Painful Search for Right Job/Company for 2nd Career In Semi-Retirement

It has been a month since I left NUS on 30 June 2007.

Searching for the "right job/company" for a 2nd career in my semi-retirement days, as I have found out after 3 months, has indeed been a very painful, challenging, and many a times confusing but very gratifying experience. The real learning in life is in the process and journey, not in the decision made or at the destination arrived.

Like in many situations we are placed in, and with ultimately, the decisions to be made in our every day life, many invitations were received and one gets courted to "try our product, try our company, we are different, join us", that one can easily ends up in "a bewildered, unsettling and confusing" state of mind as to what one really wants.

So, at the end of it, one should remember what one had initially set out to do; one should stick to it amidst the "inviting and courting" and not be swayed or influenced by it. One must know what one is really looking for, for at the end of it, this (interest or passion) is what will sustain and keep one going throughout the learning process and journey, surely a painful but nevertheless an experience to be gained. I must, in all fairness, add that these "marketing" events had been done courteously and in a non-hurting manner. In contrast, I might have hurt or let the "marketing people" down with my ignorance and plain indecisiveness.

So, after hearing out the agency managers and also their representatives from 2 insurance and 2 financial planning/adviser companies, and also attending seminar/induction programme, I have decided to study for the relevant papers and take the required examinations first.

I will now have to study 4 financial modules (though I can be exempted from one because of my MBA) as required by the MAS to be a financial adviser's representative (FAR), register for the exam papers on-line, pass the multiple choice question computerised papers set by the Singapore College of Insurance at Suntec City with a 75% mark for all papers and apply to MAS for the FAR licence once I decide on which company to join.

The 4 papers are M5 (Rules and Regulations), M8 (Collective Investments), M9 (Life Insurance) and HI (Health Insurance).

So, I will be very busy for the next 2 months as I take each step and each paper at a time, while I also try to complete my church "assignments" and responsibilities and my occasional visits to keep in touch with my ex-colleagues and friends. May God grant me the discipline and determination to go through these 2 months of preparation, and also for clarity of understanding in whatever I will be learning.