华商领袖郭鹤年对话

马来西亚第一家。
糖的市场很大，最存在，最容易，是必要的。
因天机挨过破产的危机。
靠一口的好英文跟西洋人谈生意。
年轻时，打好生意基础，不犯野生活，珍惜时间。
以不忘本的态度,以特别优惠卖糖给中国。
不做奸商。
不可以对客户不忠。
因该多做几家生意 - 都是有相关的。
年轻时 脾气坏。
存一亿多美元现金，用来投资中国建国。
不宣传，不用谢，不报答。
做人要孝顺，做有道德的生意。
要做好人，谦虚。
希望自己的儿女能为公司做一点好事情，做好领导。
希望儿女有一个好的生活，把善长多发展，减少弱点。

Think About What is Really Worth It

This is not about falling in love and romance.

I started off by graduating from APIIT (2002). I worked hard for my thesis project (a simulation software for taxi hunting). I am proud of it till now.

I had never thought that I will study anything related to computer because truth is, when I was younger, I really hate computers.

Ironically, I got lost (along my teenage life and messed things up) and ended up in APIIT.

I rebuilt my life in APIIT and enrolled into DF9907 and volunteered as class representative.

First year was really challenging and fun. I hadn't done any computer programming in my life and wasn't sure if I can do anything about it.

The first programming exposure was creating algorithm for Fibonaci series. I got stuck initially but I tried. Eventually, I got light about computer programming.

I started to enjoy it and spent most of first year in APIIT doing computer programming especially in the Unix lab.

The proudest moment was when I created a tic-tac-toe games with cursor using Unix COBOL. Hey, that was great you know. And I got praises from people all over.

I felt talented.

When it came second year, my confidence was crushed.

It started when I was switching from Unix based programming to Windows event based programming. I was supposed to do a client server program using VB6 Winsock and I got stuck. Somehow, the event and object-oriented thingy was confusing. I started to question my future in programming.

Even though the project was completed eventually, second year wasn't all that great.

The final year thesis was a great challenge. I really wanted to prove myself and being a risk taker, I proceed with my plans of doing a big project. I almost failed but eventually the project was a success and even the lecturer thinks that I got some stuffs to prove.

Ok, confident soared but that was a tough one.

So, landed the first job as computer programmer for a manufacturing company where me and a few guys were supposed to build the in-house ERP system. Wow! that was really ambitious you know.

If you want to know the truth, I can tell you that whatever skills you have in college will not be good enough in the real world. All of sudden, I realized that there are just so much to learn and seemed like never ending. It was that time which I began to do my own research.

By 1.5 years, I decided that I really hate computer programming and had no future for it. I felt that I was wasting time and I had to find ways to make millions.

I quit and went to sales and marketing. I did that for about 4 years and hadn't make million.

And to amaze you more, I quit sales and marketing and went back to computer programming since 2008; literally starting from scratch (but not really). It is more like a continuation.

It wasn't easy, in fact it was really tough. The first challenge was to find out where I have messed up and started fixing from there. What I mean by this is that I knew that I had to figure out where I had left out and what I didn't understand during that time and what computer programming concepts which went wrong.

Slowly and eventually(step by step, day by day), I conquered the past and master new skills.

And today, I see future in computer programming.

I am not yet famous, but I see future.

What I wanted to share here is that what kept me going was not everything about passion, it was more about worthiness.

If you are caught in such situation, you got to really think about what is worth it. For me it was basically one idea; which is if I can develop a software and sell it, I will make 100% profit. And everything is within my control. That sounds a better strategy to make millions than to sell products of others.

Furthermore, I was looking for something with accumulation effects; the longer you do, the better. And software development seemed fit.

So, when I was at a crossroad two years ago, I really suffered, lonely and unsure. But I thought about what is worth it ?

Today, I am not working as CTO of Microsoft or being a chief programmer of Google, but what I am doing is worthy to me and relevant to the industry.

When things are tough, think about worthiness and try to work around your area of interests and passions.

You have come this far, and how many more to go ?

You also need courage and a lot of it.

I will end with a quote of mine.

"I knew that I didn't choose this life, I just know what to do next." ~ Brandon Teoh.

Good luck dude.

Roger Federer Lost in Olympic Again (2008)

Image via Wikipedia Roger Federer lost again, yeah he did in Olympic 2004 (as top seed).

Quite unlikely he is going to have a gold medal for Olympic anymore.

But having a gold medal for Olympic doesn't make you world champion these days, it merely makes your country proud. Or rather to say, it is just for the fun of it.

This is especially true for people like Roger Federer (multi-millionaire in USD) as well as James Blake; both are professional tennis players.

I managed to catch the match about 1/4 through the match and 3/4 in the first set. By mere observation, I knew that Federer is not playing at his best.

Why ? I don't know. Maybe it is part of the strategy for anticipation of US open which is around the corner. Or simply, it just wasn't his day.

First of all, he just couldn't serve well. So this adds a point to what makes a world champion, you got to serve well.

Secondly, it is interesting to note that even not playing at his best, Federer did demonstrate a lot of uncanny behaviours which make him world champion. I noticed that Federer is a risk taker, comparing to Blake. Federer would risk taking wicked shots and just that this time, it didn't work most of the time. Blake on the other hand, conquered most of the important points and he won. Federer is definitely more charismatic than Blake. We would want Federer to win and he disappointed all.

The third thing that I noticed is that Federer is a practically patience man. He could just keep going under pressure. I predicted that if the game were to go on for another set, Federer may turn it around and win it in 5 sets. This also suggests that if the professional tours were to switch to 3-sets decider, Federer may not be the world champion.

And to guess why must he lose again ? I don't know, maybe it is boring. The is no passion to win.

Conclusion : What makes a world champion ?

• Critical Success factor - Serve
• Risk taker and charismatic
• Patience

Raining may be good sometimes

Yesterday, I planned to go to MPBJ to purchase monthly pass early in the morning so to avoid jam and crowds. As I was leaving the house, the sky suddenly turned on me, it became black.

I thought, wow…. Why you treat me like this. If it were to rain, convenience would be robbed from me because I have to make use of umbrella and etc. So I decided not to proceed and wait till noon.

As soon as I walked into my office, the sun came out roaring. I thought… oh gosh, this is my bad day.

Then came noon, I quickly jumped into my car and went ahead. And the sky turned dark and darker again. I said to myself .. “God is really against me today, I must have done something wrong.”

Then without doubt, it rained.

I went on…. There were some traffic congestions along the highway, but was okay.

As I was reaching the destination, things were totally out of my expectation.

Rains were slowing down and the best part is that due to the rain, there was no crowd and parking was easy.

So, then I thought “wow!, this is good actually.”

So… this experience improves my IQ (which is that rain does scare away the crowd because everybody was thinking about the same thing …) and definitely … Haha. Great!