An Entrepreneur’s Journey

Wow! Two of my clients are in the final of a Entrepreneur Competition for Youth. I am so proud of them to be able to reach this stage. It takes a lot of time and effort to reach there.

One of the stages is to create an advertisement, then post it up on Youtube.

Here is their advertisement:

Warning: It’s very cute.

St Anthony Primary School

Yang Zheng Primary School

Which advertisement you think is a better one? Hope that you can give some comments.

Yesterday, an article about more young people are caught in $50,000 debt was published in Straits Times. Today there was an article again on how to equip with financial skills.

There are many methods that was discussed but mainly it was mentioned that financial skills should start from young. Some suggested that it should be taught in school.

I agree that financial skills should be taught in school. However I thought that financial mindset is more important than financial skills.

Why is mindset more important than skill? Give you an example.

All of us know that saving money is important. Saving money is to safeguard us from rainy days and also for our retirement purposes. Since we know it is important, why are there so few who actually save or invest their money? This is a mindset problem.

Once the mindset is right, the skill is easy. Because the first step is to spend less than you earn. Yet in today’s world, young people are spending more than they earn. How can anyone achieve financial freedom if he is spending more than he earns.

The root of this problem comes from consumerism. With all the advertisement from commercial organization, it’s takes quite a bit of will power to resist the temptation of spending.

If you want to be rich, how much time do you invest in learning how to be rich? Be it reading, learning from someone else, attending seminars, looking at investments etc. Do you actually invest time in activities that will get you rich?

On the other hand, let’s look at spending. How much time do you spend in watching advertisement on TV, reading advertisement on newspaper / magazines? How much time you spend on shopping or thinking of what new gadgets/shoes/handbags to buy?

I boldly say that most people spend more of their time thinking of spending their money than creating wealth.

Just look at the newspaper. Every pages of the newspaper consists of advertisement asking you to spend money. But there are only few pages that are of investment and business related.

While we are reading newspaper, subconsciously we told ourselves to spend more money. If we spend most of our time absorbing the “spend money message”, how can we ever save and invest?

To reverse this, you may want to start investing more time in “making money message”. The easiest way is to start reading the correct stuff. Business news, investment article etc is a good start. Get a financial mindset book from the library is an alternative as well.

Start immerse yourself in wealth growing information, and your wealth will grow.

Met with a huge learning experience. After conducting many workshops in the corporate arena successfully, maybe the successes got into my head making it heavy.

I screwed up a presentation last week. It hit me very hard, affected me badly. I feel very bad about the whole thing. I felt disappointed about myself, I felt I had let the team down.

Suddenly flashes of decision floated across my mind. Doubt arises from within my heart.

It took me days to re-organised myself. Today, I told myself I am not going to fall, I am stronger than that. From that experience, I discovered more about myself, my habits and the gap from achieving mastery.

I am glad that I found out about that gap, then I am able to grow.

Last Wednesday, I was on holiday. Went to Desaru with Jean, thinking that there should be nothing much to do there. And that’s what I want. Just give me a pool, beach and a bed; I will know what to do for 3 days.

The journey to Changi Ferry Terminal was horrendous. There was no bus to that place, so we had to walked a long distance together with the drizzling. In my heart I was furious, in my mind it goes, what a way to start a holiday.

Fortunately, I’m aware of my feeling, take control of that feeling, and move on.

Upon reaching the hotel, went for some exploration. We found out there are activities around, but the price is crazily high. The price does not justify the value or experience.

Finally we decided to do the only activity that justify the price. Get out of the hotel to a small shopping and eating area which only cost us RM10 for the transport. We got tidbits, had our dinner, I thought it was good to go there.

2nd day was spent in pool, beach and the sun. I was badly burnt after the long hours under the sun. I truly enjoyed the art of doing nothing. Staying in the water, relax and reflect.

3rd day we were back in Singapore. I was in pain with the burnt all over. But still, it’s not going to stop me from going to beach again.

A 26 years old guy scores big in wealth. He became a millionaire when he was 26. How did he do it?

He doesn’t has a good childhood, he has poor money mindset, but how did he become a millionaire in such a short time.

In Pave Your Way To The Top he shares about how can you get rid of your poor money mindset.

In this 6 audio CD set, you get to learn how you can:

1. Build success by selling and influencing others

2. Become a best selling author

3. Build and run a successful business

4. Drive yourself to success

5. You can make 30 to 40 times more than what you are earning

6. You can find value stocks to grow your money

7. You can create multiple sources of income

8. Break your poor man’s mindset and be rich

Get your Pave Your Way To The Top here. You can start growing your wealth today.

Sandra just forwarded me the evaluation report of the Presentation Skill Workshop that I did 2 weeks ago.

Whenever I received an evaluation report, my heart beat goes faster. Because it’s a measurement of how well or bad I did. And the last time I received one, I didn’t fare well. I was actually disappointed with myself, but I treat it as a good learning experience.

When I received this report, I had the same feeling, excited yet fearful. After going through the report, a sense of relieve flow through my blood, but my heart beat did not slow down a beat. Because I was fill with joy and gratefulness.

Out of 5, I had a score of 4.5.

I am very thankful that good things is happening around me. I hope that good things will surround themselves to my family and friends too.

I am really glad that I am able to help those participants. I really do hope to continue doing this work in my life, inspiring others to excel.

And it’s time to celebrate again…..YEAH!!!!

Thanks to Tina’s faith in me, I got to conduct a workshop (Positive Attitude In Workplace) for China Insurance.

The workshop goes very well. The flow of the workshop is going good, the participants are responsive. This workshop adds lots of confidence within myself. With a total of 80 participants, it may seems scary, but once I am able to enrolled them, I must say there is a sense of achievement.

As my style is not to use any power point slides, there are some positive feedbacks. One participant said that it is different from many other workshops, it’s more engaging without power point slides.

There were some participants who wanted to introduce their daughters to me. It was a feedback that I were connecting with the participants.

I really enjoy myself in the workshop. I feel good after having done this workshop, and Yeah, it’s time for celebration. Going for holiday this week. It has been soooooooo long since the last one. Finally.

Times are bad. Inflation is at its high. Fuel prices is going north indefinitely. Are you looking to start a side business to generate more income? But the challenge is you are not sure how to go about starting a business.

If you are starting a business, you may first want to start it of with a business plan. A plan serves as a guide on your direction. Here is How To Write A Business Plan that you can refer to when writing a business plan.

A business plan not only serves as a guide, it serves as a tool for raising capital if there is a need.

Get this book How To Write A Business Plan for your business growth.

Been studying about value investing intensively, reading books on Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, etc.

Move on to study about companies financial statements. Learning about connecting a story by looking at the figures. I must say it’s can be interesting and boring.

It’s interesting when I found good companies, and it’s also interesting when I found bad companies, especially those which I thought are good but the statements reflect otherwise.

Still nothing beats the excitement of having money in the market. I made my first investment today after many years of avoiding the market. It feels good to know that now I know more about the stock market than 8 years ago.

I must thank Clive who inspired me to start investing again.

I had been doing lots of reading recently. The last time I read so extensively is probably a night before my exam.

Well, the reason that I read so much recently is to get my Investment IQ up to a level that I can comfortable make a correct decision in investment.

I finish 2 books in a week. With my slow speed of reading, I really put in lots of time in reading recently. Usually I finished a book in 2 weeks. I know the speed of my reading has not improved, but my knowledge certainly has.

After so many days of soaking myself in investment discoveries, today I decided to have a break. I got a book by Osho. He is a spiritual master who writes to provoke your thought. Since I submerged my mind in all the dollars signs for few weeks, I should take care of the soul as well. I thought a change of the reading will be good.

There is more for my soul coming. Next week I’m going on holiday. It has been a long time since my last one. I am really looking forward to re-energize, recharge, recuperate and re-discover the meaning of life.