Kelvin Wong - The Greatest Gift to My Children: A Fathers Lessons for Life and Success

Dedication

For my children, Joshua and Isaac. May you persist in learning, growing and becoming. Go make a difference!

For my wife, Amelia. Thanks for giving our family love, care and support. Youre a noble and strong woman. We appreciate it much and owe it all to you!

And thanks to you, the reader. May this book, with all the lessons in it, be the greatest gift to you and your children. Wishing you happiness and success!

Your courage to face failure, and your ability to navigate your way out of it, absolutely makes you who you are.

Kelvin Wong

PREFACE

R eaders of my previous books would have noticed that this book is different. The other books that I have written focused more on how to manage finances wisely, build wealth, and achieve financial freedom. This book is about how anyone can choose to have a fulfilling life. My purpose for writing this book is to make you ponder, reflect, and most importantly, to trigger something within you to take immediate action to live a life of greater purpose and significance. My ultimate goal is to inspire you to bring yourself to a higher level of happiness and success.

Besides sharing strategies on how to lead a happy and successful life, I have included many real-life stories in this book. Stories are powerful teachers. They will leave you feeling motivated, clearheaded, and encourage you to be reconnected with what really matters. The lessons from these stories will also help you put things in perspective, lift your spirit, and make your burdens seem lighter.

I began writing this book at the beginning of 2019 when my family was still living in Vietnam, where my wife, Amelia, had been posted to work at the Singapore Embassy in Hanoi for three years. I got inspired to write this book for my children as a guide to life and success. By early 2021, Amelia and I were supposed to have moved to live in Geneva for at least three years, arising from her work commitment. Both my sons, Joshua and Isaac, would be serving National Service in Singapore for two years during that periodone to be enlisted in August 2019, and the other in October 2020. As my sons would have been living away from their parents for a long period of time, I wished to put my thoughts, life experiences and lessons taught by the school of hard knocks into a book as a gift for them. I believed it to be most appropriate and valuable, because a book is something tangible that my children can easily refer to whenever they need guidance on life, happiness and successeven in the absence of their parents.

But something inconceivable happened. Amelia suffered a stroke on June 7, 2019 while in Hanoi. It was absolutely devastating and all our plans were turned completely upside down! The tragic event happened just two months before our planned trip to the city of Nice in France, where we would have been learning the French language before relocating to Geneva. Amelia was bedridden for two weeks following the stroke, with the left part of her body totally immobilized. With her mobility severely impaired, I needed to drop all my plans, including the intended completion of this book by the end of 2019, to concentrate on caring for Ameliafeeding her, bathing her, helping her with physical therapy at home, bringing her to the hospital regularly for medical checkups, treatments, physiotherapy and occupational therapy sessions, among many other activities. Through it all, I praise and thank God that Amelia has been coping and progressing well in her recovery. About a month from her stroke, she was able to walk a few steps with the help of a walker. Just after four months, Amelia could do without the wheelchair completely. She is about 80 percent recovered from her paralysis as I write.

After my family returned to Singapore on March 17, 2020, I continued with this book amid another worsening crisisthe COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic affecting the daily lives of people in 221 countries and territories. At the time of this writing, upwards of 219 million confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported, together with more than 4.5 million deaths around the world. New coronavirus cases and death count are still growing rapidly each day. With lockdowns and travel restrictions implemented everywhere, millions of families have been separated and left to suffer in isolation, consoled only by the platitude that the benefits of strict lockdowns outweigh the cost of psychological torture and emotional pain. Some studies have even shown increases in suicides resulting from mental health consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. Countless businesses have also been severely affected, with many forced to close for good. Unemployment figures are currently hitting all time high in many countries, with companies going into high gear for retrenchment of workers. For those fortunate enough to keep their jobs, many would not be having their promotions or year-end bonuses. Some could even have their salaries reduced by huge amounts. While no one has a crystal ball, most respected economists agree that the entire global economic recovery will be long and shaky, especially with the new variants of coronavirus wreaking havoc.

It is during such unprecedented and trying times that I really want to bring a message of positivity and hopethat you can choose to live a life of greater purpose, happiness and success. You possess the power to create your future. It took me more than two and a half years to finish writing this book. But its well worth itevery second of my time and every ounce of my effortbecause I know this book would benefit anyone who desires to lead a happy and successful life. The lessons I learned from my lifes journey will apply to young and old alike, making this book relevant not only to your children and your loved ones, but to you as well.

Is it time to change your life? If you are feeling like youre not living in line with your purpose, it will be hard to feel happy and fulfilled. By embarking on the journey that this book will take you, you will be reshaping the way you think about life, relationship and money. You will also be creating new opportunities in your life, venturing into areas you never thought possible before. Nonetheless, you must understand that in order to succeed in life, a fundamental change is required of you. You need to send fears and self-doubts packing... totally out of your life!

Read, remember, and most importantly, practice the principles contained in this book. If you do that, I assure you that not only will you gain infinite wisdom, you will continue to become a better person than you were yesterday. So, just forget about yesterday right now. And start becoming your best self today, tomorrow, and every day of your life!