Bill Watterson's career advice

Bill Watterson is my favourite cartoonist of all time. In my Calvin & Hobbes collection, my favourite book is the Tenth Anniversary one because Watterson takes the time to explain his thought processes and the background behind some of the key cartoons he has drawn.

Recently, a cartoonist named Gavin Aung Than decided to pay tribute to Watterson by illustrating some of the messages that Watterson gave in his 1995 commencement address at Kenyon College in 1995, in the style of the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strips. In it, he told students to follow their heart and their dreams, and not to prioritise financial gain. He even encouraged that there was nothing shameful about raising your family over chasing a career, and taking less salary to pursue your passion.

I'm so inspired by this man who has made such an impact on my childhood and I'm glad that a friend sent me the link to the strip below. (If it's too small to read, you can go to the site directly.)

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The job title

As a business owner, I have to confess that I was rather excited when I watched 'The Social Network' and saw one of Mark Zuckerberg's early name cards. It was brash, arrogant and sent a message that he had every confidence he would succeed no matter what others believed or what challenge was faced.

Whether he eventually succeeded or not was not the point. It was that there was a strong self-belief which would not be cowed and intimidated by doubters around. A self-belief which is needed when someone wants to significantly cause a big enough disruption to an industry or provide an innovative enough solution for others to sit up and take note.

It made me think about when the side business started up and all the partners sat around a table in McDonalds (we didn't even have an office in the first year of operations!). We were talking about what to put on our name cards and evaluating the pros and cons of different titles.

The initial idea was to give ourselves high level titles. After all, we were starting up our own business where we would be top management, and we could hold job titles which we would not even hope to be at for many, many years in our current full-time companies if at all.

CEO, Managing Director, Managing Partner, General Manager, COO, Business Owner...all lofty titles which we could use to boost our fragile egos. And to be honest, I've seen it work in different situations.

I encountered a stranger recently who was probably around 30 years old and when he gave out his name card, it said "CEO". I saw my group of friends pass it around suitably impressed. Although they realised that he ran his own business in order to give himself that title, he was very well-spoken and drove a nice car so the impression he was trying for worked. The single girls were already considering his eligibility for a life partner whilst the ones who already had partners were thinking of which of their friends they could introduce to him.

In networking and customer relationship building for major accounts, a high level title can also be a positive thing. People tend to appreciate it more when they know they are talking to 'the big boss'; they feel that their time is being valued and are particularly grateful if their needs and wants are sincerely heard and responded to.

But to cut a long story short, none of us partners opted for a high level job title. We were just starting out without an office and without full time employees. Imagine being a CEO of a company with no staff - there would be no point.

At the same time, we were starting out with cold calls and a lot of small clients on a project-by-project basis. These were customers who did not understand the amount of work required for digital execution and who thought that making changes constantly up to launch date could be done at a snap of ones fingers - they squeezed us at every opportunity for discounts, extra functionality, maintenance and anything else they could think of. In these cases, it was practical for someone to be able to go in with the excuse that he had tried his best but the top management could not approve more changes or discounts because it would mean completely no margin for that project.

The job titles that we decided on were: Senior Account Manager, Business Development Manager and Project Manager. Although they still have the word 'Manager' in them, it didn't indicate that we were part of top management and gave flexibility in how we could approach customers and business relationships.

Now a couple of years later, we have a respectable office space, seven full-time staff and don't focus on small clients anymore. Opportunities for projects no longer come from cold calls but more from long-term relationships with larger agencies and competing with other companies in open pitches.

Maybe it's time to look at how our roles have evolved along with the company's progress, assess what would most accurately represent what we currently do, and what would provide the most impact for future business relationships. It will be exciting to revisit the design and job titles on our name cards for 2013.

Let's see where this takes us.

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The Startup Kids

This documentary is my next must-watch video if I can get my hands on it.

It's definitely something that gets my blood racing especially because it relates to the tech business I founded awhile back which I'm still actively involved in.

It's clear that the video takes on an angle to inspire more people to take the plunge into entrepreneurship and may paint an unrealistic picture of what it means to start a business by focusing on success stories, it's motivational nonetheless.

Here are some of my favourite quotes from the trailer.

This is the most manic-depressive way you could possibly live life. You’re never having a good day; you’re either having the best day ever or you think you’re about to die.

Everything you’re doing is basically something you’re just barely qualified for or not qualified for at all. It’s like jumping off a cliff and having to build your own parachute.

I remember writing letters to my friends and family saying, “sorry, you don’t know me anymore”. I just let all my relationships go because nothing was as important as this.

I don’t know why anyone thinks that our lives are all rainbows and sunshine.

Being successful in your own company; there is no freedom like it in the whole world.

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Finishing strong

I’ve started to appreciate the concept of finishing strong quite a bit more ever since I began the ‘exercise more regularly’ initiative in August.

The way you finish can significantly determine the quality of your workout.

When I first started doing the Insanity sessions, I would try to push as much as I can but many times I’d feel like vomiting and have to stop before I even reach the halfway mark of the video session. Nowadays, I listen more to my body and pace myself at a level which gives me a good sweat out but yet allows me to reach the last part of the workout, where I give it my all.

It’s the same when I jog. I really don’t enjoy it so to keep going more than 5 minutes is a true mental obstacle to be overcome. But no matter how many stops, starts and rests I’ve had, when it comes down to that last lap, I push all the way, faster and further than earlier in the session.

There is an immense difference in the final quality of the workout.

I end each session bathed in sweat, panting, with my muscles screaming. I’m on a high mentally because I know that at my body’s most fatigued point, I gave one last, big push and I overcame the last, ambitious goal.

I’ve tried doing those pushes at the earlier or middle parts of the workout but the result is not the same. There is something about the finish line that is so critically important.

And this applies to my life as well. The way I finish is so integral to everything I do.

In tough seasons, it’s what determines whether the purpose of going through it is realised and how powerfully. It affects what you actually learn and how much capacity you build.

At work and business, it determines the final outcome and success. Sometimes, even if everything has been done wrongly prior, a change at the 11th hour or a couple of all-nighters can turn around a failing project to be the best work you’ve ever done.

In ministry, Murphy’s law happens and nothing has gone right that week. Family emergencies, dropping the ball at work, your health breaks down, and the last thing you want to do is get up on stage and sing about the victory of Christ. But at that point when you feel beyond tired, you cry out to God and He moves in a way and anointing that you’ve never experienced before because it’s almost like He’s waiting for you to be emptied of yourself before He steps in.

And ultimately even in our walk of faith. We could have never found God our whole lives but if five minutes before we pass, we discover Him, and sincerely ask Him into our hearts, the same crown of salvation is bestowed as upon any believer who’s known God for their whole lives.

This is not to say that the start and the middle aren’t important. If you don’t start, you’ll never accomplish anything at all. And if you don’t go through the process, there’s nothing to consolidate at the end of the day that is of substance.

But the end is sometimes underemphasised. That’s what brings it together. I believe the learning happens mainly at the finishing stretch and not in the middle.

The point where you realise what it’s all been for and begin to step forward.

The point where you realise that there’s a bigger picture and embrace it fully.

Finishing strong. It matters.

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Falling

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Ideas

Over and over, I keep encountering people who prioritise the ‘idea’ stage of a business project or initiative. They’re so secretive and their biggest fear is that their idea will be stolen before they can bring it to the market. These people are so paranoid that they eventually maintain the idea at a very elitist level and do not really allow it to get the robust treatment it needs because they stay in such an enclosed silo.

I’ve been asked to sign NDAs for ideas which were so poorly thought out that if I were given 20 minutes, I could flesh out a plan many times better. And this is not to say that I’m more intelligent, the presented ideas were just so bad that any random guy walking off the street could come up with it in 5 minutes.

I don’t get it. Why are people guarding their ideas so jealously? And from what I see, these people either don’t even get around to taking their idea to the market or even worse, they bring a very superficially planned out concept which falls flat on its face despite the initial investment.

I’m not saying that the idea is not important. But it’s maybe 5% of the entire piece and the foundation doesn’t even necessarily have to be a good idea. You need to constantly customise to where your market and locality is, based on real feedback from real customers, and many times, the final product will come out completely different from the initial idea.

Ideas are a dime a dozen and I sincerely believe that whatever I can think of, hundreds and thousands would have thought it already somewhere around the world. So the moment I come up with what I feel is a winning idea, I start talking about it from whoever I can talk to in order to get feedback from different sources.

I get tonnes of negative feedback about how it won’t work but I pay attention most to why people don’t think it will work and try to come up with solutions for it. And there are those who believe it will work but want to suggest improvements or pitfalls to consider. Finally, I love to go to business mentors whom I respect and try to get their feedback.

My point is that I’m not protective about my ideas at all. Most people have better things to do with their time than to steal an idea and do the hard work of implementing on their own. Once in awhile, you might hit a bad egg but it’s not worth missing out on all the direct feedback and refined ideas which come about as a result of hashing it out with as many people as you can.

So next time you come with an idea, please don’t act like you’re guarding it with your life, revealing little tidbits here and there like you don’t trust anyone. That idea is honestly worth nothing unless you are able to implement it and demonstrate that the plan is robust enough to survive the market. Thinking that you’re the only one intelligent enough to have that idea is arrogant and most assuredly false.

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Draw Something

I am REALLY impressed with the app Draw Something. It’s truly amazing in terms of success and what it has achieved shouldn’t be too surprising when you look at the brilliant design and user experience the game provides.

Let’s look at some of the numbers.

In 5 weeks, there were over 20 million downloads, 12 million of which are very active.

It makes revenue amounting to a 6-figure sum EVERY SINGLE DAY.

It’s made more in 5 weeks than the company who produced it, OMGPOP, made in all of 2011.

Just like Rovio which had made 51 games before Angry Birds stormed into the world, destroying one pig at a time, OMGPOP had many games on its browser site before coming up with Draw Something.

Both companies had not experienced a lot of success in the past but kept persevering, finally deciding to methodically create a great user experience game.

And guess what’s going to happen? You’re going to find a lot of new games which require two people to play and interact flooding the market over the next 6 months because everyone is going to think it’s the new secret formula.

Arguably, Words with friends was the first real huge success game requiring two-person gameplay but it’s going to be interesting to see whether any others make it.

Hats off to Draw Something for capturing an untapped market so devastatingly effectively and really…I can’t say enough about how wonderful their UI design is.

I truly love what they have done.

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Moving forward

Since the beginning of the year, this song has been speaking to me and I've decided that it will be my theme song for the year. It's been an extremely rocky and difficult start to 2012 but nothing is going to hold me back this year.

Interestingly enough, I decided to use it for my side business kick off presentation theme song as well. And with all my heart, I believe that our breakthrough as a business will come this year. I sense it in my spirit and in my bones, and I believe that we're going to see amazing things this year. We've worked hard for the last three years but something will shift this year and all the momentum we've built up will release to bring the company forward.

I can't wait.

I leave you with my favourite part of the song: "The tension is here between who you are and who you could be, between what it is and what it should be."

The choice is yours.

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Business pitfalls

I’ve gone against a lot of conventional business wisdom when I started up the side business.

And I have to be honest – there were times (and there are still times) I wondered if I were making fundamental, critical mistakes but for better or worse, we’re where we are today.

Here are a few of the main ones.

Number 1: Don’t start the business part-time. You have to be committed and passionate enough to leave the safety of your job, and build the business full-time wholeheartedly.

I considered this many times from the start of the business. I really did. At some points, I really wanted to and even prayed through it but even though I considered about a million different permutations of how I could fit in, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t time and I would hold back the company.

Not taking a salary was not an option because of the personal expenses I have and it would have had significant impact on the company cash flow. The game plan is still for me to join at some point but this realistically won’t happen until January 2013 at the earliest.

Number 2: Don’t start a business with good friends.

I understand the merits of this statement but if you’re starting a new business with no track record and no startup experience, nobody’s going to want to ‘get in bed’ with you except for friends.

Friends who have come together and realised that they have a mutual passion for a business, who bring complementary capabilities, knowledge and networks, and most importantly, who have a measure of trust with each other.

Of course, it can go wrong very, very quickly. I don’t even have a specific answer to why it’s worked for us the last 3 years. We’ve just kept our focus on the big picture of growing the business in the best way and worked things out step by step.

Number 3: Don’t start with too little capital investment

We started with very, very little capital investment. For the first two years, we started with RM10,000 and focused on keeping overheads to zero. Then in the third year we started recruiting heavily and now have five fulltime employees, and we raised another RM40,000 for this expansion, which doesn’t even cover two full months of operational expenses.

Yet, we’ve kept afloat and focused on building business with an acceptable margin from day one. This philosophy continues until today – to make enough operational income from the get go to finance monthly cash flow. This may have constrained the speed of our expansion because we couldn’t take all the risks we wanted but it also provided a framework for prudent growth and for building a steady, sustainable model of business.

Number 4: Have a detailed business plan

Don’t get me wrong. I love business plans. I’ve completed my MBA and know how to create wonderful looking plans. But sometimes it can be a lot of work for nothing. You can have all the strategies and plans mapped out perfectly but what matters at the end of the day is execution, and not everyone likes to refer to a detailed plan, especially in the intensely dynamic world of startups.

I started working on a funky business plan in the early stages of the company but it has since just sat on my shelf collecting dust. What worked for us was having a clear vision and then to just hustle and work hard towards that general direction while being flexible to adapt to daily changes. We just had make sure that we kept aligning towards the core vision along the way, with some key measures of performance and targets kept in our focus.

In summary, building a startup is not about following a rigid guideline of success factors or conventional wisdom. It's about doing the best that you can with what you have every single day, with an extreme prejudice towards action and execution.

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Information overload

I’ve been having a few conversations with a friend about the importance of technology such as the Internet, smartphones and tablets.

He mentioned that no amount of money would convince him to give up Internet for the rest of his life because everything revolves around it and was rather surprised when I said I don’t mind giving it all up for a certain sum of money.

I’m finding that technology is becoming a major pain point. I love knowledge and learning, and so I try to find ways to incorporate technology to facilitate this. However, to stay up-to-date with all the latest information and content regarding certain topics is literally making my head feel like exploding every day.

In order to keep up-to-date with technology news and have regular entrepreneurship inspiration for my side business, I’m using Google Reader and Twitter. Some of the sites can churn out 200 articles per day and the amount of content that needs to be scanned through to pick out what is important is mind-boggling.

For church ministry, I also subscribe to content and updates through e-mail and twitter so that it helps to keep me aligned that there is a spiritual purpose and centrality to everything that I do.

I’m finding that lowest on the food chain is the social side of things where once in awhile I log into Twitter and Facebook in order to see what some friends and family are up to but this has become a much less common activity.

I honestly told my friend that I much preferred the days when I didn’t bother about Internet and the corresponding social and content connectivity. In the past, I would call a friend from a fixed line to another fixed line, and we’d arrange to meet at the tennis courts or meet a group of friends for mamak. In order to learn about a topic, I would buy a book and read it slowly, absorbing everything I needed to at my own pace.

But as I observe the kids nowadays and how they handle smartphones, tablets and computers, I understand that it’s really for the new generation. A generation who grew up thinking that keeping up with all this fast-paced information was normal and effortless. I have seen 2 year olds use iPhones faster and with more comfort than myself.

I’m finding it hard to keep up although I feel that it’s necessary.

I suddenly realise that I’m old and am no longer the ‘younger generation’.

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Entrepreneurship

Starting a company requires you to become oddly unemotional. That means dumping
fear of failure, dumping fear of judgement, dumping the desire to impress anyone.

~Max Levchin~

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Bubble

Quite awhile back, there was a dot-com bubble which burst around the year 2000. There was an incredible hype around the Internet and on web start-ups, and those which listed on stock exchange had such exponential growth that everyone jumped in without properly assessing the fundamentals of the investment.

Then it crashed and the successful dot-coms became dot-bombs. And so many people got burned that they never wanted to believe in these risky web based start-ups anymore.

Flash forward to present day. It’s happening again. People have short memories.

Everything is online. Venture capital is flowing into tech start-ups at an incredible pace and at incredible amounts. Valuations are blowing through the roof in IPOs.

And much of this is going on without the companies even turning a profit. There’s no positive cash flow. Some don’t even have a viable business model yet and are still trying to figure out their identity.

The business game is changing and everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon. It seems that as long as you have a big base of users, a database of a captive audience and an online community established, you don’t even need to monetise the site yet but there’ll be people cueing to have a slice of the pie.

But there’s a danger and although I don’t see it slowing down yet, I believe that it’s a bubble and that the valuations are far greater than the real value of many of the tech companies out there.

A company could very easily burn through their capital and never reach the critical mass and turning point of properly monetising what they have, especially when you look at the amount of marketing and SEO it takes to maintain the popularity of an online website nowadays. Not everyone has a model which can readily draw a huge amount of loyal, repeat users consistently.

I think we have to be careful in how we approach the current environment even as everyone gets excited over the daily success stories of online start-ups. It’s so easy to get distracted and not be able to focused on what your own company does best. It’s so easy to envy the success and want to emulate it. But in the end, there are too many people trying to hit homeruns and strike jackpots, forgetting that you’re far more likely to win the game by sticking to your core strengths and competencies.

In this context, focus is far more important than keeping up-to-date with the latest fad.

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Group buying

Nowadays, the name of the company that is synonymous with the concept of group buying is Groupon. Everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon – both the business vendors using the site’s services and the competitor sites coming up – and the concept is still picking up momentum in Malaysia.

I like the concept of group buying and it’s here to stay.

But to be frank, I’m not too keen on Groupon.

I have someone close to me who tried using their services as a business vendor and from what I can see, the system they use can do far more harm than good to the business signed on.

Firstly, they usually ask you to provide at least 50% discount on your existing prices.

Secondly, on the remaining revenue, they take around 50% of the gross sales. This means the business vendor only gets 25% of what they would have originally received from the usual sale of a product or service. Many times, this will not even allow the business to cover their cost.

Thirdly (and this one I find the most absurd), with each sale, there will be instances where (maybe 20 or 30%) of the time, coupons aren’t redeemed and the buyer just forgets about it or lets it burn. In this situation, Groupon keeps 100% of the money and does not share a cent with the business vendor.

Fourthly, when the sale has been made online, Groupon only gives 50% of the money collected to the business vendor so that, in the event coupons are not redeemed, they get to keep 100% of the money from these coupons before passing the remainder of the fee back to the business vendor.

This is as cutthroat as it gets, folks, and my prediction is that this business model will not work in the long-term because the vendors don’t feel that there is any fairness. So many competitors are still coming out for Groupon, and some of them are offering to take as low as 20% of the sales instead of 50%.

There are many models for group buying sites and Groupon will eventually have to reduce their margins and treat vendors better if they are to sustain their success. The main reason why they are successful at this point of time is because they are still the most popular site and businesses still find it attractive to have an immediate access to a big pool of customers (even for very low margins or sometimes negative margins).

This is reinforced by the slowdown in the economy where struggling businesses feel that low margins are better than none, or that even if it’s below cost, at least some revenue is coming in. Some businesses may absorb it under marketing and advertising budget, and treat it more as a marketing exercise to get their name out. Some businesses may just need to keep their staff whodepend on commission happy during slow months.

Whatever the reason, Groupon continues to be successful but I’m just waiting for the day when other sites offering fairer deals take over. Until then, my sympathies are with business vendors who still have to rely on Groupon for a quick, short-term increase in their operations.

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RIP Steve Jobs

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

~Steve Jobs~

What would you do if you knew you were going to die soon?

How would you live everyday?

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Online business

When I talk to people about business, most of them do not realise how difficult it is to actually build a successful company. Everyone I talk to has so many great ideas, so many solutions and a very simplified approach to making money. In particular, online business has become the new buzz topic as people read more and more news about sites that made it big quickly such as Groupon.

I’ve come to realise that there are no short-cuts. It doesn’t mean that you need to get all your ducks in order and take too much time to prepare everything perfectly, but it means that you’ve got to be ready for the long-haul and the investment of time, resource and money in order to make your idea a success.

And in terms of online sites, all people see is the website that pops up when they type in the URL. Very quickly, the conclusion reached is that it’s easy to get the site developed within a short time frame and cheaply. Then, it begins to generate income for you as you sleep and as you go to your full-time jobs. They neglect to understand the back-end system, functionality and resource that it takes to bring the site to success and, as importantly, to keep it there.

Many of the successful online sites have a team of full time workers to maintain the site and processes involved, sales personnel to sell ad space and to link up with affiliate sites, and sometimes even events people to handle road shows and publicity. At the same time, the advertising and marketing costs can be very substantial, especially if you’re looking to do extensive SEO.

The burn rate can be very extensive and there are no guarantees that your site will do well, regardless of whether it is a good idea or not. The fact that it is online means that it is easily replicable so you need to build up a loyal base of users quickly and to keep them around somehow. Networking and connections are very important especially when you’re looking to build an affiliate system of business.

You’ve always got to be prepared to face someone else out there with more capital and a better network, which can very quickly shut you out.

And if you think you’re the only one who’s come up with a certain idea…chances are that 20 others have already started working on it if it’s a good idea (of course, around 19 will completely suck at their first attempt), and it then comes down to who can build a bigger base of loyal users faster, and provide the best offerings.

So if you still want to go ahead with that brilliant online business idea, you better have the time, resources and capital to back it up if you really want to succeed.

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The Final Lecture

Inspiring. Sincere. Impactful.

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Fresh graduates

The website company has been recruiting for a new full-time programmer for the last couple of months and it's been interesting to see the mindsets of the fresh graduates nowadays.

There were some articles in the newspaper recently about why there are so many unemployed graduates in Malaysia. The initial responses spoke about their bad attitude and arrogance coming out of their studies, and about the unrealistic salary expectations they had. But after that, there were many responses defending fresh graduates and the cost of living as well.

I'd like to give my two cents on this.

In general, I really don't like the quality of the fresh graduates nowadays. The way they carry themselves is appalling. Once in awhile, you get a real gem, but these are rather rare exceptions to the rule.

Sometimes when I see good grades from a local university or college, I wonder about the standing of the institution but I usually give the benefit of the doubt and call the interview. But more often than not, the grades are so poor even from local institutions. Many candidates can't speak English properly and don't even dress up appropriately for the interview.

And the salaries they're asking for...they must have heard the highest range either from a job agency or a classmate who happened to hit it lucky, and then they start quoting it as the general trend. Fresh grads with no experience and mediocre grades are asking for RM2.8k and insisting that it is the norm? Maybe if you're the cream of the crop but most likely not for the average joe.

I concede that the cost of living is higher nowadays but businesses also need to survive in order to continue paying their employees and as a business owner, I have no problems paying even above market rates if needed, but only after a person has demonstrated the value that they bring which is better than those out there. I would not pay good value to take a punt on a punk with no experience and a swagger that says he is entitled to everything the world has to offer.

Good value cannot be demonstrated until an employee has worked for six months to a year, and has really taken the initiative to create and add value at work. Demonstrate good worth and then negotiate better terms. In the worst case scenario, if the company refuses to acknowledge your value, then walk away with good experience tucked under your belt, and confidence (not swagger) in what you know you can achieve and deliver.

It's better than sitting there demanding a high salary without knowing what you can offer a company, and without properly knowing what the market is currently paying, just relying on hearsay from a friend.

On a side note, banks are really spoiling the market. I've never liked banks in the first place in terms of what they do to get people in debt and to spend more money they do not have. Sometimes, the medium who provides the temptation has to take a little bit of responsibility as well when people fall for that temptation, although I admit it's more the individual's fault in weightage.

But now banks are offering completely fresh graduates a minimum of RM2.5k and poaching from SMEs all around them to gather talent by paying higher than market rates. They haven't really given the market time to catch up and the SMEs are really finding it tough to secure and hold on to good people. It is not a positive trend for the development and growth of small businesses in our country and economy.

As a result, small start ups are often left with the leftovers. The tens of thousands of unemployed graduates who go for interview after interview, or who have given up and stay home depressed waiting for a relative or friend to hook them up. There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

Better to go in to a good learning environment, get paid less than market rate to learn everything there is to learn for a year, building up experience, capability, specific technical skills and confidence, than going for interview after interview demanding a salary you heard you should get.

There's no free lunch.

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Tenacity

One of the things I've learned about business is to have the correct balance between passion and patience.

If you've come to stage where you feel that you are ready to start a business, chances are you're pretty darn passionate. You have most likely braced yourself for the rough road ahead and have enough fire in your belly to feed the confidence and belief that you're going to succeed no matter what happens.

The place where I realised I was lacking was in patience.

I wanted to conquer the world and I wanted it now. I wanted my ideas to be executed and implemented quickly to see the fruits of my labour. I wanted to prove the doubters that I could make it against the odds.

Not too long after, I realised that energy and passion only carry you so far. I found out that there were restrictions to budget, resources, capability and skillsets which meant that many ideas couldn't be implemented yet...or in the foreseeable future if ever.

It took me awhile to understand that a business is less about having an exact, perfect road map and strategy to execute without deviation, and more about having a general, powerful vision of which you keep yourself aligned to but with flexible, malleable activities every day to keep pushing the ship in the general direction of the vision.

Sometimes, you have to deviate, but you have to keep readjusting the rudder and make sure you're headed in the correct direction, adapting to daily situations accordingly. You may not see the results straight away but you have to keep the faith that as you head in the right direction despite storms and rain, that you will finally see land.

To achieve this, patience is as important as the passion that brought you into business in the first place.

Some people call it tenacity.

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Creative advertising

This. Is. Seriously. Awesome.

I love the creativity and if the modern company is going to build their branding today, this is the type of cutting edge design which will be needed for the online audience who is growing increasingly tech-savvy at a rapid rate.

I'm inspired.

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Validation

It's so easy to get excited about concepts such as bouncing back from failure, learning from mistakes and not giving up. But at the end of the day, when we look back, there are probably more times we didn't learn from our mistakes than when we did; we're just a lot more likely to remember the times we grew and learnt from specific situations, especially when we're retelling it to someone else later on, supposedly as a more learned and wiser person.

Not many people are going to look back and say, I went through this situation, and I didn't learn from it at all. They are going to say things like, I went through this difficult circumstance and I didn't know it at the time but it has given me this skill, this inner strength, this capacity to handle more...

At the end of the day, human beings just want to validate their lives whether to those around them, to God, or most of all, to themselves. They need to justify why they do things, react in certain ways, make critical decisions, and they need to be at peace with them.

In a way, this process of validation can actually prevent people from learning from their mistakes because it can take a long time to admit it was a mistake in the first place since it invalidates your original decision and action as having less worth than you originally thought.

And admitting this is usually very painful.

So many people go deeper into their mistake, allowing future choices and actions to continue trying to validate that original flawed decision. And like a gambler, not willing to face the fact that the money lost no longer belongs to him or her, ups the stakes instead of resetting the strategy to the current position. Not coming to terms with the consequences of a wrong move, the person continues down a spiral of irrationality allowing the sunk cost to drive the decisions.

Some people need to hit rock bottom before they are forced to come to terms. Some don't.

The first step of true learning is humility.

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