An Entrepreneur’s Journey

We got out of our usual discussion of M&Y Flip Charts. This session we are watching a video.

Philosophy - A Guide To Happiness Part 1 Socrates on Self Confidence

People tends to accept the norm as the truth. If the majority of the people are doing it, then it must be right. Most human beings has this herd mentality. From a simple stock market trading, you would be able to observe the herd instinct in human. You would also hear this, “it doesn’t take two wrongs to make one right.” If this is true, democracy can be put to redundant.

Most of the time we do not question the normal way of doing things. As long as most people is doing the same things, we accept those things as they are. One example, for hundreds of years ago, human believed that the earth is flat, because someone said so. We believe it without questioning the basis of the truth.

It is worse when you go to school. When you question the so called truth, you are label as a naughty child or having learning disability. This is what happen to our dearest Buckminster Fuller. My truth is your teachers are there to do a job, they may not know the basis of the truth. Therefore they can’t answer some of your questions, and to save their own ass, they came out with the term learning disability.

According the Socrates, self confidence is having the ability to do your own thinking, and stand up for your truth. It is the discovery of your life, of the truth and possessing the clarity of your life.

Again Buckminster Fuller was a great example of self confidence. He did his own thinking, he decided to unlearn everything he learned from school, and re-learn from his own experience.

It was discussed in the session how does self confidence comes about. Will it be when you start to do your own thinking then you acquire self confidence? Or is it when you acquire self confidence then you are able to do your own thinking?

Then we came to a conclusion. To do our own thinking and stand for our truth requires a additional element — courage.

So it will be courage — do your own thinking — self confidence. This will be the cycle of growth.

What is happiness? In Socrates definition, Happiness is the courage to examine life. An un-examine life is not worthy of living.

Keys To Synergy

Touching on the 1st key, Listen Actively. Since this is the 1st key, I suppose this is the most important key to synergy. In actual fact, how many times did we really listen actively to the person who is speaking?

Most of the time we formed our own judgement before the person has finished speaking. While the person is speaking, our mind start to form our own point of view, ready to air our “important” views.

I had a distinction on listen actively. I learn to understand beyond the words. I kind of have a little experience on listening to the feelings, the reasons and the emotion. It’s very different from my old, usual listening.

Synergy may not necessarily apply to work or team, it may even be apply to self. The alignment of body, mind and soul can create a powerful self.

Intuition can be a tricky one. Speaking up your intuition is a very thin line away from ego. At times we thought that it’s intuition, may end being the ego side of us.

To achieve synergy in a team, everyone must be willing to go that point of synergy. Anyone who is not ready to go to that point of synergy will pull the whole team down.

One question for you to ponder. If all team members willing to do whatever it takes to achieve synergy, but what if the external environment doesn’t support it, can synergy still be achieved?

Tell The Truth With Compassion

What is the truth? Someone mentioned that if he has a business idea, how much truth (the business idea) should he shared with others, just in case others will copy his idea? In this context, the truth may not be the business ideas but something more profound.

How do we tell the truth with compassion? How do we tell the truth without hurting others? Has it got to do with intention of telling? You have to come from wanting to support and help the person. It must not comes from the ego side of you. Wanting to make the other person wrong does not help in supporting the others.

Coming from compassion. How? How do we know it is coming from compassion? You know it by the essence and the words you used. Another point of view is we can slap the person hard yet comes from a total compassion mode. So compassion doesn’t mean communicating nicely or softly but truthfully. You may communicate in a hard way but totally comes from a supporting angle. The question is by going in forcefully, will it back fire?

So what if you present the truth with compassion, but that person takes it too hard or couldn’t accept it. This flipchart “tell the truth with compassion” is weigh more towards the deliverer than the receiver. The role of the deliverer is to present the truth, he doesn’t care what the receiver’s reaction. Deliverer just tell the truth. The delivery is not responsible for the reaction of the receiver.

Many a times, we are too concern about hurting the other party that we hold back presenting the truth to them. This happens in relationship, in business, in friendship etc.

We didn’t realize that by holding back, we are not allowing our partners and friends to have a chance to grow. We are not being supportive by hiding the truth from them. It seems that we are trying not to hurt their feelings, yet on the flip side, we are actually hurting them by allowing them to behave in a certain way that doesn’t serves them.

Have you been holding back all the time? Is telling the truth hard for you? Are you trying to be Mr or Mrs Nice? Are you not allowing the person close to you to grow by hiding the truth from them? Is it time to tell the truth with compassion?

Another interesting discussion and sharing session on the Money & You lesson.

Your Response

The sharing started with the question, “what creates your response?”

The answer is, or rather all of us agree that it’s the sub-conscious. The sub-conscious is program by our environment, our past experiences, what we see, hear, smell or touch. However, do we have some natural programming that is not from the environment?

Natural responses like, when we are hungry, we will look for food. When we need to procreate, we look for sex.

When does sub-conscious started to form? Someone shared that the subconscious started developing after the age of five. So does that mean before the age of five, our response is based on our true feeling?

Based on our past experiences, all of us had different programmings on our sub-conscious which resulted in different responses for different people in the same situation. That’s why we see different results when we played the games in the Money & You room.

The next question is, can the programming be changed? Some say no, some say yes. A better word we found will be “reload” or “reprogramming.”

One of the method of this reprogramming which Tony Robbins had practiced is to drive you to a traumatic experience or extreme pain.

We moved on to a bigger picture. The whole world is a big programming computer doing its work to program us. The advertisements that may lead us to perceive certain values on a particular brand. The religion that want us to behave in certain ways. These are programming tools that wants us to believe in what they are preaching.

A very interesting question popped up. “How do we know that we are not trapped by programming?”

Having the self confidence to stand firm, not easily swayed by opinions of others. You may want to start asking better questions too. Some see a situation and say, “I can’t.” Some say, “why not?”

A quote by George Bernard Shaw that may helped us not to be trapped by programming.

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.

Are you absorbing everything that others say without thinking on your own? Are you being program by other? There is no right or wrong programming. The question is, does your programming serves you or not?

What a discussion! It is so mind challenging that left most of us brain dead after the session. Nevertheless, we learned and gain further distinction on this flipchart.

Reality Box

This is a huge flipchart, with so much depth into it. Someone mentioned about a poem by Bucky, called Cosmic Plurality.

Environment To Each Must Be
All There Is That Isn’t Me.
Universe, In Turn, Must Be
All That Isn’t Me And Me.
Since I Only See Inside Of Me
What Brain Imagines Outside Of Me
It Seems To Me, You May Be Me.
If That Is So, There’s Only We.
Me, And We Two Which Love Makes Three
Universe, Primi-Embracing It, Them, You, We

He mentioned this poem because our reality is what we see in our mind, and it is mentioned in this poem. Of course the meaning of the whole poem is not only that. But that’s not our topic of discussion.

So what forms your reality? Past Experience? Maybe. It so happened that different past experience forms different stories and realities. For example, someone who lost lots of money in stock market may think that stock market is bad. On the other hand, someone who made money from stock market will think otherwise.

If that’s the case, is reality subjective? The answer is yes, if we based it on past experiences. Then the next question is, can reality be the truth? The answer again is yes, that’s why we have generalized principles which is the truth in all cases.

The social environment plays a part in our reality too. The friends whom we hang around with, the TV shows that we watched, the advertisement that we see; all of them contributed in forming a reality in us. Even the media can condition us in a certain way.

In our discussion, it was pointed out that some informations that we learn when we were at school may not be all true. The authors who wrote the textbooks want us to think or believe in a certain thing in certain way. If that is the case, are there anyone else we can trust?

Well, shouldn’t you just think or investigate if the source is really the truth from now on? Though many of us are taught not to question the teacher, just be good and listen. But apparently that is not enough. We have to learn how to think.

It was an absolutely mind blowing session, blowing away some of our realities along the way.

After a 3 weeks break, the group get together again to discuss and learn more on the flipchart “LAG”.

Someone shared that LAG is a generalized principle from Bucky. This is what Bucky’s definition of LAG: The time between the conception of the idea to the acceptance of the idea is called LAG.

Here are some examples given by Bucky:

For electronic industry —– 6 months to 2 years
For aerospace industry —- 5 years
For motor car industry —– 10 years
For railway industry ——— 15 years
For skyscraper industry —- 25 years
For real estate industry —– 50 years

It was discussed that in the Ring Toss Game, the shorter the LAG, the better it is. However, is it really true in real situation? It really depends on where is your position. Someone mentioned that LAG can be the time between the acceptance of the idea to someone copying that idea.

Being an inventor, the person would love to have a short LAG (from idea to acceptance). At the same time, this person would like to have a longer LAG (Acceptance to copying).

LAG may be determine by the ready-ness of the market. Sometimes it may not be best to be the first in entering a new market. One example will be Coffee Club vs Starbucks entering into Singapore market.

Coffee Club is the one that first launch a lifestyle cafe into Singapore, however the market is not ready for that social change. Starbucks came in at the right time, it came in when the market is more ready for this change of lifestyle. And the result? Starbucks sweeps the market share.

If someone has a product that is way in front of that curve of market ready-ness, it will have to wait for the market to catch up to that curve. LAG is also kind of connect to the rate of change, product life cycle.

For Bucky case, he was always ahead of his time. He invented things that is way ahead of the curve. However Bucky didn’t care. He continued his invention, left it on the shelf and move on to the next invention. While he was on his next invention, he was also waiting for the market to catch up on his previous invention. He truly believes that one day, someone will have uses for his invention. And true enough, Henry Ford called him to solve some of Ford’s problems because he knew that Bucky had invented something that can solve his problems.

Now do you have any idea to apply LAG to your business?

Perturbation

A great and awesome discussion on perturbation. It started with KF sharing of his perturbation he is currently facing. There is a decision that he has to made that may result in a major change in his life, that causes him to be disturbed.

JH pointed out a very good point: Facing a decision is not perturbation, probably it’s call struggle. Only when someone make a decision, with only one way to go, not left or right, but ahead; then perturbation sets in. He will then think of all ways to make it work. This is the time he will feel perturbed.

When you are facing a decision, you are struggling; once you step your foot into it, you are perturb.

JL1 explained the definition of perturbation. It is used in scientific world, when one cell is under pressure, pressure, pressure, and finally it reach that critical point, it pops. When that happens, there is a change of state or a multiplying effect.

Apply it into our life, it is said that when we are facing extreme pressure to the point when we pop; there is a change of state to a higher level. In another words, we grow.

JL1 asked an interesting question, does perturbation stops? Most agreed with the answer from JH, it stops when there is a shift in state.

JL2 asked another question, are there times we are unaware that we are under perturbation? JH shared his view that there may be times that we are unaware. But if we are unaware, how do we change and grow?

V stated an interesting point. When we are unaware, we are in an emotional state. We struggle, feel sad, under depression. Once we are aware of the issue, have clarity of that issue, then we shift from struggle to perturbation.

In order to grow, there are self imposed perturbation. For some who probably like to throw themselves into challenges on purpose so that they can grow.

Most people make perturbation sound negative. From the discussion, we realize it is not coming from negative perspective at all. It’s a process that allow us to grow. And through the process, you may feel disturbed, uncomfortable, but the end result is a positive one.

So ladies and gentlemen, are you perturbed today? How about doing a self imposed perturbation?

I was meeting Yiming for dinner which we will then proceed to M&Y Revisit session. When I arrived at our meeting place, I’m surprised to see Lynn was there too.

She was waiting for her friend there as well, and coincidentally, she bumped into Yiming. She was meeting another friend in an hour time to bring him to the M&Y preview.

Since she still had an hour to spare, we got her to joined us for dinner. Nothing beats having a pretty lady in our table. Whooooo…the wolf is howling.

While Yiming was sharing his experience in the Chinese Business School For Entrepreneurs(CBSE), Lynn’s phone rang. Her friend couldn’t turn up for the preview. Realizing it was an opportunity to invite her to the revisit session, I asked her to join us in the discussion.

The Universe is working in such an amazing way. First she met Yiming who was also meeting me, then her friend couldn’t meet her. I strongly believe this session is for her, her bumping into us is not a coincident.

After our dinner, three of us make our way to the Revisit place. All along I thought Lynn was joining us until we reached there. Suddenly she popped, “I am a bodyguard to send you guys here. I got to make a move.” That surprised me.

Well, there’s no point asking her to stay, since she was already there, but was so keen on leaving. Probably she wasn’t ready for that session.

True enough, that session is really meant for her. The flip chart we are discussing was PERTURBATION. In fact, it was for everyone there, as throughout the session some of us brought up some issues we are facing.

Actually we were supposed to discuss some other flip chart, but I saw the PERTURBATION chart, and decided to go with my intuition.

It was really a flip chart meant for everyone in that session. I felt really good about the whole session. I also learn that when the Universe make a path for you, just go with it.

Coming up soon: watch out for the review of this perturbating discussion.

Not all of the gang are here. We have Sylvia, Kok Leong, Sinyan, Dennis, Vasu and Jean.

We gathered at Jackson coffeeshop; waiting for Dennis to bring us to his place. Initial plan was to have durians, but this plan was discarded as Sylvia, Kok Leong and Sinyan was too full to enjoy the durian session.

Heading to Dennis’s place with packets of chips - ready to chat through the whole night.

Dennis’s place is nice - a three stories house. Lynn who is on the way to Japan left a message for us in the room. The message was just like her person - SWEET.

The first thing we do was to get Vasu to read Adelene’s blog. The one that she wrote about all of us. And Vasu doesn’t read blog or I should say he doesn’t go online. He has a technology lag.

At the same time, we had a short audio with Adelene. Oh man..the audio sucks. In the end, we felt better that we stopped.

The next thing was to decide on a show to watch. After a long selection, we decided to watch Kung Fu hustle. Though everyone watched it before, but still it was a good feeling to watch it again with the gang.

The show was the warm up for everyone. Then the room was filled with chatting and laughter. After an hour or so in the room, Vasu suggested to head out for a bite; no wonder he’s getting bigger everyday.

After the bite, Vasu, Kok Leong and Sylvia went back home. Sinyan, Jean and myself headed back to Dennis’s place to have our 2nd round.

Back at Dennis’s place, we have a short game on his playstation. Sinyan actually played some games. That surprises me. Not many girls that I know of are into games.

Then we continued our chatting till 6am. All of us are too tired to carry on.

Hey gang, I enjoyed the session very much. Looking forward for the next gathering.

This has never happened before. A farewell party for my dear friend.

For the past three years, she has been flying between Singapore and Canada every four months. In the three years of knowing her, we never had a farewell party for her.

This time round we had one for her; at her favourite hangout place, Fabulous for a fabulous night.

A total of 11 of us were there. All are very close friends, been in the M&Y logistics team together. The closeness in this group is something that many couldn’t understand.

We hugged together, cried together, share issues of our life together. We are willing to do so much more for each other.

In a fabulous night, it won’t be fun without any drama. Heart attack, our usual game in such a big group; was the first on the roll.
After all the slapping of hands, drinking and laughing, we need something more to spice up the night.

The second phase of drama came. Playing something that only crazy people will play. Yes, we are the crazy people.

I will never ever do this. My dear friend, I did it for you only.

The night shifted energy from rowdiness to lovingness when our song, That’s what friends are for was played. We form a circle, linking our arms. Tears started to flow not because of sadness but friendship.

The feeling of great friendship seeped into the circle touching every single one of us.

There’s always an end to the greatest party. It was time for us to go, but we didn’t leave. I was talking to my dear friend, and a gentle “Thank you” from her brought both of us to tears.

I do not know why, probably that thank you means the end or good bye. This has never happened before; I’m getting all that emotions for a friend.

But my dear friend, I got all emotional because of you. This is a friendship that both of us shared. Remember what I told you, if you can remember. You can’t remember most of the things that happened after the bill.

My dear friend, have a safe trip home and take care.