An Entrepreneur’s Journey

It was the last Business Opportunity Fair of the year. This is the last day of the Entrepreneur Action Program (EAP). It’s always great to be there to take note of not just the business opportunities, but the way they run their fair. It was a fantastic fair, that opened my eyes.

The participants got a total of $122,000 sponsorship value in just 2 weeks. That’s an amazing result.

One of the milestone for me was the launching of Young Entrepreneur Action Program (YEAP). For the past five years, we have been conducting this program for schools. Next year we are doing this for the public. Last Saturday was the first introduction of the program to the participants.

Wendy did mention that we’ll need people to work with us. She probably meant to market the program for us. It creates a lot of responses. Many participants came over to find out more about how they can help. Based on some of their questions, most of them wanted to be the trainers of the program.

From all these years, I learned to filter off those who doesn’t take action. I passed my name card to them, asked them to email me about wanting to assist in the program. Three days have passed, I received 2 emails so far.

This is always the case. 80-20 rule always exists.

Year 2008 is coming to an end. Some are already welcoming 2009 by sending messages to friends. It has been an eventful year in 2008.

For some people, end of the year means setting new resolution. I don’t really have the habit of setting resolution for the next year. This year there’s some difference. I had to complete an assignment given by one of my mentors, David. Write down my 5 years goal.

I divided them into 4 categories.

Family
Financial
Business
Spiritual

I wrote down where I want to be in Dec 2013. The next stage is to share these goals with someone whom I dearly love. It has to be Jean, of course. I have not shared with her yet, as I want to review those goals again.

When I started doing this exercise, my path become clearer. I knew where my path is. It helps to further stamped down my commitment in doing this work.

Funny things started to happen. Last week I finished that 5 year goal assignment. The next 2 days I had 3 training engagement enquiries. One is confirmed, the rest is pending as I met the clients only today.

Coincidentally, my client recommended a spiritual program to me. She mentioned that I must attend this program. Seriously, nothing is coincidental.

I am thankful that the Universe sent these good things into my life. Now it’s up to me to deliver great value to my clients. I believe more good things will come in 2009.

I am very fortunate to be invited to this awesome resort. Initially, I was suppose to do a 2 hours training in Singapore. Then there is a change of plan, the client decided to have their retreat in Bintan. So instead of doing the training here, I did it there, with everything paid for.

Richard, thank you for the invitation. I enjoyed myself very much.

My experience with Club Med is absolutely fantastic. Three words to summarize the experience: food, wine and beach. These may be found in some other resorts as well, but there is one differentiating factor that made Club Med different from many resorts I visited – the human factor.

Every staff in Club Med is extremely friendly and smiley. Their prime objective is to make the guests feel at home. When I say every staff, I mean every staff down to the toilet cleaner. They have no problem striking a conversation with the guests even the toilet cleaner.

To make it even more awesome, the staff will join the guests in meals, chatting with them and also getting feedback.

Their service level is tip top, off the chart. They will stop what they were doing to attend to the guest’s request first. Through my observation, it takes huge passion to work in Club Med. Why?

Because the working hours is long, and one got to be versatile to work there. The working hours can go from 7am to 12midnight. Staffs basically stay there, they don’t get to go home for months.

Beside doing their routine work, they have to perform in shows every night, entertaining the guests. On my 2nd night there, while I was walking back to my room at about 12am, I saw them rehearsing for another show.

That’s where I had a discovery. Club Med is not in the resort business, they are in the entertainment business.

It was a traveling weekend. On Friday, I flew to Penang to get ready for a team building event on the next day. After team building ended on Sat, got to drive down to Ipoh for another similar event on Sunday. After Sunday session, drove down to KL to make a visit to Business School For Entrepreneur (BSE).

From the visitation of BSE, I got to meet some old friends. Most importantly, I got some new ideas for my training programs. Also a chat with Reza gave me new distinction on Mastery.

The main highlight of these traveling will be the one to one session with David. As David is passing down his work, he wants to ensure he passed down his knowledge as well. He had opened up a lot more questions that I have to ponder on.

He pointed out a very interesting view about me being a trainer. A view that I’ve never thought about it. Nevertheless it’s opened up new meaning for me to be a trainer. This journey will not stop, it will go on for a long time.

This trip up has been beneficial in my personal development. I am now taking action on those new ideas.