One of the virtues I believe in is living within your means. Gary Vaynerchuk once noted, “Too many people buy things they can’t afford, to impress people they don’t like. For laughs, here are 9 cars lower middle class people buy to look more successful than they actually are!  And, if you are actually very successful, and happen to own one of these, i guess, you chose well how to look successful? 

Along the same vein, here are 7 quiet ways lower-class people pretend they’re well-off.

Let's go through them one by one.

1. Branded Knock-Offs

This item, i actually think is a smart way to save money! A bag is a bag whether it is a fake Louis Vuitton or a "real" one. It's not a hologram. And, it is a bag, not an aortic graft that you need to insert into someone's aorta, so I don't really care about its "quality." Maybe don't trust me--I carry a Target tote bag.

2. Eating at upscale restaurants
   One of my pet peeves that makes me laugh, is seeing people post on social media bragging that they can afford fine dining.

3. Leasing luxury cars
   To each their own.

4. Wearing expensive-looking jewelry

Most people probably don't agree with my view that buying jewelry is adding a nitric-oxide radical to money; it inactivates money.

5. Living in a high rent area
   To each their own.

6. Overusing credit cards

Self-explanatory

7. Prioritizing appearances over savings

'Nuf said.

I added to my indefinite "Group Challenge" (members are my husband and 2 kids) these errands for my kids, so that we can monitor if they have been done. That way, I don't need to nag them or keep asking them if they have been done.

1. Walk Juno (our dog) 2x a week

2. Clean bathroom

3. Tidy bedroom

4. Load dishwasher 2x a week

"I constantly felt tired and unmotivated in life, until I adopted these 8 morning habits."

I agree with these except for eating breakfast. I think skipping breakfast is a great way to do intermittent fasting.

 I've been doing it for years. Allows me to easily reduce the total caloric intake.

I love having huge chunks of unstructured time on Sundays. No meetings. No meetups.  Just lie in bed all day.  Home spa soaking in bathtub. Sipping hot chamomile tea.

Clicked on "Done" in my DooGoo habit "relax. rejuvenate."

According to a research study, people who regularly stayed up past 1 a.m. had a 20–40% higher risk of developing depression or anxiety. 

Add to your DooGoo habit:
Go to bed early

Get 8 hours of sleep.

Advanced criminals troll social media looking for preys. Here are some great advice:

• Don’t share photos of your house all decorated for the season because they could show your TV, computer, expensive artwork and other valuable items.

• Don’t post information about your vacation plans to let criminals know no one will be home.

• Disable settings on your devices that identify where you are by using Wi-Fi hotspots or GPS. That way if you tweet or post your geographic location won’t be captured.

• Check your Facebook tagging settings. With Facebook’s privacy settings you can manage the photos and posts you’re tagged in. Enable the timeline review control to prevent posts from appearing automatically on your timeline. Then you can approve the photos taken by family and friends during vacation when you get home.

• Don’t check in on Foursquare and Facebook or post about your vacation. Don’t tweet about it, either.

• Don’t share photos of all the fun you’re having – or blog about your experiences – until you get home. You can write the posts, save them as drafts and publish them when you return.

The annual Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the JCC (Jewish Cultural Center) is coming up! It is a free, revelatory night of study, film, music, dance, conversation, and more in celebration of Shavuot. The activities run from 9 pm to 5 a.m. , in several simultaneous tracks. Last year,  I attended folk dance, flourless pie making, music concert, and several lectures. It was incredibly fun! I met an Israeli lady who spoke hebrew with me. She's a language lover, and was learning Korean on Duolingo.

Famed billionaire and partner of Warren Buffett Charlie Munger said that major drawdowns were rare opportunities to build wealth, recalling the advice of his great grandfather.

"Real opportunities that come to you are few," he said, adding that almost no one is "bathed" in good fortune. "Most people just get a few times when they can make a huge difference by seizing a huge activity."

Add a habit to your DooGoo: 

Save up monthly for big opportunity.

You can add "Habits to Avoid" to your DooGoo app! Suggestions from this article "8 evening habits of people who will never be rich or successful":

1. staying up late and waking up late 

2. Not doing self-reflection

3. Neglecting physical health

4. Ignoring mindfullness

5. Avoiding difficult conversations

6. Overworking

7. Skipping learning opportunities

8. Neglecting sleep

If you don't like double negatives, let's rephrase the 8 habits into good habits:

1. Sleeping early and waking early

2. Self-reflection

3. Exercising

4. Practising Mindfulness

5. Having difficult conversations when necessary

6. Taking breaks while working

7. Learn new things

8. Get enough sleep

Despite current financial struggles, such as unaffordable housing and job-related costs, Dimon urges young people to focus on personal growth, hard work, and maintaining well-being. 

DooGoo can help teens and adults achieve personal growth and wellness! Add these habits suggested by JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon:

1. Get off social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook and reading books instead.

2. Take care of both mind and body to achieve one’s potential.

I just learned that April 15 is Regeneration Day! But you can add a new habit on any day that helps you to rejuvenate yourself. Suggestions:

1. Meditate every morning

2. Take half an hour to eat lunch slowly, not in front of a computer

3. Walk outside daily

4. Bring something from outdoors into your home, like leaves or branches

5. Treat yourself to a spa once a month

Do you take responsibility for what happens in your life or do you blame circumstances and other people? 

I was very amused by the reviews of a Physics Professor posted by 2 students, one supporting him and the other criticizing him:

Student #1:

The bozo who left the review below is the type who boast they will become a world famous heart surgeon, but one difficult course and they insult the professor instead of themselves.

Student #2:

His lectures feel like stories that never reach the point. He does a bad job at explaining all the complex concepts. And no I didn't think I would walk in and get an easy grade without the hard work. I had to google most of the concepts myself or use ChatGPT.

Add a mini habit to your DooGoo app: "Save the Earth"!

The great thing about living in a big city is that we live in an apartment, and we do not own a car. So our carbon footprint is really tiny. 

One easy way to do your part for Mother Nature is to use laundry detergent sheets, which eliminate transport of heavy bottles of detergent, and reduce the millions of plastic bottles washed into the sea.

Some habits are not tangible actions, but rather how one does something. For example, do you have to habit of doing things slowly carefully to minimize mistakes?

Here are 3 wise sayings that will inspire you. 

1. For want of a nail a kingdom was lost. This was told to me by my Vascular Surgery attending because, especially in the field of medicine, mistakes compound one another and leads to bad outcomes. 

2. A Hebrew saying

עדיף לאבד רגע בחיים מאשר חיים ברגע

"It is better to lose a moment in life than life in a moment."

If you slow down, take a little more time, to complete a task, you avoid disasters. Because accidents and disasters may lead to loss of life.

3. What is the fastest way to do something? To do it right the first time!

For example, one of my surgery attendings was known for taking a long time, even one hour, to close the surgical field, because he waits until it is as dry as a desert. He is very wise to do so because he never needs to bring the patient back to the operating room to drain a hematoma. Conversely, someone who is unwise may close that surgical field in 10 minutes but later have a hematoma complication and have to bring the patient back to the operating room to drain the hematoma, which would take way longer, and have bad consequences for the patient.

Personally, I have always struggled with a bad habit of doing things quickly. So this was a very important lesson for me to learn. Now that i'm older and wiser, I slow down when i'm doing something important.

I started learning Hebrew about 2 months after 7 October, because I was blown away at how beautiful it sounded, when I heard Benjamin Netanyahu making a speech. I am very happy to say that I am conversationally fluent in it now, because I practice the principle of "mini habit" in learning it. Initially, I would learn a few lessons (or many lessons) on Duolingo daily. The key is "daily." Then, now I speak it almost daily with my Israeli friends.

Studies show that rucking leads to a longer, healthier life. Rucking is walking with a weighted backpack. Start with a plate as weight that is as one-sixth of your body weight and slowly work up to one-third of your body weight. So, if you weigh 150 lbs, start with a 25 lb weight and go up to 50 lbs. 

A longevity scientist who claims he reversed his age by 15 years believes exercise had the most impact.  A combination of strength training and aerobic exercise is linked to a longer life. 

Invite friends to a group challenge!

I added a new habit “Eat oats, avocado, nuts." Oats, avocados, nuts and leafy greens may help improve cholesterol levels. 

This week, I ate avocado 3x, and pistachio nuts and cashew nuts 1x. I bought the nuts from costco.  I have been getting amazingly cheap salads from JustSalad, on the app Too Good To Go! They gave me a huge amount of chicken schnitzels, mushroom, onions, tomatoes, so I made an omlette with the vegetable ingredients. 

To sleep well, eat diets high in fiber and low in saturated fat, sugar, and glycemic index values.

I added to your DooGoo app, “Avoid fries and pastries!" I usually feel tempted to eat fries whenever I walk past McDonalds on the way to work and back, which is a total of 10x a week! Glad to report that I clicked on this DooGoo habit 10x this week.

Warren Buffett is not only one of the most successful investors of all time but he also shares plenty of life wisdom ! That's why DooGoo app has his quote on the "Say No" page. DooGoo app directly helps with item #4 (Invest in Knowledge and Self-Improvement)! Here are the 5 things mentioned by Buffett in the article:

1. A Modest Home Filled with Memories

2. Time to Do What You Love

3. Invest Money and Time in Quality Relationships

4. Invest in Knowledge and Self-Improvement

5. Buy Experiences over Possessions

This article details his 48 rules. I am a proponent of mini habits, small changes at a time, so you can sustain those habits. So here are 4 I will focus on.

1. Don’t Waste Money 

Don’t spend more than you can afford.

2. Put Yourself in an Uncomfortable Environment 

You never know what you can learn. 

3. Practice Being Hard 

Be disciplined in your routine. 

4. Build the Muscle of Courage 

Do what’s right even when it’s hard. 

From wikipedia: "Grant Cardone is an American entrepreneur, author, and investor with a reputation for his aggressive and motivated approach to business. He's the CEO of Cardone Enterprises and Cardone Capital, and manages over $4 billion in assets. Cardone is a New York Times bestselling author known for The 10X Rule and If You're Not First, You're Last. He's also a sales trainer, consultant, and keynote speaker who covers topics like marketing, sales, and customer experience. "

I recently read a post celebrating failures, "If you're succeeding in everything you do, then you're not trying to do enough; you're just bunting." All sports references go above my head so I looked up "to bunt." [Baseball. to bat (a pitched ball) very gently so that it rolls into the infield close to home plate.] It is important to be resilient in the face of failures, and to persevere: to be dogged and to have grit. 

I recently read the remarkable story of my mom's junior from Convent St. Anne's in Kulim, also my hometown in Malaysia, which demonstrates tremendous doggedness and grit!

"Hor, a 55-year-old Colorado Springs gastroenterologist, was born in Malaysia, where she faced dire poverty and grew up in a culture that discriminated against women. Despite the odds, she learned English, became a nurse and eventually graduated from medical school, even though she didn’t have a high school diploma." "The youngest of a dozen children, she and her siblings started working rows of coconut palms when they were as young as 5. The work was grueling. Days began at 4 a.m. and ended late into the night. As a young girl, her job was to haul coconut shells, used for firewood, in heavy woven baskets."

What an amazing woman. I told my husband and daughters her story, and mentioned that my own story is similar to hers, which they did not agree with,: "You did not haul coconut shells at age 5!" Haha! I did work as a maid twice when I was in college. And, I went back to medical school at age 35, like her.

Are you a planner with control over most things in your life?

Despite the best planning and caution, things can still go wrong. Unless you're Dale. I once asked this former co-resident of mine, Dale, if he ever missed a diagnosis or made a mistake in residency and he said no, he just never did! Good for him!

However, most of us are not Dale... When things go wrong, it helps to celebrate little successes. DooGoo lets you do that easily. Look at the points you have collected in the past week and month. Pat yourself on the back for having completed Tennis 2x, Karate 3x and Family Dinner 5x ! Small victories are what make you the success that you are now.

The acceptance rates for Ivy League colleges Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia (undergraduate) is around 3.5% to 4.6%. Columbia University's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (Columbia P&S) has a highly competitive acceptance rate of around 1.9%, making it one of the most selective medical schools in the country. 

At this point, I have to write a tongue-in-cheek quote from my friend, a Harvard alumnus, that he “didn’t learn anything from Harvard.” 

Having been lucky enough to go to Columbia P&S medical school on a half-tuition scholarship, I am a huge proponent of trying your hardest to get into the best college or graduate school that one can get into. 

However, I balance that view with my sincere belief that it is totally not necessary to go to any of these schools to be successful in life and career. 

Recently, when my daughter was initially disappointed that she did not get accepted into her top choices for high school. I was proud of her for taking it in stride and being resilient. Maybe she learned from seeing how I suffered in vascular surgery residency. I want her to learn how to deal with setbacks in life, not just think everything is going to go easily.

https://nypost.com/2025/03/14/lifestyle/gen-z-workers-reveal-ways-theyre-ripping-off-employers-including-massages-on-the-clock-and-82-minute-lunches/

Is it worth it to cheat a little and gain a little? I don’t think so. My dad likes to say, “What is the point of cheating or stealing? It’s not like you’re going to get very rich from doing that!” So, while these Gen Z workers think they “gained” from these tricks detailed in the article, I think they are “losing” by solidifying their characters in this manner. Our characters are formed slowly by each thought, action, from childhood to adulthood. I know of these two twin siblings where the brother always takes advantage of the sister. When they were 5 years old, the brother lost his Spiderman comic book so he tricked his parents that the sister’s copy was actually his, and that she was the one who lost her copy. To this day (they are now in their 40’s), their relationship is still exemplified by this 3 decade-old incident!

Another example, a wise person once said, "People think they can just take pens from the office. That's stealing." After I heard that, I bought 2 packs of pens so that I won't make that mistake again! One's character is surely worth more than $2.

And...most people are good judges of characters. People know who the ethical people are and who are not.

I am a very good judge of character. I am very perceptive of others' motives and goals. That's why the selective friends I have are of exceptional solid morals!

“These leadership habits of top execs are easy to grasp, but not common. Leadership is about people, and you have to master the relational side of business to master leadership.”

Which of these 3 habits do you have under your belt already and which ones could you improve on?

I think I am good at numbers 1 and 3, but could practice more patience when listening to others.  A few days ago, I told a story to my Israeli friend, in Hebrew, so that took me a long time. At the end, he joked, "That was more like a monologue, not a conversation!"

1. Reading people

2. Sharpening your listening

3. Building relationships 

Invest only $14 per day starting in your 20s to become a millionaire by retirement

Saving money for retirement is one of the mini habits that I highly recommend. With the beauty of compound interest, you can retire with $2 million , even if you save only a few hundred a month , depending on when you start and your rate of return!

Which lifestyle is better?

One of decadence, laziness, spending as much as you want, eating whatever you want, or one of self-control and frugalness ?

The first one results in obesity, poor health, chronic pain, being in debt all the time, a house full of clutter while the second one rewards you with everything opposite!

You know that you should Say No to your friends but did you know that you should also Say No to yourself! Stop being a You Pleaser.  Delayed Gratification is an ingredient for future success. Use the free DooGoo app to track each time you avoid a bad habit, share your streaks and badges with friends!