Ryan Ho's Entrepreneurship Blog

Threats is an act of pressuring to elicit a negative response towards something in a form of loss over something during the process. It is also an expression of intent to inflict pain or damage in anyway possible.

It is a act that may work from time to time and depending on situations, but in most cases, it does not work in majority of the situations especially if used on strong opponents and people who are giving and supporting them to whatever status and authority they may be holding as representative of the people or the country.

Following are a few examples that the have either appeared in news papers if not on global news reports over threats from political and country of super-power.

First up is Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Raza who have threaten the local Malaysian Chinese voters to vote not to vote against the local Malaysia Party in order not to be in a situation where their Chinese interests are not looked after. A threat to the Chinese Population in Malaysia that holds around twenty-plus percent of the population. But that has pretty much being ignored, based on my personal point of view.

Just looking back at the number of successful Chinese Malaysian in Malaysia, and the answer is obvious. Compare it against those Chinese Malaysians who gain popularity and success by becoming a singer and selling their albums in Singapore, Taiwan showing that little effort has being done to help the Malaysian Chinese community.

Next up is most recent, with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew warning the Singaporean voters not to work for the opposition or they may have to spend the next five years to repent on their actions. Apparently, it seems from the election results, the warning fell on deaf ears. Following which was primarily due to the lack of engagement with the ground level citizens who are casting their votes.That may have sparked a resentment against the dominant political party namely PAP causing its defeat in the first ever GRC loss over Aljunied. News articles reports said it’s also partially due to their arrogance.

Actually, the party has already acknowledge their own problems but are just in their own denial to admit their mistakes, only following in the mid-process of election than to apologize, a step too late. Had it not for the consistent strong candidates recruited by Workers Party with proven track record, the People’s Action Party (PAP) might have a simple win, but since problems still remain, it is up to the voters to give the opposition a chance to prove their worth.

Which clearly reflects on the election results. With a complete wipe out of opposition except for Workers Party, it seems clear to us based on statistics that is gradually losing their votes count to the oppositions from past high vote percentage of over seventy percent to most recent election of only sixty plus percent.. That calls for a immediate soul-searching and reflection, which they did, but only it looks and seems clear, to be beautify the process only.

Much has to be seen on how the Workers Party proof their worth in five years time to determine if they retain, expand, or suffer deduction in Parliament seats.  Time will tell, for results will prevail.

This is similar if not identical to another example in the Formula One racing industry. Michael Schumacher, previous seven time world-champion has decided to retire for good, over reasons that it is now beyond his capabilities to win the race for the new young racers have upped their skills to which Michael Schumacher is unable to catch up to date. Such is a example of losing touch, and knowledge of the actual competitive segment.  People who have lost touch cannot find their way back in to basics after numerous at the top, retiring, having gotten comfortable with the high position.

Last but not the least is USA against China following the China race to arm itself stronger amidst the first ever operational aircraft carrier posting as a huge threat to USA dominance in power. As the threats previously given out from USA failed to work both on political and economical arenas, USA only than soften its approach and increase their priority in hold state discussions with China for cooperation and exchanging terms to each other in order to cash in on China’s growing affluent population to tap on their growing GDP.

USA only learn their lessons following the lost of Google when USA Politician Hillary Clinton stepping in demanding for transparent censorship law for their Google representing USA in China for fair competition that went on deaf ears. Learning on that lesson, it has no choice but to learn to accept China as the next growing super-power, for the host will reject any offender if they force their way in. Google along with USA learned it the hard way that they cannot demand for stuffs in ask China to bend the rules to USA advantage.

Actually there’s much to be learn from this incident, and it even dates back to many previous war periods which we can learn from. Before USA was considered a super-power, Japan, Greece, Romans, Germany, Russia all have once being in the shoes of being the dominant super-power country of their respective periods. Their own downfall was primarily due to arrogance, greed, refusal to accept change, over-estimating their abilities to apply same strategies on which ever countries they won via war victories that failed, when they failed to win the hearts of the locals. Thus giving room and growth opportunity to the next super power country that choose to take the leader position.

All of which comes to the respect, mutual benefits, room for growth, coordination and humility. Europe was once considered a super nation compromising of different continents before USA overtook their position. Learning from the lesson, Europe than learn to be humble and accept other races, religion and freedom, which is why there’s growth and excellence in the arts education, especially in Music, no colored lens towards people of different skin color, race nor religion, as opposed to USA which still practice such discrimination that is built in their culture and upbringing.

Even in Japan, during WWI & WWII, Japanese soldiers thought their own race and skin color was the best, even looking down on fellow yellow skin people in Asia, let alone those white skin race in other USA. Following their defeat in WWII with the help of two atomic bombs, they are than forced to acknowledge and accept that they are no in any way superior to any other countries, have limited and minimal military force as punishment for their brutality in both wars. Only which, they learn to be humble and accept all races and now able to hold their heads high as they work and fit in with the environment no matter how it changes and they will adapt accordingly, even if disasters strikes.

With every lost, comes the lesson to reflect and repent for their past actions, those will fail to reflect on their mistakes will only rot and wit away as others over take them when the time is ripe, opportunity cost is at their best and lowest casualty losses etc.

In a nut-shell, the next time you experience threats, just take it in your stride and move on. Only those who fail to capture the hearts of people winning the support will resort to such means to get the results they seek. Just be patient, wait for the right opportunity, and spot the weakness of your competitors and turn them into your strengths to emerge victorious. Only the weak will bow down to threats.

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Tension is a strained relationship between both parties between individuals, groups or nations. It is the disagreements which both parties fail to come up with a mutually beneficial terms causing the relationship to be stretched and the bonding goes from thick to thin with each escalating issues surfacing.

It creates emotional strain, intense anxiety among everyone among those affected by the disagreements.

Tensions are everywhere, from average person walking on the streets to businesses, and even nations. All the way from the smallest average people like you and I to the biggest most powerful nations, all of us are living in a tensed up society these days with lots hidden unhappiness stored inside each nation waiting for eruption like a volcano. Each new failed or sour business relationship between two countries is like the sill of the volcano, the unhappiness among both countries is like the large magma chamber.

When a failed sour business caused relationships to take a slight turn for the worse, causing job losses in businesses affecting large scale especially among different countries, a parasitic cone is formed with lava flowing out from the parasitic cone slowly increasing the damage as it waits for the magma chamber to erupt with time.

There are so many examples to look at among different nations.

First up most frequently appeared in news media is China US bilateral ties issue which goes a long way, and is made worse with white house support Google from getting bullied by Baidu who is protecting the China identity at home and online.

Next up is US versus Iran, the quest to sweep the root of the terrorist clean and flush them out but it still has a long way to go. USA once missed the chance to plug out Osama Bin Laden as reported in one of the news reports last time, wanting to silence the ring leader, father of the terrorist who was personally trained by the US themselves.

Up next will be Thailand politics chaos situation, with the red shirt versus the yellow shirt. Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra who made billions upon using his politics influence to increase his wealth, avoided paying tax and accused by current prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva who is constantly digging for new evidence to upset and reduce his influence in Thailand wanting to silence the opposition the red shirt but has yet to see any improvement, in fact he made the Thailand economy worse following the recent demonstration just in front of the Thailand airport causing it to be closed for a day, out of business suffering huge losses.

Up next closely is Korea, North and South Korea always appear in the news yearly due to tensions between cross-border with communist and democratic country respectively with the display of their military might and protection from strong nations from Russia and US respectively as backing.

The rest that follows are just minor national tensions purely for profits and tourism competition that not as important as those above.

Tensions arise for many reasons, without early antidote, it will escalate bigger and bigger over time like a volcano, once erupted, serious damage will be felt and casualties and business losses of people who live around the volcano area suffers.

Tensions are just identical to our health. A cold may be a minor issue which can heal and thus often overlooked, but it is leaves any after-effects, it will lead to serious complications, as cold, flu and cough are the minor symptoms.

Health is the core problem for individuals. Business tensions is the core problems for countries while politics and military related concerns affects the whole world if not at least the surrounding countries when there’s a surge in military might with purchase of weapons.

The next time you get into any disagreement, solve it instantly if not as soon as possible, else it will escalate into another business war whereby companies lose, profits reduced and only the consumers benefit from business battle. If it’s individual, sooner or later there will be more stares, arguments before turning to catfights or business sabotage depending on the genders.

So handle any arguments addressing right to the root of the problem, look at what caused the problem, don’t solve it only from the surface which will not help.

If you need examples: Look at hospitals around the whole world, the patients get sicker and more illness especially terminal and expensive illness find their way onto the patients increasing their burden. Have you ever heard of patients suffering from TCM, not even once at all since history?

Look at the difference, which medical practice should you seek help from, answer is obvious, if you want to save more money, choose TCM, but start early, and it will save you mountains of money bit by bit starting from young as TCM is all about healing all weakness of the body that cause a illness to surface, while western drugs only help heal the illness which has surface and not the root of the problem.

Understand the cause and effect, and entrepreneurship will be a breeze for those who understand it, building a strong mind with the right foundation as basics.

Good habits start from young.

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Small is what majority of the people don’t like, but in monetary size, it is welcomed by bankers, businessmen, designers and fashion professionals whereas average people like to have big bigger items and ownership thus they spend more.

The trail to wealth and successful starts from being small to big, from a small business and expand it into bigger business. Rich people start big, and grower bigger without learning the technician issues with starting from small thus they lack the foundation to go from small to big, and contribute to their failure to come back successful after once declared a bankrupt.

Look around the people who you know who invested capital into businesses. Those who jump into the boss category start by throwing in lots of hard earn savings from friends, family relatives and parents. They never once know the pains and labour of managing everything themselves, thus in the event should they want to cut cost, they don’t know how to do it themselves and thus with lots of weakness themselves, the business collapse and never picked up again.

Lost of trust and savings from their closed loved ones is part of the reason. Failure to cut cost is another reason, not knowing the basics and how the business really works from the insider trade secrets is the fatal flaw and the mistake which small business investors failed in.

In the world of property, starting small is essential, but recognize the fact of Singapore versus other countries, It is common for us and in Asia those developing countries to have big homes at a affordable price, needless to say, China has the largest yet extremely affordable price to those homes.

As Singapore economy progress, so does the homes, there are inflation which are obvious to people as home buyers but from gullible home buyers, they feel that it’s value for money, but due to demand and supply, buyers are ignorant of the facts thus they never fail to push the sales of property up and speculation etc.

Singapore property is going from average size to smaller size homes yet commanding a higher price tag, reason, lack of land, more demand for their own home, high demand not desired, low supply of desired homes thus there are huge demands for homes near their relatives etc and rules implemented to assist people to encourage family bonding etc.

Look at Singapore’s property market, the square feet of the home, previously average was 100+ square meters, now it is slowly reducing to slightly less than 100 square meters. Look into future, it will be super cramped and commanding a high price tag like Hong Kong a pigeon home all squeezed inside..else look at Russia first world economy status, their homes average square meters was only sixty square meters, extremely packed yet cost so much more.

Successful and wealthy businessmen always believe in “Less Is More” and this is true and will withstood the test of time, thus quality is always more important than quantity. Look at the different types of food business, markets, coffee shops and food courts are all offering affordable food that’s no longer cheap like few years back and they get more portion. They run the business longer than average, wants more customers with larger portions and serving for coffee shop business owners, to earn more, they earn by quantity thus they can’t offer quality.

Food and Beverage industry will know, increasing the business profits by setting a time limit of two hours for whole course of Chinese New Year set lunch or dinner package, some restaurants who wants to squeeze more profits than lower the limit to a hour so every hour, new batch of customers come in, their profits are up making huge profits during the Chinese New Year season.

If you look at high class restaurant, they however are super successful yet able to retain their high class standards and price without having the rush hour kind of environment because of the way they do business. The customers are king, no time limit, only appointment basis, once it’s fully booked, they will not make excuses to force customers to leave restaurant unless they are happy to leave. Never mind if the food portion is small, but the value of the food it commands is of high end standards and grade thus accountable and justified for the pricing thanks to benchmarking.

Paying more for class, service standards, ambiance and the luxury of time is what amounts to the difference between high-class restaurants versus average restaurants.

Look at different business model and how they operate and you will realize how wealth is really generated.

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