Capital, Knowledge Or Courage?

What does it take me to start a business? Capital, Knowledge or Courage? Some say, "If you don't have money or capital, you can't run the business or even register a company name"- Right; some will say, "Even if you have money, without the knowledge you don't even know the first step to get your business going" - Correct too! And some will also say, "Without courage, nothing is possible" - True enough. It seems like all of them are needed.


To me, yes, I do not deny that I need capital (money or funding), knowledge (but I will extend this to experience & business connection), and courage (guts) to start a business. But the good news is that you don't have to start a company before you can do a business. Just go with a comission based project, consultation, or distribution. Until you think you do need to show people with your name card, then just register a sole proprietorship at the Mall, second floor, which only costs you RM150 (don't tell me you don't even have RM150 in your saving, if so, you are really in a deep financial shit). But then if you don't have an appropriate knowledge, then go learn it. Ask an expert, get a mentor, get a job in a relevant industry, attend some relevant seminar boost up your business sense. Just go get the knowledge you need to get, this is what your brain is for-- to store knowledge. But above all, all you really need is COURAGE. You can't loan it nor buy it from anyone or anywhere else. It will only come if you have a burning desire and determination to make a CHANGE in your life. Without courage, you ain't nothing, you will be fear of getting out of your comfort zone, fear of unstable income, fear of losing the valuable leisure time, and fear of whatever even a potential customer standing right in front of you.

All entrepreneur wanna-be, just get you mental block eliminated. Starting a business is really not that hard. Just do it (with calculated risk), BE POSITIVE, and amend the flaws along the way. Always get a second opinion on your business plan from those successful businssman around you. Try not to or perhaps NEVER get opinions from those who are not even in a business themselves (unless you are doing marketing research), because most often they will mislead you or worse, discourage you to the extend to increase your fear factors.

"Get you mindset correct is priority, after that anything else won't be a matter to you anymore."-SL Ong

Birthday Means Older??!

It's always delightful to greet one a Happy Birthday... but most of the time when i greet someone Happy Birthday, they always feel great with the birthday but get a bit upset with their brand new age.


Today is the birthday of a friend of mine in Singapopre. As usual, I great her "Happy Birthday" with joy on MSN. She replied "Thank you, but I'm a year older again". I said, "No! You have just earned a year of valuable life experience."

Obviously, everyone sees one thing differently, I would rather see everything positively. I am grateful for every second that the universe has granted me to experience and explore the beautiful world. Every new year, I will have a quick review of my achievements in the past year.

Then I'll virtuely patch my shoulder and say, "Good job buddy, keep up the good work" and I'll look forward to the achievement in the coming year.

"Birthday is just a milestone in my life journey, I don't care what my age is, just Celebrate It" - SL Ong

What You Focus on EXPANDS!! True Enough

Just a quick review of what I've learned two years ago. After going through a few major seminars, trainings and talks for entreprenuer in the past 2 years, I admitted that I have great burning desire to venture into almost any new businesses, I will have a better chance of being retired in 35 with financial indepandent and personal freedom. In the past two years, I have so many opportunities and connections to JV in business. I involved in other than my core logistics business, and also joint-venture with my wife and other partner in construction (M&E and C&S), electronic product distribution, real estate, renovation, and natural product distribution.

No doubts, those years are pretty 'challenging' for me. Too many things happen in one time with too little time, I just couldn't handle them all. As a result, my new JV businesses didn't go well at all, to be more specifically, they almost lost my time and money.

I took my lesson from "Stucked?! Just Get Unplugged", and quickly reviewed the progress of all my businesses. By doing what I was doing not only stopped me from having personal freedom, but also consume more of my time. Therefore, we have to carefully choose the businesses that are worth doing. Several criteria we need to concern were the profit margins, potentials, flexibility, and most importantly, our passion towards the business. Eventually, we decided to drop all the JV businesses except my logistics business and natural product distribution business. Me and my wife will truely positively focus on each business, respectively.

All we did was just putting more time and effort on our own business and visualized the results we want almost everyday. When focus, our visualization is much more vivid and it is so real until felt the resonance in our heart and we know the result that we look for will be coming very very soon.

Soon enough we started meeting the right person in expanding our business, we even received the unexpected sales. Less than a year, each of our businesses has a tremendous growth. My logistics business has a total net growth of 10% (after I successfully achieved "giving away control is gaining power") and my wife's distribution company at first a sole distributor has turned to become the manufacturer for the product itself. Cool eh?

FOCUS - Oxford Dictionary defines to give full attention into something - how much simplier can it mean?

Right Personal Profile Makes the Right Business Team

After having a not-so-successful partnership in business with my best friend, I have realized that two dominant persons are quite difficult to work together in one team - As chinese saying, "Two Tigers Can't Reside in One Hill"


Recalled a few years back in my first and also the last employment when I first came back to Malaysia after my studies in Canada, my employer has sent me to a pretty well-known US program called Money & You where every participant has to fill up their DISC profile.


D.I.S.C. defines 4 major personality profiles in human - Dominant(Controller), Influencial(Promoter), Supportive(Supporter), and Competent(, respectively. A couple of years later, I went to the Asia Work's Effective Communication program, which also helps the participants to identify their category of personality. Later on, I have also found out several programs that work in the similar way. But most importantly, it is for me to identify what kind of personality profile in me and how I utilise it in my buiness. Each profile has its strengths, weaknesses, and its sensitivity or hot button. For instance, people in Dominant group do not want to be told what they should do or how to do his/her job. Worst, if you say they 'suck', they will either hate you for life, or work their ass off to prove that you are wrong.


Each people in a certain profile group communicates differently from the people in other profile group. These programs helped me to identify why the partnership with my best friend didn't work out so well. Due to the research of those profiles, Dominant group is pretty stubborn but very decisive. However, they really do not want their decisions to be overwritten by any party. That will eleborate further why my best friend and I cannot be in the business together.

Anyway, the main point here is learn about yourself and study other's people profiles. So that you can easily identify what kind of person you talk to after 15 mins of conversation, so you know that what should be said and what should be kept quiet while building relationships with a stranger.

This information also allows me to choose who to be my business partner or my management team, and work well with them. So, what's your profile?

"Knowing yourself is more important than studying others" - SL Ong

Let Loose and Get Juice

Have you ever been stuck in your work or business? How would you overcome such misery? For me, I'll just plug myself off my office chair immediately, leave the office as far as possible and let LOOSE.

Once in awhile, we'll run defragmentation process in our computer to housekeep the junk files once it is performing slower than before. As for myself, I'll take half day or full day off, go shopping, watch movies, take a nap, or have a fine dining whenever I'm stuck in problems. By cracking my head to resolve the problems while there are lots of junk thoughts in my head, the result will normally do not come out good.

Instead of being less productive, I would rather be zero productive today but 100% productive tomorrow. It's not a crime for me to be slacking off sometimes while my brain is not functioning the way I want. It's proven that our productivity is greater when our mind is clearer. That sort of comfort me that skipping classes during my school time was not a bad idea after all :P

"Short break rejuvenate brain cells, yet too long a break promotes laziness" - SL Ong