve, big as you are, or prosperous as you may be, you die like the dinosaurs.’

Those are the stark terms in which Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has defined the challenge facing Singapore – a challenge which many believe is the biggest since our separation from Malaysia.

Before examining how we might meet this challenge, let’s try and figure out how we got to where we are now.

Singapore’s economic miracle began in the 1960s, with a highly proactive ‘first-generation’ of business-minded cabinet ministers, led by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who took the boldest economic development step then imaginable – jettisoning import substitution and inviting in multinational corporations to manufacture for export.

The initiative succeeded spectacularly, against the expectations of the conventional economic wisdom of the time. Consequently, the risky up- front investments in physical infrastructure (such as the development of industrial facilities in Jurong) to support ambitious manufacturing plans paid off handsomely. The MNCs, came in droves and in due course, established their regional HQs and other operations here. This resulted in an abundance of high-paying salaried positions for Singaporeans (relative to our lesser developed regional neighbours).

But while Singaporeans’ salaries continued to rise strongly over the following decades, this was not accompanied by a parallel rise in the wherewithal for wealth creation. While the public sector did invest heavily in developing Singapore’s ‘hard’ infrastructure – like ports, airports and gleaming buildings, in terms of its soft infrastructure – particularly, skills – Singapore remained a developing nation.

One reason for this was that as individuals, we failed to ‘invest’ our fat pay cheques into the development of our own proprietary know-how, and consequently, failed to develop our own global wealth generating capabilities.

Rather, we ‘spent’ this money on our ‘first-world’ lifestyles, sometimes quite extravagantly. For instance, we have one of the highest penetration rates of new Mercedes Benz cars sold anywhere in the world, ahead, even, of many developed nations. Yet, we pale in comparison to those nations in terms of how much ownership we have of what really creates wealth, namely intellectual property, proprietary technologies and world- renowned brand names.

In a sense, as ‘salaried’ people, we earned our money largely ‘parasitically’, on the basis of other people’s (including MNCs’) creative know-how and technology as we began to excel in providing services that supported MNCs’ growth.

We did not sufficiently appreciate that our salary-fuelled lifestyles were inherently risky, because we lacked control over the underlying wealth generating engines – namely, the know-how. Thus, we should not be surprised at how fragile our earnings turned out to be – especially after our neighbours started to wake up and better organise themselves to lure away cost-sensitive manufacturing activities by offering competitive land and labour costs.

Whether we like it or not, we must accept the fact that we grew lazy (even if subconsciously) and failed to perceive that mere salaries were not, in and of themselves, a true measure of economic success. Not when you compare the phenomenal rates of return reaped by those who own and license the underlying know-how and thereby sit at the apex of the global economic value-adding pyramid.

High salaries are good only when they follow from having first become an owner of the underlying know-how and the intellectual property that generates the wealth which allows, inter alia, the high salaries to be paid as a consequence. But otherwise, they are only temporary at best and prone to reversal.

So now that we are experiencing such reverses, we have become a nation afflicted with a four-decade-long dose of a ‘salaried mentality’. The symptoms: Constant whining and complaining about ‘unfairness’ in the treatment of employees by companies with respect to retrenchments and salary cuts; high expectations of government to create new opportunities that will magically generate revenues; and generally cultivating a ‘victim mentality’ as employees who ‘did nothing wrong, yet have to carry the can’.

But this sort of internal finger-pointing will do nothing to solve our fundamental problems. We need to realise, and come to terms with, two fundamental axioms of the world we live in today: that nobody owes us a living; and that economic well-being starts with the net value contribution of each individual in any society.

What this calls for is an inner paradigm shift at the individual level. We can’t miraculously create a highly competitive national economy without highly creative and competitive individuals. It is, after all, creative, productive people who build creative, productive enterprises that go on to build strong nations.

We would do well to ask ourselves honestly just how we have succeeded, or failed, thus far, to produce such individuals and such enterprises. So what is required of individuals in our society? As the great physicist Albert Einstein once wrote: ‘We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.’ We must thus see ourselves through ‘new eyes’.

For instance, we must cease drawing a false sense of security from the idea that we will be safe if only we belong to a large group – that is, if only we work for big, ‘safe’ companies that offer high salaries.

Remember Barings? Or Arthur Andersen? Or Enron? What security did the fact that these companies employed large numbers of people bring to the employees there?

Also, in the new reality, we need to constantly recreate ourselves, equipping ourselves with an ever-evolving range of relevant skills. We also need to develop a mindset aimed, from the outset, at trying to ultimately become owners of companies, owners of know-how – however small – rather than being purely salary-focused.

Whilst manufacturing MNCs have moved on to cheaper pastures and our salaried people are left whining about the dearth of economic growth opportunities for our country, the truth is that we are in an excellent position to profit from the new knowledge economy – which does not require large tracts of land, or large numbers of people.

For some of those amongst us who may presently be jobless, and are searching for a new source of income, consider this way of thinking, in parallel with your job hunting efforts: Instead of digging deeper wells, dig new ones, laterally, to create new opportunities for ourselves, by ourselves.

For example, even if all you have is an understanding of how to do business in Singapore, then perceive this as your own value-adding capability to leverage, and look across the world for emerging businesses which have yet to penetrate Singapore. Look perhaps to strong new technological, or other, entities needing new markets.

Contact them, proactively, and win them over with your knowledge of local/regional operating conditions. Then position yourself in partnership with them, and once you’ve demonstrated your true value to your partners, try to negotiate at least a fair co-ownership of the know-how for yourself. There is no shortage of such foreign entities wishing to enter new regions. The only limitation is in your own mindset and attitude towards finding and applying your individual value.

These are the sort of mindsets we find commonly in Taiwan and in the US today. We too must cultivate a similar desire to unlock our own abilities.

In the final analysis, we need to recognise that there is not much more that the public sector can really do, in responding to PM Goh’s challenge. We should not be turning to the public sector to bail us out. The public sector is competent to develop the hard infrastructure and the policy environment which help enterprises flourish. For example, the government can help build good roads, ports, airports, or provide IP protection, or tax incentives to encourage R&D or to help strike bilateral trade and other such deals with other nations. These roles it has already fulfilled very well.

Now, the fundamental issue of generating new revenues for the nation must be our job, as individuals. To remake Singapore’s economy, therefore, we primarily need to remake ourselves, individually.

by Dinesh Senan: Published: The Straits Times, Singapore: June 2002

The lamentable ‘beggar thy neighbour’ stance that often rears its ugly head within Asean can and must be eradicated. And perhaps the only way to start to achieve this may lie in the prayer of St Francis of Assisi: ‘for it is in the giving that we receive’.

From an economics perspective, it may be seen that given the unprecedented levels of global competition today, it is no longer sufficient for businesses to structure their operations such that they identify an area of need to be filled in the market, and then establish a single business unit (eg a simple company) to work through the various steps (economic value adding steps or components of activity) within that business unit, so as to deliver the end product or service which satisfies that need.

Increasingly, we see that kind of simplicity necessarily having to give way to a more complex form of business unit, which has to recognise that each value adding component of activity to be performed within the process, comes under pressure to be located in the best possible environment for the most cost-effective production of that component, before globally competitive pricing of the end product / service may finally emerge, when all the components are finally assembled.

For example, the typical Toyota car is in fact manufactured in approximately 50 countries, before being finally assembled in their plants, such that each component is strategically manufactured in a country where the cost effectiveness of manufacture of that particular component is highest, before being shipped for ‘just-in-time’ delivery to the country of assembly (eg in the US). As a matter of interest, Toyota’s globalised operations are so sophisticated that every such component is actually manufactured simultaneously in at least two countries, so as to avoid economic or political risks to production roll-out.

Seen in another way, it is now necessary for businesses wishing to flourish globally to think in terms of what I call ‘value chain dispersal’ methodologies in planning their strategic operations and in seeking out cost-effective locations for the various components of activity, as opposed to mere ‘value chain replication’ from start to finish in the production process being located simply within one territory. This poses a more challenging environment from the management perspective, but the net returns by far outweigh the burden.

For us in Asean, this then yells opportunity for us, as loudly as it may yell threat. And the difference between the two views depends on how the change leaders amongst our members may set the tone for cooperation amongst ourselves, at both public and private sector levels simultaneously.

Clearly higher orders of cost effectiveness of production of goods and services at the regional level may be attainable than may be possible at the individual national level. Instead, we are often seeing instances of one neighbour, consciously or otherwise, seeking to replicate economic activity entirely, to the possible detriment of another member. However, this will not be optimally cost-effective as it will more than likely see unnecessary ‘re-invention of wheels’ as well as the location of certain components within the production process being less optimally located than if there had been intelligent cooperative planning, sharing and splitting of the components of economic value adding between the two members instead!

For instance, Singapore’s human and financial resources along with physical infrastructure well supports the more knowledge-intensive aspects of production, whilst say Indonesia, Malaysia or Thailand are more cost-effective locations for other economic value adding components of activity such as manufacturing etc. As another example, we have gained certain levels of expertise in certain specific areas eg port development and operations, which could be deployed in supporting our neighbours develop their ports more rapidly than if they were to try to do it themselves, for mutual gain. In the process, they may come to see the futility of going on an all-out rampage to replicate all that we are doing in that area, as our ports could serve them well whilst they deployed their resources in other areas.

Before we relegate such optimistic thinking to the wastebasket of idealistic thinking, which will only serve to perpetuate the prevailing lack of true cooperation and synergising amongst numerous Asean members, we should recall Kennedy’s axiom, that it may be possible to be “an idealist, without illusion”. With prudent economic incentives backing up the proactive attitude of seeking first to help each other gain better access to what is ours, for their betterment, the prevailing unproductive mindset can be changed.

In this regard, it would be good if Asean could explore, for instance, the establishment of an appropriate body which would look into, say, the award of a special ‘Intra-Regional Strategic Economic Relocation Status’ for economic plans from member nations / commercial operations seeking the intelligent shifting, at the component level, of value adding steps amongst member nations, where for instance, the ‘welcoming’ country grants to the ‘relocating’ country’s economic activity certain preferential tax and other fiscal incentives etc, etc to so relocate.

On a system of win-win reciprocity, such economic value adding components of activity could be say 95% owned by the ‘relocating’ entity, (who has the expertise in that area, and should have management control), whilst the ‘welcoming’ country is granted say 5% of the equity therein, in consideration of its supporting gesture. Needless to say, whilst the ‘relocating’ entity gains from a more cost-effective environment for the production of such components into the ‘welcoming’ country, the ‘welcoming’ country will gain not only by having more employment opportunities for its citizens…

Seen from a higher level, this intelligent planning will also help prevent the ‘hollowing out’ syndrome oft feared by countries whose cost structures are moving upwards, (relative to the particular forms of economic activity they are presently engaged in), as this shifting at the component level will encourage, ultimately, the retention and growth of only such economic components of activity as are necessarily best suited for the welcoming and the relocating countries respectively, anyway. In this regard, concurrent profit repatriation tax incentives for the relocated business back to their home countries will also help reduce the real risk of ‘hollowing out’ altogether.

The real competition is out there, beyond our regional shores. Asean had better rise above its petty sibling rivalry and get its act together to strengthen its economic base considerably through such eminently possible forms of mutually beneficial, intelligent economic cooperation. But such a shift will not happen unless some of us start to ‘give’ before we think to ‘take’. And in that order of nature, as St Francis promises, we will eventually receive. Not to try is not an option, anyway.

by Dinesh Senan: Published: The Straits Times, Singapore: 5 May 2002

DPM Lee has done the best that can be done, within our country’s limits, to prudently prime our business cost environment, to set the stage for economic recovery. However, the immediate next challenge is for us to see what we can do to build a strong top-line revenue generating capability thereon. This involves all of us, collectively, and especially the private sector, whose main responsibility in the private-public sector partnership must be to help generate new top-line wealth.

If the private sector is to be our principal means of delivery of new wealth, it needs to be strengthened. To achieve this will call for a certain degree of introspection, by all, and a willingness borne of determination, to raise and to critically examine potentially sensitive issues. The private sector will have to ask itself if it is sufficiently bold and ready to take the risks necessary to build a better future for our country. The public sector will also have to ask itself if it is truly ready to work to support, synergistically, the efforts of the private sector.

I believe we have an important challenge to address. We have perhaps paid more attention thus far to building a public sector par excellence, since strong, pragmatic administration of resources was indeed most necessary when we first needed to solve our basic issues of food and shelter for our nation (as per Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). We have, consequently, though perhaps unwittingly, skewed our allocation of human capital and talent far more towards the public sector, than towards the private sector. We must re-examine this precious allocation of talent now, when we most need to recognise that our brightest economic future will materialise when we are led by a hard-driving, creative and confident private sector that aggressively rises to the challenge of delving deep into the abundant global growth opportunities at the top-line.

The key questions arising are: Is our private sector, (the engine of our future top-line wealth generation), ready and able to lead in such a capacity, and further, is our larger public sector fully supportive of such leadership?

Re-examining our brain-flow resource allocations:
Let’s spread ourselves out across both public and private sectors more evenly– it’s for our own good

The issue of an even spreading of talent across both the public and private sectors needs to be addressed first. In this respect, I would submit that we need to work towards the accomplishment of two things internally : to try to even out the brain flow across these sectors and to try to foster a closer degree of ‘synergising’ between our public and private sectors.

For example, we need to re-look at the number of new scholars being drawn into the public sector, and we should also re-examine the surprisingly large numbers of senior ex-public sector officers who migrate into our GLC’s (in this paper, I look upon our GLC’s as being public sector ‘extensions’ into the commercial playing field). We must aim to have more of these good people move to join and strengthen the ranks of our private sector players as well.

Moving beyond this, we need to ask if we these two sectors of our economy are operating with optimal synergy. In this regard, it is important to note that true synergising between any two parties requires there to be two pre-conditions : a healthy regard for what one party can do by itself and an equally healthy regard for what the other party can do by itself, such that bridges will then actively be sought to be built by both parties towards each other, complementarily.

What has happened here is that, owing to the inadvertent skewing of the talent-allocation over the years, our private sector has weakened, (both in terms of its own competitive and creative drive, as well as in terms of how much actual support it gets from the public sector, especially when its players are neither linked to the MNC’s nor to the GLC’s), whilst our public sector, (via its reach into the commercial world via the GLC’s), has grown to feel that there is virtually nothing it cannot do by itself! A public sector that grows to believe this, will therefore sincerely justify ‘doing it by itself’, (through its sister GLC’s), rather than to have the private sector players do it, as the returns then come back to the state. However, in the larger economic picture, this thinking is erroneous, as it is always a healthy private sector that leads the way to greatest sustainable employment and highest economic returns for nations.

As true synergising may only happen when parties genuinely believe that one has strengths and weaknesses in areas where the other has corresponding weaknesses and strengths, we therefore have a problem in seeing clear and effective levels of synergising between our two overlapping sectors. Our private sector has to be bolder and more proactive, in seizing the mantle of revenue generating leadership, whilst our public sector has also to be more genuinely supportive of the private sector as it strives to lead in such areas. By the same token, the respect of the private sector by the public sector must be earned, and cannot be mandated or demanded.

Unless we take steps to spread out our talent in the first place, to be nurtured and tempered by the distinct worlds of the private and public sectors, we will never rid ourselves of the inward belief, (whether consciously or subconsciously held), that our greatest talent resides mainly in the larger public sector, where consequently respect for the competence of the private sector may not be felt.

A Different Type of Talent ?

A deeper question then arises : is there a fundamental difference between the two sectors, when both are attacking the same, overlapping objective of commercial activism?

I would submit that the answer is yes. It takes a different ‘type’ of talent to thrive in the rough and tumble of the private sector world of ever-intensifying competition. Private sector ‘savvy’ and its particular form of prerequisite ‘EQ’ are derived only from direct immersion in this rigorous playing field. For example, having worked for Richard Li of the Hutchison / Pacific Century Group, I have marvelled at how quickly business decisions are taken in his private sector realm, and with so much personal concern and direct human accountability attaching to the moneys deployed for success. Such private money is treated literally like the owner’s very life-blood…..money simply will not be deployed with any trace of laxity at all, at any level. These traits will see such persons end up making the largest deals, (necessarily suffering painful experiences along the way, no doubt), and finally yielding the very highest levels of new wealth imaginable. As another example, let’s take a look at how the Taiwanese have ventured into mainland China. They have, inter alia, completely dominated the global keyboard manufacturing sector, via their private sector ventures, which now occupy very large industrial zones on mainland China. Very aggressive, very nimble and very successful.

The growth of this different type of talent, I would submit, needs to be fully encouraged and facilitated. More than that, it needs to be recognised and respected as being a critical ingredient in the recipe for success, by the larger public sector. Only then can true synergising take place. True synergising involves an admission not only of strengths, but also of one’s own weaknesses, such that healthy complementarities may be respected and then embraced. Without the underlying respect for the different skills or talents, no such synergising can take place. This will be to the detriment of our country’s overall wealth-generating prospects.

Having spent more of our energy, on balance, in developing our public sector competence thus far, we must now painfully admit that we may be lagging behind many of our neighbours in this particular private sector form of talent, and must start the process of making the necessary adjustments immediately.

Why Synergise? Striking a balance…

Some overlap in the commercial playing field may be healthy, as competition should always be welcomed, and will be good for us. But it must be said that it makes no sense if we find our public and private sectors competing against each other too much. We need to strike a balance here, or we may lose the prospects of developing sincere, trust-based ‘win-win’ thinking and relationships between our two sectors, let alone true synergising. And the most lamentable thing which may arise, heaven forbid, if left unchecked by us, is that whilst there’s huge competition beyond our shores, in the world at large, we’re potentially killing ourselves off at the starting blocks by fighting each other internally!

A strongly synergised public and private sector ‘partnership’ will see the public sector lead the way in playing a strong catalytic role in the facilitation of business growth opportunities, (eg physical infrastructure, optimally controlled operating cost environment, pro-business fiscal policies, seed funding for new private sector ventures, etc), whilst the private sector exercises the initiative to boldly dream and to risk working to build and operate new businesses for us, forging strong global partnerships, to generate wealth. The knowledge economy of the future represents an unlimited source of wealth for any country, big or small, including us.

True Synergy – Our Main Hope

In truth, we are currently standing at the threshold of a step upwards on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We are about to move into higher value-adding and consequently, higher-operating-cost economic activities (hence it is no surprise that our costs seem high relative to our neighbours….that’s because many of them are still playing at lower value-adding levels, as may be appropriate for their current stages of economic development, and hence their relative costs are lower). But as with all change, there will be pain…not least of which is the pain of breaking out from mental inertia. The challenge is to start letting go of old paradigms, which served us well previously, and to enthusiastically embrace new ones. We are already blessed with a very strong and supremely competent public sector. We also have a business cost environment that’s been prudently calculated to set the stage for our mid-to-longer term growth. Now let’s bring forth our principal players onto this new stage, to act together to usher in a new era of private and public sector synergising, setting new standards of economic growth for the sake of our nation.

Our economic restructuring efforts will not yield strong results in a fear-based society

by Dinesh Senan: Published: The Straits Times, Singapore: April 2002

The underlying mind-set of our citizens at large will ultimately determine our growth prospects. There seems to be far too much anxiety in the streets about our economic future at present, and too much worry about the ‘loss’ of certain MNC’s which have pulled out of Singapore, in favour of lower cost operating environments.

Is the pie too small? Are there only crumbs available for us?

In the midst of downsizing and massive retrenchments, it is natural to worry, yet in the wake of economic upheavals come newer and grander opportunities. In the global economic arena, will tiny Singapore be left out of the bigger game, due to our physical limitations in land and labour terms? Prof Paul Zane Pilzer, [see ‘Unlimited Wealth’, 1994, former US presidential adviser and Professor at New York University], attacks the basic definition of economics – ‘the study of how people choose to employ scarce resources’ – which rests on a flawed premise that the world contains a limited amount of physical resources (land, oil, gas, minerals, etc), and that a society’s wealth is determined by its supply of physical resources.

He argues that ‘the incorrect supposition that we live in a world of scarce resources has done more than preclude most individuals from achieving economic success. Over the centuries, this zero-sum- game view of the world has been responsible for wars, revolutions, political strategies and human suffering of unfathomable proportions.’

His studies have revealed in scientific terms, through deductive logic, why it is that we live in a world of unlimited physical resources, and how advancing technology continually increases the supply of existing physical resources, and how, over the longer term, advancing technology constantly changes our very definition of ‘physical resources’ as new ones are discovered. The technological breakthroughs that we have witnessed in the past have yielded greater efficiencies of production (eg in the US, in 1930, there were some 30 million farmers producing food for 100 million people, but by 1980, some 3 million farmers were producing enough food for a population of more than 300 million, a 3000 percent increase in productivity per farmer).

Similar examples abound in other sectors, cites Pilzer, such as $300 mechanical carburettors being replaced with much more efficient $25 computerized electronic fuel injectors, or in the case of the vinyl records industry being displaced when the CD captured virtually the entire global industry in just 5 years, between 1985 and 1990.

It is also useful to consider that in 1960, 40% of all US workers were engaged in the manufacturing sector. By 1980, half those jobs were eliminated by advancing technology, whilst the remaining manufacturing employees were producing more than 5 times the total output of 1960. However, the overall unemployment levels were not worrisome, as concurrent lowering of costs through the advent of technology in other sectors, (particularly the food service industry), resulted in the creation of a large number of new jobs as the amount of meals US consumers ate outside of their homes then rose from 5% in 1960 to 50% in 1980.

Therefore, despite the inevitable ‘interim’ resultant unemployment which such technological advancements have brought, huge new wealth for society and many new incidental jobs and markets were invariably created, though not always immediately for the newly displaced worker.

Two things therefore emerge from Pilzer’s writings: first, that new unemployment is the first sign of economic growth, and second, that we would do well to have an affirmative programme to continuously help retrain displaced workers as an ongoing facet of aggressive economic development within our society in the future.

I would guess that ever-newer forms of personal and corporate insurance products will emerge as well, in the near future, better addressing the ongoing retraining needs of every worker in society, in healthy anticipation of mid-career ‘re-placements’, (to use a more positive alternative to the word ‘displacements’), in a robust high-growth economy scenario. At any rate, such re-placements will only help make working life more interesting and exciting for our society, especially where we have planned for it in advance, so as to minimise the personal financial impact it may otherwise have on our workers during such ‘interim’ growth periods.

Where are we now? Where are we headed? Are our costs too high to compete?

We are in the midst of a major transition in our economic development. We have previously made one bold shift, (most successfully!), in our not-too-distant-past. That effort entailed much bravery and determination, when we moved from import substitution activities to highly successful export manufacturing, quite against the odds. We are now compelled to make another such shift further upwards, as we move to engage the global knowledge-based economy….

In our current circumstances, there is too much worry over our operating cost environment. Overly deploring and focusing on our ‘high costs’, (particularly of land and labour, relative to our emerging neighbours), will not get us very far ahead in our new economic restructuring efforts, as there is a law of diminishing returns operating on our bottom-line cost-cutting efforts alone.

We need to boldly address the new top-line revenue opportunities in parallel, and with equal if not greater verve. In the light of strong new top-line revenue opportunities abounding, our costs may then be seen as being merely a ‘relative’ element, and not as being ‘intrinsically bad’ for our economy. For instance, if we were to actively choose high growth, we may boldly address our minds to the new frontier of economic development at the very top of the economic value adding chain, ie in the realm of Intellectual Property (‘IP’) ownership, which we could achieve through the active creation and/or co-creation thereof.

The returns on investment in creating and owning IP, (which may yield multiples of income through multiple licensing of the same base design solution, against a fixed initial commitment of resources), will potentially outstrip by far the economic returns on activities which are lower down the value adding chain. To play effectively in this high-end arena will require neither large tracts of land nor large numbers of workers; from this perspective, Singapore’s land and labour configurations actually seem ideal for such futuristic economic activity! Here, we may, for instance, proactively set about to work to build bridges between high-end ‘technological design architects’, (eg software engineers, biotech engineers, etc), and ‘business domain experts’ (eg pharmaceutical experts, auto industry experts, agricultural experts, etc), such that we emerge as owners/co- owners of the resultant IP in the generic technological base designs, (which could then be deployed via licensing modalities to all such vertical industry sectors worldwide), which would emerge from such focused bridge-building efforts.

The public sector could play a very strong catalytic role in fostering the development of such bridges. This represents unlimited potential new revenues for us, as but one example of new economic activity. With such potential new top-line revenues emerging from such proactive economic activity, why grieve over our base costs being ‘too high’ relative to our neighbours? They would only be so, relatively speaking, if we were not choosing to set our own sights high enough on the economic value adding chain in the first place.

Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself – James Allen

We are, in the end, what our thoughts make us. There’s nothing around us in the magnificently abundant material world that wasn’t first a thought, whether from a theological perspective, or from the field of quantum mechanical physics’ scientific findings on thought energy and its direct relationship to matter. [see : James Allen – ‘As a Man Thinketh’; Gary Zukav – ‘The Dancing Wu Li Masters’; Deepak Chopra – ‘The Seven Laws of Success’; Watty Piper – ‘The Little Engine That Could’].

Our successful economic growth depends on our ability to think positively about the directions we choose for our growth. Creativity cannot thrive in a negative atmosphere. Unlimited wealth generation is possible for us, only if we choose to act positively and creatively. Undue worry will not help very much.