Welcome to my home on the internet.

My name is Nigel, and I am an entrepreneur, passive income investor, hand therapist, father and owner of this site.

This blog has been around since 2009, which makes me oooooooold…long story short, a quick summary of nigelchua.com and me is:

We need to become financially free as early as possible to unlock the next level of living be it to pursue projects, people and the lifestyle we love
For this to happen, we need to be very deliberate in building streams of business passive income and/or investment passive income needs to be the core focus in all our business and money decisions; as well as optimizing and being careful with unnecessary expenses

Like really, really, sort out your money. As early as possible.

Yeah, just like that.

The standard stuff that’s being preached a long time ago (or at least, the assumptions that’s being taught) is that life is hard, expensive and “life’s like that”, so that’s why you need to keep working, save hard for your kids education, get as much coupons / discounts and work till 65+ and whatever leftover, that goes into your retirement.

And pray that nothing goes wrong in your 40+ years of career that will hopefully saved enough to enjoy retirement.

If not, work longer loh.

Ugh.

My advice?

Nah, that’s just average, dumbed-down advice, which reeks of wastefulness, often spending money because one is lost and unhappy.

An “easy” but basic way to shortcut this is summarized in these 4 steps:

Kill off your major unnecessary expenses that doesn’t help you improve your life. This should save you at least 10-25% of your income, if not more.
Split the savings into 3 segments:
- one portion into learning how to build business passive income
- one portion investing into simple assets that you understand and grows in value over time
- one portion as emergency savings (up to max 6-12 months, and any surplus to be invested)
As your business passive income grows, split the profits into 3 segments
- reinvest a portion of profits into growing business
- take a portion for yourself to enjoy
- take a portion to invest into simple assets that you understand and grows in value over time.
Continue steps 1-2-3 continuously.

That’s really it, dont overcomplicate it.

Guess what people do when they’re unsure?

They just do nothing.

One year goes by, and nothing changes.

They keep doing the same thing, tolerating the same shit and hope that something improves next year. I call bullshit.

It’s insanity to do the same thing and expect or hope for a different outcome.

If you scramble your eggs, you’d just get scrambled eggs. Never once your scrambled eggs will turn out to be a gourmet steak.

Don’t do that – that’s a recipe for disaster, especially shit hits the fan and something bad happens such as losing jobs, accidents, health crisis etc.

To make things worse, more often than not, most people aren’t prepared ie dont have safety nets such as emergency funds, savings or alternative income sources.

Bad idea.

My dad died suddenly at 59 years old in 2014, and he thought nothing would happen to him, so he didnt have good personal insurance and stopped company insurance that costs him a couple of bucks a month. If he didnt do that, we’d have unlimited health coverage for him, plus in the event of his untimely death, my mum would have been placed on a program that’d pay her thousands a month. All didnt happen because he thought it wouldnt happen to him.

Bad idea.

I love my dad to the moon and back, but that’s a bad idea. Penny-wise but pound certainly foolish, and that takes its toll on my family (sole breadwinner passing on).

Now, at that I’m older (I’m born in 1982), I’m grateful that my living and lifestyle expenses are being paid for by my business passive income and investment passive income streams.

I want to retire early (max 45) to spend the remaining years

dating and having more good and sexy times with my wife
being with the kids as they grow up
still do cool stuff I love whilst I’m still young
travel and see more of the world that God made
write
etc

That’s why I’m so passionate and excited to continue building my passive income streams =)

How nigelchua.com started

I started this blog in 2009.

It started off being a personal blog where I document my observations, experiences, adventures and lessons on business and personal life.

For a long time, it remained this way.

As I got older with more experiences and and focused more, I realized that I have been consistently speaking about a few core things:

Level 1: passive income, passive income streams, passive income lifestyle, retiring early TO
Level 2: be able to live a life that’s more meaningful and at your own terms

Without “graduating from Level 1”, which is to be able to earn, save and create your own investment vehicle to allow you flexibility to work less or retire early, you will likely never be able to go into true freedom and flexibility of Level 2.

I’ve been perplexed whenever I see friends, families and colleagues live ridiculously expensive lifestyles thinking those lifestyles were normal – it’s ludicrous when I observe people people complain about how expensive shit is and how difficult life is BUUUUUUUUUT they

eat often in expensive restaurants
keep upgrading their phones, cars and homes every year or other year
have 1-3 cars at a time
take multiple trips every year to show off on their social
buy expensive gifts for each other and their kids

It’s so counterproductive and though I want to say that they’re posturing and showing off…but I dont really blame them.

Personal finance is really hard, and have you seen the economy? They’re coping. These are coping mechanism COVID time everything went mad, and just after COVID which we all thought would be good, good ol’ Putin decided for war on Ukraine and all these macroeconomy caused interest rates and expenses to hike.

It’s hard.

But that being said, the bigger problem was

Not having an idea of what they want to achieve in the first place. If you dont have an idea to earn, save and invest into simple assets that appreciate over time, OF COURSE you’d just spend it on whatever whims and fancies
Overwhelm + impatience because it can be boringly slow and complex.

Do you realize that these two problems are similar? They all lead to procrastination because its hard, boring or unknown…but can be relatively simple to overcome, simply by having a plan, boring work and saving a portion to invest regularly over time (dollar-cost-average).

Life can be difficult and expensive, and rather than ignore it or push it aside, we can do stuff to improve our life and future generations (if you choose to have kids).

It’s either people like to complain, or are lying to me, or are not dealing with the core issues.

I prefer to be more deliberate with what I do with my time, business and investments.

Which led me to starting my business in 2008, so I can learn how to earn more than my $1700/month, despite not having any business degrees or experience
Which led me to learn how to build and grow my business from a startup to 5- then 6- then 7-figure one over a 5 year period (learning leadership, management, marketing, scaling etc)
Which led the business to being acquired for a sweet 7-figure deal
Which led me to learn more about investing for investment passive income
Which led me here, and I’m still here.

…and that’s why I am focusing on this blog to show how you can sort out your savings, investments and early retirements, based on your own numbers and expectations.

To be able to create a life that you actually want, and it’d be faster than you think.

I write about money, cashflow and financial freedom to retire as early as possible; to get money out of the way as early as possible and never have to worry about money again…and to enjoy stuff outside of work and money.

Origin Story (Nigel)

I’m Nigel Chua, and I was born to a humble and middle-class family in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia.

I have been living in Singapore since 2002. By training and experience, I am a hand therapist.

I am married to a wonderful wife Louise, who is the love of my life, and my business partner as physiotherapist in our jointly-owned physiotherapy business in Singapore.

We also have three beautiful children we thank God for =)

I’m a family guy (I like staying home haha and nature), and I love God and Christ.

Hawker foods with wok-hei are the absolute best, and I enjoy lifting weights (~~oh I miss the gym – especially now so with COVID restrictions Update 2021: joined a gym and have been hitting the gym 2+ times a week. Wonderful stuff.).~~ Update 2022-2023: have been doing body weights strengthening at home, 2-3 times a week. Not bad too.

I enjoy reading and writing.

And of course, I enjoy having, building and enjoying streams of recurring passive income.

After making business passive income and investment passive income since 2010, passive income still makes me smile.

I grew up in a family of 4 siblings, I have an older brother and two younger sisters, and we are fairly close. My childhood days were simple and happy, and I’ve a family I love to no end, and they love me – we were very happy and led simple lives.

Our parents love us lots, and want the best for us – after all, which parent didn’t want the best for their children, right? I love both my parents deeply, and have deep gratitude for providing me with the base for my future.

Yet, opportunities seem limited, and money was tight.

From a young age, I experienced firsthand how poor money management and not having cashflow-giving assets can cause stresses to the family. I had front row seats of money fights, and I mediated for many of such fights from 8+ years old onwards.

It was these experiences that made me make a promise to myself that I will not make the same money mistakes as them

I learnt then that

it seemed easy to “blame” the lack of money and each other but these aren’t the real problems
biggest issues we had was poor money habits, poor financial communication and poor financial intelligence

What drives me a lot to obsess and think deeply about passive income, earning more and entrepreneurship is the intense emotional pains that I remember:

I could remember the number of days and nights of intense arguments about the lack of money, the tears that my mum would cry tears of frustrations (including my dad)
I did not taken an airplane until I was 24 years old and had already graduated from my studies and started to earn some income.
My parents had to “ration out” who can get luxuries eg they could pay for the sister’s flight and holiday and not for us boys because we were working but the girls werent (which really hurt because I too was struggling financially when I graduated in 2005, and continued to struggle until 2015)
Our family “holidays” aren’t holidays – they’re basically family obligations such as family drives to visit our grandparents in another state in Malaysia
mum asking for the remainder scraps from vegetable vendor to cut grocery costs
we ate the same food most of the time
going through the days and nights and weeks where my parents would fight over the lack of money
8+ year old me mediating their fights
27-year old me noticing how there is a game in offices and workplaces on how some individuals can game the system and the bosses, getting promotions and increments despite doing poorer work…and being born into “better” families and having “better” opportunities

These are observations as I look back – as I said, we were happy even when we didnt have much, and made do.

We moved to Johor when I was 6 years old, close to primary 1, to get a better life and position (later in my 30s I would find out that my dad was moved to Johor because of office politics and sabotaged which detracted his career advancement for 10+ years).

The few things that firmed up my belief on pursuing entrepreneurship, earning more and living a better life includes:

when my dad Daniel Chua died at 59, it was the year he was about to retire. He looked forward to retirement. And I looked forward for my business to grow so I can spend time with him. This still breaks my heart so.
I dont want to play the game of office politics
when my first kid was born, I knew that I need to show them a better way of life and not to repeat history
when my kid asked me when they could spend time with me, because I was always working and hustling

Background, Failures and Achievements

2008 – “Woke up” at 27 years old, realizing that I was doomed to repeat the vicious cycle unless and until I improve to take on good success and money habits. This led me to quit my job as I was tired of the politics and rubbish game at work, to start my own freelancing therapy business: grew my personal take home from $2000 to $4800 within ONE month – that’s 2400% improvement literally over a month
2008-2009 Observed the game of freelancing, and decided to go up the ladder vertically – saved money to launch our first clinic (2009), which failed. Got sad.
2009 – Continued freelancing with wife who then joined me.
2010 – Started our next clinic, this time, it’s a one room clinic. The doctor landlord played me out, by not giving or allowing me a rental contract – he got rid of me over another tenant who wanted the whole space. I lost my clinic and patients overnight. I was sadder this time.
2011 – Got out third opportunity, opened a 2-room clinic in Orchard Paragon. CEO promised me many things which didnt come to pass, but I honed my skills of sales and marketing – built up our caseload from scratch with no support but had to exit due to the many internal issues and politics and powerplay. Depressed for a few months.
2012 – 4th time is the charm: we worked closely with a GP group and this time, it worked. We grew the business from 2 person, to 3, to 5, to 10, to 15 to 20+. And revenues from 4 figures a month all the way to 6-figures.
2014 – Got acquired for a bittersweet 7-figure deal (end of the year) with a 3 year bond.
2015-2019 – After finishing my bond by end 2017 and observing through the years the office politics and game, I disliked it and refuse to engage or play that game. So when God called me out of there, at 2017, I exited and took a 18 month sabbatical where my wife started her own clinic with 2 other partners who unfortunately couldn’t last group practice (eventually leaving to become solo practitioners). Wifey invited me to her clinic in June 2019 where I am still serving as a principal hand therapist as well as sales and marketing director.
2019-Present – In the first 18 months where I served as sales and marketing director, I grew the business 233% revenue wise, added one more clinic location (and more to come), grew the team’s size and capability as well as help drive more business leads and patients to our therapists who in turn earn more. I am certain I will be adding more growth, clinics, clinicians and revenue to the practice.

I know I enjoyed serving my therapists and helping many of them build their lifestyle therapy practices, where they

can earn up to 6-figures per year
work at their own time and target (based on what is available)
take off whenever they want to just by blocking off their own slots
just see patients and go home
minus all the politics, toxicity and games

Today I still serve there but also am wanting to create an additional passive income online stream to help myself, my clinicians and non-clinician family and friends to build their passive income lifestyles by becoming Passive Income Entrepreneurs.

I will take the same philosophy, approach, sincerity and leadership to guide and help you earn $100-$500+ and more (eventually $1000++ a month) online or freelancing.

Dont be shy, connect with me and reach out and say hi.

Tribute To Creator God

Patterns and principles to personal development, progressive living, life, and success are not entirely my own, despite the fact of me ruminating, seeking understanding and wisdom, the revelations and epiphanies that arrive in my head.

They were set in motion way before I was born, and will continue to be here way after I’m long gone from the earth.

These patterns and principles are set in place by a Creator God. The only thing people can do is to either discover and acknowledge them, ignore and dismiss them, or perverse them.

Perverted principles lead to perverted lifestyle and living.

Living by good and timeless principles always leads to personal development, power, prosperity and peace, nations and societies to flourish and grow.

The ultimate standards of human behaviors, rules and principles are found in the words of this Creator God, in the Holy Bible.

This is more than opinion, it is my personal belief, upon which I’ve based more than thirty years of my life (as of 1982) and my future and all eternity.

You are free to form your own ideas and opinion.

The world’s greatest book for learning successful living, personal development, prosperity and progressive living is not in any textbooks or handouts or courses, but in the Bible.

We’re all free to choose today because we’re given free will at the point of creation.

Our freedom of choice is the true freedom that we have – we can choose to to ignore this power and live as though we have no choices, or we can live empowered and live life with choices.

The greatest choice a person will make in this world is what they will do when they leave this world. I take on a verse in the Book of Ecclesiastes “A wise man thinks much of death, while the fool thinks only of having a good time now” (Ecclesiastes 7:4).

The principle herein is,

“what is your exit plan today?”,
“think of the end first but start at the beginning” and
“bearing in mind our end goal as we live day to day.”

When we have a job, we think first of how we want to get a promotion, think of the strategies and plans and actions we need to take consistently to get a promotion.

In the same understanding, when we plan and prepare for our own lives, we must look at and to what we want at the end of our lives to determine what kind of lives, strategies and plans we need to choose and how we live it.

I believe the bible leads us to right choices, good principles and good patterns to successful, peaceful and prosperous living.

If you’ve never read one, I encourage you to invest in one and read it today (or you can access one online, free of charge at Bible Gateway). Read it, and learn to live it.

If you hadn’t received Christ, and would like to do so, you can do it right now. Simply open up year heart and mind, and say this:

Jesus, here I am.

I am not perfect, and have done some wrongs in my life, and from the bottom of my heart, I choose to repent.

I also choose to follow you, and I invite Jesus into my life, right this moment.

Thank you for dying on the cross for me, and I look forward to a journey with you.

Amen.

To start off, you can start reading a bible by either buying a physical one (I use both the New King James Version and The Message Bible), but for more convenience, you can use www.BibleGateway.com.

Happy growing!

I’ll be more than happy to answer any questions that you have on Christianity and spirituality, on top of other personal development and business-related questions – connect with me at nigel@nigelchua.com.