My 2019: Did you Feel Blessed?
If there was one word that would sum up my year… its… BLESSED.
I thought last year was great… this year was even more awesome. Yes it sounds cliché, and there are times I think to myself… is this too good to be true? But I think we should be grateful, and to savor good times because we’ve also been through the bad… I know I have..
I also feel that as we grow older, and our wisdom kicks in through all the ‘learning’ experiences… we tend to make better decisions of how our life path should be shaping up moving forward.
So once again at this juncture I review my year, on my birthday, and ask myself these questions:
- What was significant?
- What were my lessons learnt?
- What do I improve?
- What is my Top Priorities in the coming year?
Let’s go…
What was significant?
Wow… the year truly passed quick and as the saying goes… time flies when you’re having fun… This year has been a bullet train ride.
Travel: I’ve had work and local play trips to Port Dickson, Malacca, Johor, Kota Kinabalu, Langkawi, Ipoh and Penang. On top of that, I was able to visit Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, Colombo, Phu Quoc, Cancun Mexico, Amsterdam, Paris, Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, Bali, Taipei and Gold Coast Australia. Truly blessed.
Mexico was interesting. It was beautiful. Totally opposite of what the American media paints it to be. We got to see the Chichen Itza, yet another Wonder of the World ticked off our list. Phu Quoc was beautiful. Never heard of it before I was shipped off to it but boy.. it was worth it.
This year was also a privilege to be asked to speak in Mexico, Manila, Macau, Shenzhen, Taipei and Gold Coast covering a somewhat international speaking circuit.
Out of all our trips, Hong Kong proved to be the more disappointing as we wanted to just get away and do nothing but eat great food. But we were disappointed by the lack of quality and it was exxxppnesivvveee!… Maybe we just picked the wrong places but oh well…
Business: People ask me how I am able to travel so much, yet run so many companies, speak, train and still have a wonderful family? Its really about building great teams in the business. Infront has been doing well although we saw some changes in Sri Lanka and our Indonesia structures, we are still positive. We’ve added a whopping 30% to our team size and possibly another 10% in the coming year. Running the Leadership360 program internally has been our key pillar of strength and has seen personal growth out of every one of them that is part of it. Our office in KL has finally been renovated… after 15 years!! So exciting to be in a newly refurbished home with new energy…
Owners Circle has been growing strongly as we commit to ethics and our purpose in delivering our programs. Once again, this team is fantastic. When an internationally recognized speaker come up to you and say he wants to be part of the motion BECAUSE he sees that our team is great… you know you’ve done something right. We’ve impacted more than 200 entrepreneurs and bringing them into a community has been a lot of work but more than worth it.
Our sake import business in Singapore under Origins Foodist is progressing slowly as we are learning the art of import and distribution
I have always believed that when you have 0% of people leaving the company and everyone committing 100% in growing themselves and our clients… magic happens. Truly blessed.
My investments in my 5 other businesses are steadily progressing and this year I also started a new business venture (will share in another post).
Personally: Busy? Yes… but I’ve learnt so much this year. My energy has been at an all-time high as I progress through this journey of impacting people. Living my purpose of Helping others become better versions of themselves. I see some other speakers and trainers doing programs to hundreds of people at a go and I get asked why I don’t do the same?
But… I constantly remind myself that the point is not to impact a lot of people, the point is to impact people that wants to be impacted. I don’t really care about the numbers… I care about knowing everyone I have touched. I care about being able to bring people together and get to know them. Maybe I am naïve…?
I asked myself if there was any downs this year… and I can’t really say there was anything significant, other than the occasional tired spells. But… many lessons (which I’ll mention next)
Oh and this year… I finally took drum lessons from my bandmate, and our band finally performed 2 performances, a full 3 set at the Barn! and another at a great friend’s 60th. That was so much fun and one of my more memorable highlights of the year. We sang a set of Queen! I did lose my voice after but… worth it.
Probably the only setback is my ankle ligament tear… from nothing… (age)…
But that’s all made up with my boyhood club i’ve supported, Liverpool… winning the Champions League and the World Club Cup
Lessons Learnt
This year has put me at the juncture of many crossroads, making me choose to turn left or right. One of my biggest reminders is that when I choose… I don’t look back at the other direction and ask ‘what if’. I don’t think I’ve made everyone happy with some of those decisions, but 
I’ve learnt that those who know you best, will understand the path you’ve taken and they wish you well. Choosing and saying NO is a choice of focus if that choice is based on purpose.
This year I am also clearer on partnerships and moving forward I am now ready to take the leap and terminate some. One of my mentors reminded me of what it means to make Decisions based on Time. The longer we hang on to something just to get the ‘better deal’, or ‘not to piss someone off’ AT the expense of holding you back or diluting your time to do something along your purpose is… TIME WASTING. Decisions we make should always be based on how it affects TIME as we need to constantly remind ourselves that TIME is the ONLY commodity that cannot be regained.
Lastly, if our purpose is to help people, then success should be measured not based on how many, but how much ONE person has been helped. I must admit, this has been tough. I look at some other speakers and how they can speak to hundreds and thousands of people and I ask myself what am I lacking? I definitely do not have the ‘selling skill’ that some of them have and I really don’t want to focus on this. But if I don’t, how can I impact more people? So one of my mentors again reminded me of the amount of impact and its measurement as I shared at the start of this paragraph. This also reminds me that in our life, we cannot walk it alone, and we need mentors. Sometimes to guide us, but mostly is to keep us reminded of what we may already know and got lost somewhere in between.
Moving forward
Looking at my year, I have decided (and I hope you can be my accountability check) on the following top 3 priorities this coming year:
- Start writing my book and launch my journal book. This was something I wanted to do last year but there was just too much happening. I’ve been too ambitious but every minute lost is… a minute I can’t regain…
- Empower and lead my companies for growth even more. I want to do this for them. I’ve been blessed through my life that I am quite contented with what I have, but I think I am being very selfish if I just stop here. Growth does not need to be a selfish goal and if we don’t grow.. we will die
- Live my passion of impact even more. This year I want to bring more entrepreneurs through their growth journey and have plans to launch a couple of initiatives to help them on a path to success. I am excited.
One of my good friends reminded me that we all have limiting beliefs. And its these limitations that create a selfish realm. I always say that If we are Not Growing, We are Dying, there is no Enough. Enough is a start of the progress to death. So in a nutshell, this year has been a lot of reminders and I am grateful to have friends and mentors that keep me in check and share what perhaps I already know but needs refreshing.
As I started this post with ‘I am blessed’, I do feel that the only reason I feel this way is because I am open to it and I have the right energy to deserve it. What is your energy?
Thank you to everyone that has walked with me this year and I am looking to continue this walk together.
