I am Looi Choon Beng, I am...

An individual with many hats. I am an employee but also one of the Co-Founders of CityFarm Malaysia. Life is about finding more of ourselves as we slowly wear more hats and pick up more passions on top of responsibilities. Recently, I also became a father, and a lifelong practitioner of value investing. It is not easy to juggle around so many roles, responsibilities, and passion. But all in all, what keeps me busy, is also that which grows me to who I am today.

Somewhere in the month of August 2019 me and my partner decided to start an investing-centric website called Kaya Plus. It was also a period that I knew I had to pick up investing to preserve and compound my wealth for my elderly days. Hence, we created a website to contribute our honest opinions, analysis and reviews!

1. What is your best investment and worst investment?
Some people tend to link good investments back to monetary gain. But for me, it’s more about self-enrichment and the people I love and care for the most.

I consider knowledge and my family the best investments because the return I receive from them is not measurable in numbers, but in the sense of fulfillment and happiness. Knowledge and love are two things that are difficult to be destroyed,yet are able to grow and compound over time.

My worst investments would probably be property investment and cryptocurrency. I think most of us can relate to how our first property might not turn out to be the ideal end game in mind. Looking back, I would have opted to rent a whole unit rather than jumping straight into buying a property.

Also, I have my fair share of losses when cryptocurrency was a hot thing back then. Due to the FOMO, I put in my hard earned money and it all crumbled when the euphoria died off.

2. What was your first-ever investment (and how did that go)?
My first investment was with a Public Mutual fund. Back then, I did not have any knowledge yet to kickstart my own investing journey via the manual way.

To be frank, the returns are decent, but nowhere great. I knew that if I wanted to achieve more, I might need to look into how to do it myself. That was what got me into investing.

3. Your investment no-nos (why not and what happened)
Never invest something without considering opportunity cost. Opportunity cost here refers to time. Whatever you do or invest, you are already putting in time and effort the moment the decision is made. And time is the most precious thing that everyone in the world has in equal amounts.

The gist here is to put effort into endeavors that can synergize with each other. Only then your actions or investments can tap and grow exponentially rather than just standalone.

4. What are you investing for?
I am someone who advocates the mentality of beginning with the end in mind. Maybe to echo back that time is so valuable that we should always ensure that we are committed to the end results, then only we start putting in the time and effort.

But sometimes, we also have the tendency to delay things due to our nature.

One good example that I think is effective in training up our goal setting is to run for a marathon. I have personally run a few, and it has helped shape my mentality and goal setting mechanism plus the focus. Plus, when you sign up and pay for the ticket, by hook or by crook, you will definitely put in the effort to train and finish the run.

So how do I apply the concept to investing and growing new income streams? My financial goals are about building multiple "automated" income streams. I ensure that the effort spent will have a long tail effect, e.g. development of a financial course. And from there onwards, the business can continue to grow and morph with some system in place.

Ultimately, I do hope that the system can be replicated and managed by someone else. So the punchline is to create income generating systems that can be truly passive.

5. Choon Beng’s investment philosophy and approach
You are what you repeatedly do, excellence is not an act but a habit. Many people want to achieve excellence but aren’t willing to put in the effort and sacrifice. All the great achievements all start out as tiny small good actions. When all of it snowballs and grows, only then we hit certain milestones and achievements.

That quote also paints a scary outcome if we were to get caught in bad habits and traits. If you tend to waste money even in the small stuff, chances are it will grow onto you and you might get into a debt. So always build on the good habits and small good improvements. It all adds up and it can change how not only our mentality, but also how we see or view things.

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About “This is How I Invest” - As Fi Life’s motto is “Buy Term (Term Life Insurance) & Invest the Rest”, this series features how different personalities “Invest the Rest.”

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