“Risk” is something most people avoid because they associate “RISK” with losing. How many of you have heard of, “You may risk losing everything.” They are right to look at it that way. When there is risk, there is always chances of losing.
There are some who are risk adverse, like my mother, she will never step out of her comfort zone. She never invests her money, she believes in depositing her money in banks. She never believes in starting a business, she believes in long term employment. She always discourages me to run my own business, though I’ve been running my business for 5 years, she still asks me to find a job once in a while.
While there’s risk of losing, there is unlimited winning. In Albert Einstein’s law of relativity; there are always two sides to things. Hot and cold, in and out, left and right, black and white, angel and devil etc. The upsides of “RISK” is unlimited. With this unlimited upsides, it’s worth taking that “RISK.”
I belong to the group called “Adventurer.” I always wanted to do new things, explore new grounds, practice new sports, generate new business ideas. We are here to experience new things on earth, then when we are gone, we bring these experiences with us along. That really is experiencing life.
Life is suppose to be an adventure. I believe we are here to do or create new things. By experiencing many things in life, we live to share those experiences with our fellow human beings. For some we may even leave a legacy behind.
In history, there are so many names whom are wrote on the history book of mankind. One man whom I truly respect is Abraham Lincoln. He was a total failure during his younger days. Failed as a businessman, fiancee dies, was in huge debt, failed 8 times in politics, but eventually he became one of the best President of America. His life is an adventure, his life is a risk. Yet he never stops living life to the max.
It’s such a pity that today there are some who are so unwilling to live life as an adventure. Some who are afraid of failures choose to stay in their cocoon, unwilling to spread their wings to fly, to enjoy that flight of their life.
Everyone of us has a flight of our life. Some will fall, but will fly again once the wings are heal. As long as you are willing to spread your wings, you will enjoy that flight no matter what happen next.
Those who choose to keep their wings, stay in the cocoon will never experience life. They wouldn’t know what is an adventure. In the last days of their life, they will lie on their death bed regretting not experiencing life to the fullest. They will have no stories left for their grand children. They live a life of achieving nothing to be proud of. They leave this world with no one knowing it. No one may know they ever existed. This is so sad.
When is the last time you live your life to the fullest? When is the last time you experience new things in life? If you are hesitant in taking that first step to adventure, think no more. You only live once.
Share This
Oh no! Here comes another one! When is this ever going to end? The answer is this will never end.
Life loves to throw us waves and waves of challenges. Sometimes they come one at a time, sometimes they come in five at a time. Better still, there are times they come in multiple directions, wanting to drown you. Once you overcome one, it will come another one. The fun part of it is they keep getting bigger and bigger.
Read more »
Share This
Closing the sale is perhaps the most important aspect in business. When there’s a sale, there’s revenue for your business. Many will says that the operation, human resource, product development is important. Yes, they are. But without sales, all the above can’t function. Or put it this way, without sales there’s no need for all the above.
So as a business owner, sales is a skill you must learn. Sales skill is so important especially to a business owner. As the owner, you don’t only sell to your customers, you sell to everybody. Don’t you have to sell to your staff, your team, suppliers? And of course your customers as well!
When I first started doing sales, frankly speaking, I sucks. I thought as long as I’m passionate about the products, I should be doing well. (That’s what all the sales books say right?) But really I was lousy in sales.
Read more »
Share This
Achieving success in life can be a rough journey to some. Walking this journey alone can be humongous task as well. The thing is anyone can achieve the success that they desire. As long as they are persistent, success is around the corner. But this post is not about persistent. Then what is this post about?
Read more »
Share This
NOW! A simple word with deep meaning. In school I learned that NOW means doing it right away. “Do your homework NOW,” shouted my mum. NOW at that time means serious business, urgency, anxiety etc. Even the Hollywood movie goes, “Drop your gun NOW!”
Read more »
Share This
Few days ago, I wrote about Success Is A Habit. Over the weekend, I had an AHA. Since I wrote about Success Is A Habit, maybe I can also write about Wealth Is A Habit.
The rich has wealthy habit, the poor has poor man’s habit. The rich doesn’t become wealthy overnight. They simply follow the wealthy habit closely over a long period of time. This goes the same for the poor. The poor don’t become poor overnight, they simple follow the poor man’s habit over and over again.
The good news is the poor can turn into the rich just by changing their habits. All it takes is a little bit of discipline. Is it that simple? If it’s that simple, why aren’t there too many rich people around?
Read more »
Share This
I WANT TO BE SUCCESSFUL!” I shouted. What happened? Why did I do that?
This happened in 2003 when I attended a seminar. In actual fact it was conducted in Mandarin. One of the activities was to shout what you want to be with full commitment and desire.
One principle that I learned was Success Is A Habit. However, at that time it didn’t occur to me that this principle is so important. At that time, it was just another success principle, I didn’t really take any special notice on it.
Little did I know that this lesson becomes one of the important factors that changed my life. Read more »
Share This
I gave a talk years ago, and a student asked me, “What do you think makes a successful entrepreneur?” I was wondering, isn’t it obvious? On a second thought, I realized that the audience are not entrepreneurs but want to be entrepreneurs. They didn’t move forward to become one because of fear. The fear of whether they can make it as an entrepreneur, the fear of do they possess the traits to be an successful entrepreneur.
With that in mind, I understand why that question came out. It was like the Universe present that question for everyone. The Universe wants me to support these people, so I will.
Overcoming fear
Being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you don’t have fear, in fact you do and have a lot of it. Fear is always there in everyone of us. The difference is the ability to act in spite of fear. In other words having the courage to act.
Entrepreneurs face tremendous amount of fear everyday. Why is that so? Imagine an entrepreneur journey is like a journey into the unknown jungle. The jungle is filled with uncertainties at every corner. Wild, ferocious animals may lurk at you suddenly. You may encounter the man eating plants leaving not even your bones. You may walked right into the muddy swamp that eats you up completely.
With dangers around, entrepreneurs took that leap of faith, trusting that all will be well, only to find out that it’s not as bad as it seems. There are no man eating plants, only some animals attacked once in a while. But it’s nothing too big that he can’t handle.
When he walked past that jungle, he reached a beautiful waterfall, with clear water splashing down. He took off his shirt, dip into the cool water. The reward of overcoming fear is unlimited. Satisfaction from the business, financial rewards, time freedom and the full control of your life.
By having the courage to overcome fear, does that mean it will be all smooth sailing? Of course not. Sometimes you will miss the results that you desire. What can we do then? It comes to our second point - taking responsibility.
Take Responsibility
Responsibility means taking accountability about the results you created. This is extremely difficult to practice since we were taught to lay blame from young. Even in our society now, when something terrible happened, the government or the people will find a scape goat. They will not rest until someone is “hanged”.
On the journey of entrepreneurship, you will make mistakes. You will fall, at times fall badly. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s your response to the fall that can kills you. When you trip over a rock, you can go blaming the person who placed the rock there, or you can learn to start looking out for rocks in case you trip again.
When you business didn’t do well, take responsibility for the result. Going around blaming your customers, the economy, the government is not going to help turn your business around. Instead ask “How can I improve the result?”
Entrepreneurship is a journey. A friend told me building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. What do we need to run a marathon? Y
es, perseverance. That’s our third traits.
Perseverance
Winston Churchill famous speech with only nine words. He said, “Never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up!” This is so true in any business. There will be good time in your business, there will also be bad time in your business. Question is, can you hold on during the bad time.
I’ve been in business since 2003. I’ve gone through good and bad times in my business. Honestly, there are times where I wanted to let it go. Fortunately for me, the competitive character in me don’t allow me to give up. I changed strategy, wait, hold on, it didn’t turn out good. I changed again, wait again, hold on again, it didn’t turn out well again. I do this process over and over again until one day, results changed.
Most of the time it’s just one more bit of effort, one extra call, one extra door, one extra proposal. You may be just one step away from finding success.
Let just stop at three traits for now. There are so many other traits of a successful entrepreneur but if I go on, it will become a book. May these three traits alone can support you in your future endeavor.
Share This
This site has been around for about 6 months, with only 11 posts. I admit I almost gave up this blog due to many reasons.
1. Lost focus
2. Laziness
3. Run out of ideas
4. More training engagements
5. Lack of time
But now I’m back. I am ready to add lots of value to more people through this blog. This blog will shift its direction. Instead of just inspiration, it will be touching on business, wealth, personal, spiritual success.
At least these are the four areas you should focus on in order for you to fully enjoy life. Actually there is one more areas I thought is important as well. Health. I am exercising daily, visiting the gym four times a week, jog once a week and play football once a week. However, I do not have much knowledge on health to offer any value.
Over my five years of being an entrepreneur and trainer, I amass experiences and ideas to share with people. I been through the ups and downs of life, ever been so broke that I can’t afford a meal. Those days are over, I give thanks for coming out of that dark and misty well.
I am glad I’ve been through those dark days of my life. Why am I glad? Reason is very simple, going through those days allow me to share lots of values to people now. Being broke in the past allow me to appreciate the money I have now. It also allow me to better manage my money now.
Without those dark days, I will never be ready to share. Now I am ready to share my experiences and knowledge with you. Everyday I am learning new things, I will want to pen those new lessons down here so that many can learn from those lessons.
One lesson in my life that I learn is never stop learning. Stop learning and you start dying. Over in Asia culture, I’ve seen or heard many incidents that when old people retired, they usually stayed at home to watch TV all day long. Gradually their brain is gone.
I too have seen business people, politicians who are 80, 90 years old, but they are as sharp as any young punk out there. They think, they learn to keep their brain active and strong.
Always be learning. When you learn, be humble. “I know” comes from the ego, your ego wants you to stop learning. Understand that there are always new things to be learned. Open up your mind and receive, you will never go wrong.
Constant learning is what brought me to where I am today. I read books after books, everywhere I go, a book will be accompanied me. I attended seminars after seminars. I invested five figure sums in seminars learning from people who has done it before. Attending seminars are short cuts to success. All those seminars short cut my success by at least 10 years. I talked to successful people, asked them questions, learned from them.
Those successful people shared with me their knowledge and experiences, and now it’s my turn to do it.
Share This
