Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Change is the transformation from something to another thing. It is to become different, pass gradually into something else.

Since the time men started roam the earth, we underwent lots of changes to who we are today. With different nationalities language, tribes and religions we all still come from the same roots and origins, from the monkey family.

Fast forward to present, and staying local in Singapore, this nation has underwent so much changes that the kampong days are long gone, even the friendly neighbourhood atmosphere is already gone, no longer do neighbours know one another among the community. When I was young around 1980s to 1990s, the community bonding and unity was slowly fading away as I grow up while Singapore keeps changing and improving.

Lives 1990s was definitely way much better than 1950s that period, but looking at the present bonding of Singaporeans among different races, Singapore in fact has gone worse. Back than, even my grandma knows Malay and now those local Singaporean Chinese who knows Malay language is the minority with Malaysian Chinese taking away our advantage in language proficiency.

In the past, everybody knows a bit of other language here and there, even Indians know Chinese, but that’s is the super minority.

These days, with the housing development planning, the layout of the houses are pleasant taking into considerations for limited land, but gone are our privacy, with doors shut, the friendly neighbours atmosphere is long gone.

People who used to be able to work until fifty years old and retire for a blissful family, is already gone without a trace, the possibility of it is gone permanently. No longer can we grow up looking forward to retirement, in fact we will work till the date we die, that’s how the way we are growing, and this problem is not subjected to only Singapore but all over the world. Any capitalist country will face this issue.

Just that Singapore with limited resources is showing the negative effects of capitalism society faster than our neighbouring countries because they still have land, religion and culture to fall back on thus they will not face this problem so fast but gradually, they are feeling it.

Taiwan is also losing its tribe practice and people are going to cities for a living, like wise for India and other countries. But somehow thanks to its strong unity and government space for religion practice, they are still going strong with their Chinese culture and proud of it, unlike Singapore, even for our own four different religions, we also have the public holidays reduced, no longer greatly celebrating it but it has downsized so much that it becomes more like a yearly commercial event rather than festive celebrations doing only a yearly routine with no heart put into it. It’s a festival without the soul, bonding and unity in it. How I envy countries with such rich festival celebrations.

Singapore although has lost the festival bonding among people, but it has gain something else in return to compensate for its culture losses which is financial industry and is often said that Singapore is the window to China, nonetheless that comes with a great price of sacrifice.

Hard work, always increasing work load, only more and no less, work load increase is way much faster than the speed whereby our pay increases, thus we are getting poorer and poorer. Just look at the working age and ask yourself if you can even retire and enjoy a blissful family, never ever if you follow the majority. It’s just the facts.

Should we want to reverse the effects, we should pick up entrepreneurship, in particular allowing ourselves more time to spend with family, encouraging a family and work-life balance, so as to have more births per family, thus tax will not increase. Financial insiders or those who at least study bits of history will know why birth rates has links to tax.

What we deserve, we got to earn it, and to do it, we have to find our way. Singapore is growing and improving, but not the people, majority of the people are still staying in a poor mindset thus making Singapore government job of running the country increasing harder having to cope with the silver tsunami many years ahead which is slowly revealing the tip of the ice berg already. We are just another country one step slower than Japan only.

We earn what we keep, and we got to defend our homeland from foreigners, lower our demands for foreign talents, in order to do that, we have to increase our own competitive advantage so as to reduce our reliance on them.

The easiest way to do so is to do our own business, and offer employments to fellow Singaporeans by helping Singaporeans earn their own keep. Entrepreneurship is the only way to go about, don’t look at it as purely business, you can go into entertainment, science, invention, financial related or even sales and service, it is not restricted to only business. Explore different ideas and stomp the front. Be a leader, take charge of your own life.

BE in control and stay in control.

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Foundation is the basis or groundwork of anything.

To learn to walk and run, we first have to learn to crawl and balance by standing on our own two feet.

To speak a variety of language and dialects, we first have to understand how to talk and communicate.

To do business, we have to learn accountancy which is a advanced mathematics derived from basic mathematics of add, subtract, multiply and divide so as to calculate profit and loss.

For good health, we first have to ensure our body constitution is in good health with the help of traditional Chinese medicine via herbs therapy.

Building a building requires a strong solid foundation, the portion of building’s structure that transfer the weight if the building into the ground strata so as to remain strong.

Healthy relationship between family, relatives and friends requires a strong foundation of trust and bonding too, which is cultivated and built since young by celebration events and gatherings.

Like wise, marriage and boy-girl relationship is all about emotions handling which is needed in everything which we do, in presentation of business, family communication, health, and the passion for language learning. The love for learning and doing anything keeps us moving forward and always improving for more.

Driving a car requires the basic understanding of both theory and practical knowledge and experience too.

Like a tree in nature, it starts small, grows deeper as it grows taller from a small tree to a strong tree sufficient to stand and withhold itself against strong winds with its deep roots spread all over thus it is not easy to uproot a tree.

Whatever we do, we need to stick to the basic foundation, so never ever belittle the minor details which is a necessity to start the learning curve. It is the catalyst to success.

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Compete is to outdo another for acknowledgment, prize and supremacy. It is the rivalry of two or more parties.

The most competitive industry in the employment sector will be Wall Streets in the USA. If you don’t know anything or what it does, watch Channel News Asia “Chinese woman succeeding on Wall Streets” and you will get what I mean.

In employment, it is the most competitive employment for employees where sky is the limit, and like what is said in the show, anybody who can survive in Wall Street for at least a year is already earning more than others. They have five times higher wages than others in the world. A hedge fun manager can easily earn up to a billion dollars of wages if he/she is successful.

In business, Forbes ranking list is the most competitive place for businessmen and entrepreneurs. In the past, being a millionaire will be sufficient to be among featured in the Forbes List, since few years back, Forbes List has changed and it takes at least a billion to climb into the list, thus the competition is intense.

Unlike employment, business is easier and much more fun and happening, if you enjoy what you are doing, something that is your passion, you are already ahead of your competitors because there is no classification between work and play for people who are working on their passion as business thus passion is a critical factor in business.

Competition is everywhere, it is the survival of the fittest for our own lives, we cannot depend on anybody except ourselves for a living, no even our parents, although parents are willing to give up their lives for us, but that is something that’s not good.

We should learn from the wild rogue nature of animals and beast, the instincts are kept inside each and everyone of us and will only surface in desperate times for survival. Clueless on what I’m talking about, watch Okto Documentary shows and you might learn about related stuffs.

Wild animals only protect their babies until they are fully independent and able to hunt on their own before leaving them on their own and carrying on with their own lives. This is seen and practiced by Western countries which is good but not in Asian countries thus contributing to Asian weakness in survival instincts.

Go for more natural outdoor sports and advantage, you don’t need to go into the advantage and sports full time, just a one time experience will do if you can catch and remember the feeling, experience at the back of your hand and recall it easily. If not, put in some effort into it and experience what nature and what is required for success.

Entrepreneurship is all about independence, and it come from freedom, breaking away from parents, care and protection and standing alone by yourself beating the odds and be the champion.

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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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