 Final speaker for today, oh I have this, I don't know why I'm doing the space bar, but I'd like to welcome Kelvin Lim, who's sitting in the back watching everyone. He is the founder and principal coach at Executive Coach International. He was the first master coach here in Singapore. To give you a sense of that, there are 17,000 certified coaches across the world, about 600 or so master coaches, and he was the first one here in Southeast Asia, my bad. And a lot of his projects are around developing potential, helping people live up to their fullest, and combining humanitarian campaigns, things that do good for the world with innovative businesses. So please welcome Kelvin Lim. Thank you. I'm going to pass that to Kenneth, you got that? Hi. Hi. Good evening. Good evening. Well, so the first thing I'm going to say is that I swear all the time. So there are people who know that I swear a lot, I swear a lot. And then sometimes they've got to go, Kelvin, do not make a public appearance because you're going to swear again, and some people are going to get turned off. And I go, what is your fucking problem? I mean, seriously, I mean, look, how many of you observed when you were a teenager that your teachers had no fucking clue what they were doing with their lives? You know what I'm saying? And then there they are telling us how to live our lives. And I'm sitting there going, excuse me, that doesn't quite job, but ma'am, are you happy? And she goes, I'm going to fail you. And I go, what has that got to do with my grades? And they're going to, they do the Chinese thing called gongbao si chou, you know? That means the male would hug the silk. Gongbao si chou, is that not the translation? Well, as you can tell, I didn't really learn my Chinese very well, which is most unfortunate, you know, given that China's a big thing now. So the first thing I'm going to say is that, you know, I didn't have a job. So I wasn't one of those guys who had a job, got paid, had a salary. You know, I kind of did Amway straight away, Stephen. And I went, oh yeah, I want to be rich. And I went after that. And I went to the National Chiever's Congress in Singapore and they were telling me how I could become successful. And I went, yeah. And I tried it for a couple of years. And I realized that after the third year going to the National Achiever's Congress that the same guys were sitting next to me yelling the same slogan, yeah, we will be successful. And I started going, when? And then I realized that there was something wrong with that. And I went, it cannot be because obviously there are people who are succeeding, but not me. And not the guy beside me. And not that guy over there. And if somebody in the world is succeeding, that means I must have the formula wrong. So I never really got the job. I wasn't really employable. I got in bed, I mean, sorry, I got in business with one of my friends from Jenin College and then almost straight away after I graduated and it was a big mess up. You know, I fucked it up. One, I had the wrong partners. They all had different intentions, different directions, and they all had different, they wanted to do different things with the business. Some of them wanted to be, you know, stylish. Some of them wanted to be rich. Some of them wanted knowledge. I wanted knowledge, you know, and other people just wanted to be their friends. And we were all running in different directions. And the worst thing was, we brought in this guy from overseas, you know, to, because he had some knowledge and he was going to become the expert down here. And we didn't control the process. We brought him to the client. And the next thing we knew, he was trying to cut the deal with our client. And I like, I can't trust them. And then, now apparently he had spoken to one of my other partners, we had five of them, so that was really messy. We spoke to one of them and then offered him a bribe if he got the deal. And so my partner was playing me out. And I was supposed to give them $5,000, so I did something that any smart entrepreneur would do. I told them I was broke, I gave them $500, and I disappeared. I mean, if you knew that they were going to screw you over your money, over the use that they're going to make, what do you do? I mean, I'll tell them fuck off. Exactly. So I walked. So, you know, and then I went on a series of failures, and you fail, and you fail, and you know, the ad gate is really true. It takes about 10 to 15 years for you to become an overnight success. You know, it was not too long, you know, just the average time needed. All right, so can we, all right, so the first thing I'm going to do, now being an entrepreneur is lonely, right? Anybody who takes that road, you should know that. Okay, first of all, you know, you're trying to succeed. No one believes in you. Your parents don't believe in you. Your friends don't believe in you. Everybody says you got such a good damn degree, why don't you fucking get a job? And I go, and then what? At the end of the day, after I retire, what do I get? What do I get? CPF, whose money is that mine? So what's that got to do with that? What's it got to do with anything? You're going to give me a golden watch. What the hell for? I didn't believe in jobs. I was working in university in my second year when I realized that I wasn't really that interested in studying. I realized that studying was a waste of time. So I did my 3.5 GPA average, you know, got my straight A's and B's, and basically didn't attend any lectures except to analyze the teacher's personality, the lecture's personality, just to understand what kind of questions they were going to give me. So that was useful. So I didn't mess up in that way. I didn't mess up in that way. But I messed up in different ways. You know, when you take the road and you start working for yourself, you're going to realize that the only person who's going to bet on you is you. I'm not talking about betting on you to make money. Everybody's going to bet on you to make money. I'm going to bet on you to make money, but they're not going to bet on you. If they think you can bring in the cash, they will buy into you, but they're expecting you to return money to them if they invest in your company. It's very simple. They expect you to bring money back to them. And then who's going to take care of you? You. And every time you mess up, every time you don't get the deal, every time you have to wake up to another boring day of not getting results, you know, the only thing that's left in you is you believing in you. And that's really that. So one of the reasons why I like being an entrepreneur, I like to do my thing is because I like an exciting lifestyle. I like to do my own thing. I like to do my, you know, have my own time to myself to do what I want to, you know, drink my pina coladas, you know, enjoy my penthouse and that kind of stuff, you know. That's the lifestyle we want, right? But you don't start that way. You got to make phone calls every day, every day, every day. You got to talk to people all the time. You got to study, you got to read, you got to design stuff, you got to keep doing things. You just keep doing and you're going to get bored. And if you think working was boring, being an entrepreneur is even boringer. Seriously, because there is no paycheck, you know that. You don't bring home the dog, you don't bring home the, sorry, dog. What country were you in? Not China, right? We're in Singapore, right? We don't eat dogs in Singapore, right? So if you don't bring home the bacon, you know, and the food, you know, you don't eat. The day you don't bring in money, you starve, you starve, you starve, you starve, and you get desperate. And then after some time, you get so weak, you know, that you don't feel like going out anymore. And then you always think, you know, there's always this clock going against, you know, am I still employable? If I don't succeed in my business, would I still be employable? Somebody still hire me. And you go, if I fail, never mind. Maybe I'll just take a lower entry job, I'll go back into the workforce and do that. And everybody thinks that way. And after a certain part of the time, you know, past a certain point, you're not employable anymore. And you're either going to make it or you're not going to make it. And you got to face that monster every day. All right, next. All right, how to be smart. What does smart mean? Everybody says you're going to be smart, all right? Let me share a story. This is about one of my clients I worked with. You know, the guy I wanted to, he asked me, I'm not selling on my franchises. And I went, tell me about your franchise. And then he said, I'm selling for about $5,000. And then, you know, I've been selling for two years. I've invested over $100,000, getting the right consultation, and doing things like that so that people will buy into this package. And I went, OK, great. Tell me a little bit more about your franchise. You know, does it have branding? No. It's a tuition center, right? So does it have a design that's unique? No. Does it have teachers? No. Do you have a track record? No. Do you have, you know, a system? No. I'm not getting it. So what makes it a franchise? And then he went, I believe in it. Apparently he invested over $100,000 to go to motivational seminars that told him, yes, he can do it. And then he will punch his hands into the air over a lousy idea and go, yeah, somebody's going to buy that. And I asked him one final question. Would you pay $5,000 if I sold you this franchise? And he said, no. And I went, and I went, and I went, what kind of stupid pill would you eat every morning? And you've been doing this for two years? No wonder you're fucking broke. Now wake up, bloody idea. If you're not going to wake up to the fact that you have no, you have no viable proposition to anybody, even you are not going to buy your own business, then what makes you think you're going to succeed with this anyway? And the guy got upset with me. He left. So that's one way not to be smart. Don't do that. So check with somebody. If you ask the final question, would you, two things, would you hire you as a partner? Would you invest in you and your idea? If your answer is no, scrap the idea, start again. Next slide. OK, integrity. Basic, basic, basic rule. If you don't have integrity, the people, I'm not saying you have to be good to everybody in the world, but you've got to be at least in integrity to the people that matter to you. Your closest business partners, the people who you promise to support, and if you're not there for them and they realize that that's not the case, that you don't promise your word and you slip once, I mean, I forgive you, but if you do it consistently, you're gone. And without that circle around you, without that kind of support, it is a problem. It is a huge problem. And I fucked up there. Conversation. You don't talk about your business, nobody does. I picked a bad partner in one of my ventures. We were supposed to run classes and groups where we raised about 20 people each time to 30 people. And then she would tell me, I have two people signed up for the class and I am talking to two more people. And I said, you have two more weeks left. Why are you talking to two people? Because they said maybe they will join. And I go, don't you think you should be talking to 200 other people instead of these two people? And I said, yeah, but they, and I went, never mind. So it's about that conversation. You need to get that out there. Who's going to sell your product? Who's going to buy into that? Who's going to believe in what you have to offer? You really have a viable product. Then you have to be out there paddling the thing. So like it or not, your introvert, your extrovert, I don't care. You got to sell the idea. Where do you set one other person to convince them because they are very powerful decision maker or your extrovert that you can talk to 10,000s of people, you got the top. All right, so see, do not do this. This is like working really hard, having a lot of stress, doing too much and not taking time off for yourself. Do not do this. This is a live example of a fuck up now. Health is a problem. Okay, do not sacrifice that again. And even more than that, there's another thing that you don't do. You don't sacrifice the people who work for you, who are loyal to you. You defend them. And I made that mistake. When there were two people in my organization fighting against each other, I didn't defend them against each other. I let them do as they like, maybe hoping they were going to work it out. And I realized that's not the way the game is played. You got to intervene. You got to step in, you got to stop the fight, you got to clear the fight, you got to make sure that it's cleaned up. Otherwise they're going to think that you're sacrificing them for the other person. Okay, all right, next. Team, you always need to have a team. Okay, going at it alone is great if you're very, very, very capable and talented, but otherwise you need people to support other functions where you are not capable of. Whether it's a team that you hire or it's a team that you partner or a team that you groom, you got to be able to get them to help you. And the worst part is, one of my biggest fuck ups is that, I like to think that I'm clever, I'm intelligent and I'm talented. And that's when my ego gets in the way. And a lot of times I don't let the people who want to help me, who are in my team, help me. And I go, nevermind, I'll be able to handle it. I'll be able to take it out. I'll be able to solve the problem. Boss is coming to the rescue. That's the slogan that goes around these days. Oh, he's here to rescue us. And then they end up not doing the thing and you don't end up empowering these people. And you got to learn to trust. You have to. These days, you don't succeed alone. Maybe 30 years ago, you could, but today, no. Okay, the days of the individual achiever is not quite there anymore. There's a context to it. Right, next. All right, this is more personal. So, how many of you heard of the Camino de Santiago? And I would walk 500 miles, you know? That one, yeah, 500 miles, you know? From France all the way to Spain was 500 miles. The first day I was very, very, very, I chung up the hill, right, you know, like in the army. You run up the hill and then, you know, I lasted eight kilometers altogether. Up hill, through the wilderness. And then at dinner, I was sitting there and the guys were asking me, so, how did you train for this? And I went, train, you get the idea, okay? So, you know, what happened was that, you know, I got busy working on my business and I never gave time to myself. I never felt safe in letting it go. I never believed that I could let it go for a month or two and, you know, just do absolutely nothing. And then it was after 10 years that I went to a certain state and I went, okay, I feel safe enough, I'm gonna let go. I'm gonna let my team run the thing, I'm gonna go off. And that's when I ran. And of course, you know, as usual, they packed me up to the last day before I left, so, you know, I was really busy up to that point of time. So I never had a chance to train. So, you know, if there's any advice I can give you, you have to give yourself space, a lot of space, a lot of time. Thanks. Okay, partner. At one of the peaks of my career, I was asked to head up, you know, being in second command for a multinational organization in Asia. It was a, you know, leadership role I was put on the board and they offered me a $2 million pay pack. I mean, a $2 million share package with a approximately $400,000 package, you know, in terms of my annual. And I was 33. Same age! Ah! That's the time when we are like, you know, arrogant, right? And I told my partner, Dan, my fiance, then, you know, hey, you know, this is what I wanted to do for my life and this is something I want to choose. And she says, you know, I need you to spend time with me. And I went, but this is my dream. And you know, after investing into that relationship of five years, I realized that, you know, we don't want the same part. And if you were to walk a journey that's gonna be tough and you want to be, you know, you want to come out winning, you better find a partner who's gonna be with you. Or at least allow you. So, you know, I'm taking Stephen's advice, you know, I'm still single. I'm married, late, but, you know, sometimes it's difficult to find the right person to support you. And that is so important. That is so, so important. Because I've met so many, and I coached many entrepreneurs and whenever they had issues in their family and it takes away their energy to focus on their task, sometimes they fail because of that. All right, the most important thing of all is that, you know, as much as we are, you know, trying to become successful, wealthy, put our idea in the world, we have something bigger than us in this universe that dictates what we do and who we are. And it's actually a very clever move to find out what it is. Call it, you know, I don't buy into religion, okay? But I do buy into that, you know, if a person can mechanically access certain states of mind, you can actually begin to get in touch with these things that puts you into very, very powerful states, okay? And these states are measurable because, you know, I'm actually associated with a lab where they hook me up on an encephalogram and I go into those states, you know, of connectedness or flow, whatever you wanna call it, right? Okay, and they can measure that I reach those states, you know, from a technical point of view. And you know, these things exist, they have a lot of power to empower you. And I'm not saying that, you know, if anything is really about reaching down deep inside yourself so deep when you are in such times of trouble that you can find that power within you that can bring you into the next step and the next step and get you going again. And, you know, to not have that connected with you is horrible because, you know, you're just gonna be alone and then, you know, what are you working for at the end of the day? And of course, you know, standing within that source, you're also trying to do something for the greater good. So it's not just about what we do and what we're capable of proving out in our world, but to be able to take what we can and what can we do for our community? What can we do as leaders in this world and how to give back as a contribution? And I think that's very important because that also gives us, you know, a meaning in our place and our purpose. So that's kind of where I come from. So, last slide. Okay, so those are basic steps that I spoke about, okay? So if you're gonna get started, please remember these things. I hope that will help you. If you want a copy of these slides, well, just let me know and then I'll let you guys have that. That's all I have for you guys tonight. Thank you very much. Do you want to share in detail your fuck-up on integrity? I'm a coach. I lead seminars. I stand in a position where I help a lot of people and there is a difference between you being able to assist somebody in helping them and rescuing them and then when you rescue them too much, sometimes it costs. And then there's too much expectations. People throw themselves at you and you get a problem. Basics. Yes, sorry. I'll come back to you. Basic steps to get out of these things. How you got out of them. You got to pick one of these things and hold on to those. I've gotten out of bed by running, by talking over and over again. I've gotten myself back on track by challenging myself to wake up at a certain time every morning and fucking that up. And then I'll try again the next day. I'll try again the next day. I'll try again the next day. I've basically pawned this as tight as a part when it didn't work. And just to find out, you know, what exactly am I actually selling that is unique in its own way that can often etch versus somebody else. Otherwise, there's no point in me doing a business. Repetition, belief, source. And there was one time I was really, really, really lost. Really lost. And I was just doing the thing I always do when I get really lost. I will tidy my room. You know, when you're in a lousy state, your room gets messed up. So one day I just got enough. I just started packing my room. And I was packing, packing, packing. And, you know, this is a strange, you know, I don't know whether you guys can relate to this. You know, I was sitting there and I was just looking at my stuff all around me. And I was just like, you know, what the fuck am I doing my life again? You know, this is my X number of business. I'm not making it. You know, where's my next break going to be? And I felt this strange presence flutter in from my window and it wrapped itself around me. And look, I'm not religious, right? And it wrapped itself around me and I heard this voice whisper in my ear and says, everything's going to be just fine. And I just broke down and I cried. I don't know what the fuck that was. To this day, I think it was some kind of alien who came in or something. Could be an angel, I don't know. But the point is that, you know, it was times like this when, you know, when I thought I was really, really down and it just grabbed me and pulled me up again. And, you know, because I really believed in what I did. It's just that sometimes you get so tired and you run out of energy that you don't know where you can go on. Partner, you have to find the right partner to support you. But it's not easy to live with you. I mean, not you, you. Maybe, you know, the right person to support you, but how do you support this person too? I see both ways. Well, you have to watch a movie called What Do Women Want? What Women Want? Okay, so I made a mistake of not being very clear in my communication with my partner back then. I didn't have the wisdom that I have today. I didn't know how to interrogate my partner for want of a better word. To know whether this person is someone that's going to be with you thick and thin and to be able to know whether this person's going to be able to sauce themselves while sourcing themselves with me. So, if you end up having a partner who requires you to be their everything, you know, that also includes you being their close hanger. You're my everything. That means you're my close hanger, you're my dustbin, you're my, et cetera, all of that stuff, which means basically the person has got no independence streak. In other words, you know, they are not coming from they know who they are. They're coming from I'm with you to find out who I am. And when you're in a relationship where your partner is with you to try to find out who they are, you have a fucking problem. So, we are talking about people who have done their piece of soul searching to know who they are and go, this is who I am, this is what I have to offer, what do you have? And then there's an exchange. And then when that exchange occurs, then it's very clear about what you're getting out of it. So, you know, and something like, you know, one of my partners, you know, she wants me to bring her out on date nights and make a big deal, you know, dress up, you know. I got to, I mean, I always fail, you know, and I promise to do better. So, you know, that becomes the game. So, it becomes what is it she wants from you? What is it you want from them? You know, other than the basic support and things like that, you know, but, you know, you cannot have a partner who is seeking the identity through you. It simply doesn't work. That's like the biggest mistake. That's like, can I answer that? No? Okay, cool. Merci beaucoup. Any other questions? Yes? What would you do differently if you had a chance to start over again? Don't join them. On the contrary, it was very useful. You know, it was very useful because it made me dream about what it meant to be very, very wealthy. And, you know, I loved the dreams about being very wealthy and until one of my mentors snapped at me and said, what the fuck do you want the money for? While we were sitting in his estate where he had several tales and a few poruses and on his big, big, big farm, we called his cow and cattle and sheep and he says, what do you want the money for? You know what I mean? I was serious. And then my response to him said, doesn't everyone want to be a millonet? I mean, he asked me whether I'm going to be successful in 10 years' time. But I want to be successful when I was 30 and I was 23 then. He said, no, no, no, no, give me 10 years like everybody else. Make it fair, all right? This is a bit of a 20-year-old question. So I said, I want to be a vice president of a multinational company by the time I'm 33, 10 years from now, and I want to be a millonet. Then he asked me, what do you want the money for? And then I said, doesn't everyone? I said, yeah, but, you know, but what do you want it for? You're going to eat three meals a day. You're going to sleep on one bed. So what the fuck money's for? And he was, I mean, because I trusted him and went up to the university. He gave me, he let me run Monash's advertising program as a student when I was in second year. That was worth a quarter of millon dollars. That was the whole Monash's advertising budget and he gave that to me. So he's going to redesign it and then he gave me that job. Of course, they had to give me a high distinction. You know, it was otherwise, it was bad for the university's reputation. But that was that thing. So I trusted him. And when he questioned me, I was like, yeah, I really don't know. And what is the money for? I will throw you the same question. What's that money for? Are we done? Okay. All right, thank you.