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?
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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 »
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.
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.
