Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Vigilance in dictionary terms is to have a sustained attention over long period of time.

In modern days, where employment, job security, plentiful food at our disposal,  man have eventually evolved into a state of laziness to such there’s a lack of natural alertness in majority of individuals these days.

From being alert to problems and solving it by ourselves in the back old days (centuries ago), man today has largely involved into easy preys if man were all to be placed and live on their own in the jungle or forest at the mercy of the animals out in the wild.

Reason being so is primarily due to the contentment with the government, security from lack of predators for our lives, thus we fall into a sense of comfort zone refusing to utilize our natural assets namely our brain, using wits to solve problems. Instead, we turn to officials, politicians, security personnel to solve our problem when we can easily solve it on our own if we just work together.

Simple things like a theft, can be easily avoided by simply concealing if not hide the valuables, jewelery from view that only encourage crimes to take place. if it’s in the wild, like how the animals search for food, once they successfully hunt and killed it, they will either hide it, and prepare for rainy days, else take a few quick bites before keeping it at a safe place from other animals who will find an opportunity to  snatch away the food. Just like cheetah trying to keep the kill away from lions, hyenas and vultures.

In the urban environment/habitat, while such animals are kept out of man’s reach and harm, there are however other preys and predators, namely man hunting on man, just that it’s in a different setting. Whereby the rich profits from the poor, sometimes, if not majority capitalizing on the gullible, naive employees like how loan-sharks squeeze their debtors dry. The only difference is that business owners, investors conceal and camouflage their  killing/hunting strategies to themselves so as to maintain and hold off any potential impending predators wanting to get a slice of the market where the money is.

One such example that’s happening every day is in the property, insurance, banking and other sales industries. Every year, globally, news articles reports of scams, frauds, business bankruptcies are all signs and tell-tale signs of modern urban war unknown to majority of the people. Failure to be aware of the urban warfare and struggle for food (money) will ultimately lead to more people going broke and end up in debts.

Even another sector/area that majority if not all (except for the health professionals) will over-look falls into taking care of their own health. Failure to do so, results in lost of income with immediate effect, so health should always be the top priority.

Being aware of our surroundings, and know the risk involved in signing any contracts for sales of anything from small gadgets to credit card, bank loans and even loan guarantors will help individuals avoid the falling into the hands of the mercenaries.

Learning the rules, skills to navigate the modern war in urban habitat will increase the odds of oneself in gaining advantage to fight against the percentage of going broke being an employee.

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Wealth is what everybody seeks. The abundance of resources, possessions, and assets.

While many seek wealth, they confuse it with money.

Money should be viewed as a tool rather than a measure of status.

While majority of the people globally all focus on earning money to make it rich, succeed in life, only the top of the corp, those who really understand the meaning of wealth, success can achieve it.

The reason why majority failed to get rich is properly due to a simple reason, they spend more than what they earn. Simple fact, but many choose to ignore this fact, and instead adopt another practice or belief, learn how to earn more money to cover up what you spend. That’s what most people are doing, digging multiple holes (traps) of financial difficulty only to refill one hole at a time while digging many holes simultaneously.

Real life case study is when people take up installments to buy property, furniture, vehicles, education loan, investment loan etc.. All involved loan while trying to get rich, having said that, that’s the worst situation that a wealthy person would do.

While many wonder what do we need to do to get wealthy. That most people wouldn’t even think about it, because those are the things that aren’t taught in school, nobody will teach others how to get rich, which in other words put oneself at more risk of competition for investments to grow own asset port-foilo, thus all schools globally only teach students how to be employees, even those teaching entrepreneurship modules, degrees are taught by professors who are knowledgeable only in theory with no physical actual experience. So at the end of the day, are degrees really that important if a person really want to succeed and make it wealthy?

Apparently not, the simplest and idiot proof method to be wealthy is first to understand what is the difference between money and wealth, what are the problems associated with money, greedy, discipline, management, investing, growing money and even finding sponsors. All of which are the important steps vital to understanding the real definition of wealth before even one can have the mental capability to sustain wealth in assets, cashflow, and managing it.

Most speakers, successful individuals only spoke and share about the importance of business ideas, but they didn’t share or mention much about the basics, thus majority are taught the advanced skills, knowledge without the basics. It’s like building castles in the air, without proper pillars as support, just a wind, flood, or fire (natural disaster) is enough to pluck out and demolish the whole building of its location into rumbles and trash.

That’s why the rich get richer, while the poor gets poorer. Only those who get it will be wealthy. Not even those smart-aleck are able to conceal or hide their tails for long, as financial crisis or global or region wide happens every 10-12 years, so it is like a circle. Only the real deal stays for the long term.

Having said that, the key to creating wealth is to bring value to the masses. Without value, there’s no room for growth.

So if you get what I’m saying, it is best for you to start working in different industry, get a clear idea of how money flows from one hand to another before switching to another industry to increase your learning growth, physically experience of business operation, running, and training employees beats education, theories taught in schools.

If you’re a parent, or soon-to-make, make it a point to throw your kids to get doing business, or at least let them earn their own money to buy the things they want themselves, and not you paying it for them. Vital to let them learn and understand how difficult it is to earn that money, so this is a life lesson that will help you in many years down to the road. Stopping your kids growing up dependent on you for their living, nor to suck your financial reserves dry. That’s long-term thinking, and at the same time, showing the kids how to take up responsibility and running a family.

When a person learns the importance of money, than only will they gradually see the light at the end of the tunnel in knowing real wealth before able to start creating wealth.

If you don’t believe it, read up or start observing how people get poorer. Especially those who struck lottery. Lucky individuals globally with no knowledge of managing money, assets will only see their money depleting day by day. After a few years, they are back to square one, in the same situation before they strike lottery.

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Beauty is what majority of people are after. From both genders, male and female, we all like to be associated with beautiful stuffs, people and places.

Like the above image, we all seek to travel to beautiful places all over the earth but we never want to be associated with ugly stuffs.

Likewise in business, in the quest of success, wealth, power, and influence. Getting connected with the right people, contacts, networks are vital for success.

Who wouldn’t want to be able to lie on the beach, doing nothing but just enjoying the sea, sky and the soil?

But not many people will be willing to undertake the difficult route ahead with the hardship and difficulties. Experiences such as poverty, hunger and opposition against all odds even family.

Not many will succeed, like the award winning picture below, it’s very real, factual that only the strongest, fittest survives.

Who ever succeeds in winning against all odds, are only than worthy to enjoy the beauty and nature. Having both passive and recurring income, without working, after laying down the foundation.

Now back to the subject proper. while the top 10 Forbes Rich List yearly are dominated by Males only. Ladies seem not able to get it.

For now, I suppose what I’m about to say might help ladies get rich and wealthy asap if they possess the right skills and connections.

It is general knowledge that ladies’ market is bigger than the males. Males spend, invest only when necessary when the time is ripe, but ladies on the other hand spend without thinking, on impulse, depending on mood most of the time, thus majority of all shopping centers only have female related retail outlets on level 1, male related outlets are at level 2 if not 3 onwards.

Having said that, it’s a clear signal, indication for all ladies who seek to get wealth without dependent on males support in any way.

The most feasible method is to help other ladies be beautiful while the creator earns a penny or dollar for every single product sold.

It may sounds simple, but not many ladies will be entrepreneur enough to even put on their thinking cap, since by right, they are legally entitled to husband’s wealth and claim up to 50% of the assets after a divorce, so why would ladies even want to do business?

Isn’t that right? Generally speaking?

The only reason why males succeed and are head and shoulders beyond the reach of ladies is solely and practically due to lack of protection globally in law from divorce where assets are split..thus forcing them to put on their thinking cap.

If you like this post, let me hear your feedback, and how I can write more relevant post to help ladies succeed.

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Principles are collectives of an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct. It is according to personal rules for right conduct. It can be moral principle, or a rule which a person fixed himself or herself to do something.

It is the ethical standards, judgment, rule of a good behavior. Everybody needs to define and refine their own principles and follow strictly to their principles and their own beliefs.

I have my own principles in doing anything and everything. Always refining my principles in details and improving on them to build creditability trust and brand myself with my principles. This way, you will position yourself on a different value worth of your intangible assets of good will that you are offering.

Different people have different perspectives leading them to their own principles based on previous experiences which they face and it is completely different among individuals. It is built on the basis on the family, friends, teaching, education, and how individuals view things, events and happenings around them. If you have absolutely no clue to what I am writing in this blog entry, ask yourself how and what do you want others to look and treat you like?

Is it to treat you like a friend, or like a pest avoiding you, or even treat you like a machine, overloading you with their own job increasing your burden without helping you in anyway in return for the help offered on your side?

How and what life do you want to live like? How do you want to be treated as? Helpful, useful or friendly person, you decide what kind of life you want to live and if you want to be an employee, or an employer.

Do you want to take control or be controlled by others at their mercy?
Start to define and refine your principles right now at this moment!!

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Succession is the order or line of those entitles to succeed one another, whereby assets and liabilities are inherited and passed on to the next successor.

Business requires successor so as to further expand the business for continuous growth into millions, billions and even trillions worth of business entity.

In order to do so, a succession plan and course of action has to be put in place before the problem even surface. Planning strategies are the surest and best way to allow the system to be in a prime position to become the next supreme leader in any arena for growth.

It also takes place in families whereby assets are frequently argued and snatched among family members when a elder family member is about to leave. Than the liabilities which often come with health care etc usually gets pushed and kicked around like a soccer ball to one another.

If you have experiences of such events and happens to be part of the process, you will understand why the wealthy and successful people are who they are today whereas the poor only take the assets and kick away the liabilities.

It is their reluctance to learn how the liabilities became a issue and solve it like a bomb disposal squad thus in future there will not be any impending bombs of liabilities growing without your knowledge.

That’s the benefits of absorbing liabilities; learning from other people’s mistakes is the best way to cut short our learning curves.

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Conduit is a natural passage way, a channel or a media to convey information.

We were born into a world full of various different passage ways. Each to different specialization in skills as employees and nothing with regards to path to be a successful entrepreneur or wealth that people dream of.

Whatever is a conduit in the world across the globe is just the natural passage way for people born into this world to become an employee, to work their guts hard, helping others but themselves get rich than wealthy.

To be wealthy and successful, don’t seek to follow the trail of a conduit built and walked by millions of people before you. Go hiking, draw and chart your own trail towards entrepreneurship with the right mentors and seek advice, coaching, and produce results.

Wealth is all about creation of assets, the more you own, the more assets in different forms will find their way to you. Wealth is not about chasing money; rather it is money chasing you with each new system you have build to allow it to start.

Getting rich is about you chasing money by working hard, and there is no possible for you to outrun and win against money. You have two legs, the money have four legs (corners) and can even fly in the air. So if you want to have wealth, find a system and learn the proven tested system to help you build your wealth.

Don’t chase after money. Let wealth chase you instead.

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Substitution is to take the place of a person or an item, to replace the place of something by having a substitute.

Using substitute is a negative habit or mindset thinking that a replacement is just as good, false conscious self-denial thoughts to our mind, replacing inferior quality or less worthy brands for the original brand.

Substitution only happens and is embraced by poor minded people who can accept anything as long as they have something. Wealthy mindset people will however reject and only accept the best they can find without allowing any room for quality drop in terms of service, product or packaging.

Look at the poor, they trying to buy electronic gadgets, latest multi-purpose handphone with camera and mobile computer built in functions wasting their money, keeping up with the fashion fad making themselves only poorer and saving less and less with each increasing month as new products are launched into the market. With new products, poor are getting poorer buying liabilities and not assets.

Look at the wealthy successful people. They purchase property, never sells it, instead they rent it out, collect rents, buy new properties, mortgage it for new property and repaying the mortgage to keep their properties. They sell only assets such as units in a building and not the ownership of the building which they still own the rights to. With a leasehold period, there’s a expiry date to the transaction, so the owner can resell the unit again when the lease term stated in the contract is due. Wealthy people build wealth; they never sell it away making others rich, they just make themselves and help people who help them get rich.

If you want to be wealthy and successful, stop accepting substitution for replacement, insist on the original, and some day you will find yourself to seek for items, assets which you never once looked at.

Learning to say ‘NO’ is a start, mastering the skill of selectively rejection by saying ‘NO’ is the mastery of skill to a wealthy mindset.

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Money is the common language regardless of boundaries as long as we all live in modern civilizations than we have a simple way to go shopping even if we don’t know how to speak their native language.

Armed with just a calculator, all you need is to press the buttons, show to the vendor and point to the item you want, than the vendor will take the calculator, clear the screen and key in the price he/she can accede to, sometimes leaving tactics are used to make the vendor sell it off at a cheaper price if the business show signs of not doing so well.

Everything we do, we earn money, buy food, study, survival, happiness, all requires money. There was once when money isn’t a need or a want, because back than, being self sufficient was still able to meet ends needs so it was more on relationship and helping one another. That particular era, had left and evolved thanks to the hindsight of the leaders of nations, but it may look like they are helping the country to progress, but it has a selfish agenda behind it also. Taking away the rights to be self-sufficient, by having their own land, set up their own stalls, don’t need to pay tax, earning their own keep, that was before and after WWII era, when I wasn’t born.

That time was the period whereby entrepreneurship flourishes and lots of successes all around. That time, money although was important, but it isn’t as important as the bonding people have in the older generation. In today’s world, to get wealthy and successful, we need to take back what we own from our nation leaders if not buy over the rights permanently, our country Singapore isn’t fully theirs yet, as there are still plots of lands belonging to a few individuals who didn’t think nor is intelligent enough to have foresight and hindsight to profit from their assets which are billions if not trillions dollars worth.

Less than a handful of individuals still own their own assets, land, plots of land which was passed down from generations, some siblings may have agreed to government ‘kind intentions’ that’s filled with hidden agenda, but it’s a willing party, so who to blame except for their ignorance and greed for instant gratification, not taking into consideration of what happens to their next few generations which are the difference between poor and wealthy mindset of people that makes them who they are.

When you show that you can depend on yourself, your assets to survive, you will be the natural king leader attracting followers, as the others must depend if not learn from you how to be self-sufficient, but no matter how they learn, they can learn everything, but they can’t take away the ownership of the land that’s exclusively to the land owner, not the government unless they surrender the rights to it.

Once you surrender your rights to the ownership, they may make it look like it’s a win-win situation, but look, you benefit only one miserable time, whereas government benefit forever having 25years leasehold, 99years leasehold, freehold properties, selling lands to big MNCs for hundred year period, than take it back. Look, if you know how to profit, wealth will find you once your brain is tune and adjusted correctly and money will follow if not haunt you, that is why the wealthy successful businessmen always fail in one thing, to spend away all their wealth which just keeps growing on its own after the ball has started rolling. That’s the one and only failure I notice that the wealthy and successful businessmen all have in common, but hey at least it’s a positive failure.

So if you still want to be wealthy go buy over lands from other countries while you still can, make sure you know how to manage your land for maximal profitability and in accordance with the owner decision and plans with the plot of land so as to have win-win situation.

When I have the money, I will also move to the place I want to live, a place where government cannot do anything there, since government don’t own the land there yet, I hope I can generate enough money to support myself and be a resident there in Singapore, earning my own keep while my wealth generation system is still running and spreading the essential tools for wealth and success provided the person is still alive and have yet to surrender the rights on death.

Money is not everything, but without money, you can’t buy anything.

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Choice is an option of careful selection between different options offered, excellent, good average or bad products, merchandise and services. Different buyer decision leads to different customer experience and satisfaction, thus creating different classes of customers and businesses targeting a specific group of customers.

Choice is an opportunity for each of us to decide what we want, how we want it, and the expected results is already clear when we make a decision, knowing that the decision we make will have direct effects affecting our desired results.

It is a very fine and thin line between making a wise choice and a negligent choice. Whatever you do, do the right thing, make the right choice, but most importantly ask the right people.

Getting wealthy is not a want, it’s a need, a necessity for Singapore given that Singapore’s high-end property is snapping up fast by foreign investors, as fellow Singaporeans, are we so useless to submit and raise the white flag and allow their to take over and run our property, assets, earning money from us? Is this a repeat of history when the British took over Singapore only to run away giving Singapore to suffer at the mercy of Japanese during WWII?

Are we throwing away our choice to the foreigners? Getting wealthy is no longer a want, it’s a need that we need to protect Singapore, and be able to lift our heads up high, able to show the world what a little red dot can do in the globe, whoever that looks down on the little red dot will regret for making that choice and for even saying it and think about it. The Singapore founding leaders have done an excellent job in this aspect, but what are the majorities of the people doing to this? Nothing, so getting wealthy is no longer a want, but a need and a must do it. The world is your oyster, will you allow others to take the credit from you, taking away your fruits of labour only paying you a miserable small sum of money?

We the Chinese holding the huge population percentage should work together instead of cutting each other fighting among one another and giving the opportunity to the on-lookers who took advantage of it. Look at China; they made a very wrong choice, to be a fake dominant country producing products, food, merchandise that’s not real, giving foreigners a chance to grab a slice of the pie. All can be avoided, but it’s the thinking of the leaders running the country that needs a good washing to plan long term and not short term.

Singapore has done a great job in this aspect, and now not many countries dare to even mention the “little” again. It’s a fact that we’re small like a dot, but together we make a difference, and are the envy of a lot of other neighbouring countries wanting our help to grow their economy.

We should and must learn how to uphold, fortify our fortress, promote the Singapore brand, increase our advantage in the region, and work together to be a wealthy and successful.

Just like Jay Chou who wants to help his fellow singers in the music industry in his country, and China also being proud of themselves without the need to neither depend on foreigners nor even bother about what the world wants. So work towards being self-sufficient and depend on ourselves for our living instead of dependent on others.

Are you going to be a loser or do you want to grow together with Singapore and shine, even if we are the little red dot, but we are in fact multiplying our little red dots in other countries with their nations’ approval, so do you want to have your imprints all over the world helping Singapore multiply the red dots in other countries or are you happy to have others taking away our hard earn labour?

As we pursue our dreams, ambitions, we can throw away our pride, ego, face, reputation, and even work like a slave, but we can never ever throw away our dignity which is the core of ourselves, something which we need to be proud of despite how little and small our efforts may be but it makes a huge difference.

Even a beggar have dignity to stay at a place, work hard at begging for food, rather than a stray dog making pitiful sounds and a sad eyes tears rolling begging for food.

Dignity is what makes us who we are regardless of how small we will make around us, but if applied and used correctly, dignity will be the source fuel like the Sun in the galaxy burning its own fumes warming other planets that stay around the sun. Like Bruce Lee, he started low, throwing away his pride, learning multiple disciplines of martial arts, keeping his dignity and respect for our yellow skin and done us Chinese proud.

Do you want to be the person offering and extending a helping hand to others or do you want to be the receiver asking for help? It’s your choice and only YOU can decide what you need!

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Reputation is the key consideration factor when doing anything be it business, going into a relationship or investing on an individual or a company.

As simple as it sounds, it doesn’t looks easy to carry out. Reputation is an intangible asset which is in the balance sheet of profit and account statement which we treat it as branding. How much does the brand cost, and what is the difference between products which is branded versus a product which is new on the market.

A new product will take time to build a base of customers by offering services for value creation and giving customers more reasons and small gifts here and there to convince and persuade customers to change direction from a brand to another. Whoever is able to command a higher perceived value in the eyes of the customers wins until the next contender surface.

Business is all about reputation, creditability, and how much he/she can influence and make customers or even strangers take his/her word with complete trust and assurance without even an doubt in the individuals’ character or personality. That to me is build on mutual trust, and a unprecedented high level of trust will be build when quality is not compromised even in big companies and franchise models. This is the true value of trust which goes a long way.

It takes from months to years to build the trust in both the brand (business) and in the leader leading the company risking his/her reputation on the line with each and every step. One wrong move will result in overnight tumble just like when a professional explosive specialist has being given the go-ahead to push the button to detonate the explosives in a vacant building to give way to new property developments.

With reputation being placed on the line, every step we take with ourselves or with our business partners, colleagues and friends should be taken into consideration first and their credentials first before signing any agreement.

If in the event, there’s no trust and credentials yet, a guarantor and disclaimer policy can be put in place before you carry out any business campaigns. By first drawing a clear line between what’s yours and what’s not, you can be sure of what and how to react in times of problems should they try to push the blame to you? Always have a mutual black and white agreement with people whom you work with so once they commit, they will have to obliged by the terms and conditions set and follow throwing away any grey to black hat strategies which they have if you are not a push-over.

Devise your own terms and conditions before hand, get to know what potential problems you may encounter if you have a lot to lose considering you’re a influential successful person. If you’re a nobody, just go right in, learn whatever you can build your trust, reputation and credentials from the first project you do.

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