To Bandung Again!

Posted on by Edmund

1. I will be going to Bandung, Indonesia again on 28th Feb – 3rd March to attend a Facebook Ads private workshop. The program will be conducted by the same underground marketers I met last month. Looking forward to learn their trade and network with them after the event, and look into possibilities of doing a product launch joint venture.

2. I have to watch what I eat and come up with something to withstand their chain smoking habits though; last trip I went there things didn’t go well for me! I wasn’t prepared for the cold weather, the food was too oily / starchy and sitting in discussion with their chain smoking habits set off my dizziness and nausea feeling! Yucks.

3. I started recovering during the Chinese New Year and went back to gym again last week. My training session is all about getting back my form and gradually return to lifting heavy again. It’s obvious that I shrunk quite a bit when I look into the mirror. LOL

Why I Don’t Smoke, Drink And Gamble

Posted on by Edmund

I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t gamble.

And it goes beyond being a ‘good boy’. It’s personal.

My aunt died from lung cancer in 1999. My uncle is a chain smoker and as I am writing this, his health is deteriorating. Today he has to wash down dozens of supplements daily and watch his diet like a hawk. He hasn’t been able to cut back on his cigarette intake much due to decades of addiction to smoking, since the day he picked up his first stick in his teens.

When my father was still living with us, I would sometimes dreadfully accompany him to places that an underage shouldn’t be hanging out at. My father flirted with women, got drunk, got abusive with my mother by the time he gets home, and still pissed ass drunk.

I’ve also seen my father lose at the table every time he gambles. There were days it would seem he will be going home green, but knowing that’s too good to be true my feelings were always right. I kept telling my dad that the money would have been better spent putting food on the table or pay off our debts back then, but to this day I still don’t understand gamblers. Every time I see a gambler, I see a loser who doesn’t have his priorities right.

While my mother wasn’t a gambling addict, her lack of ability to get a higher paying job coupled with desperation made her resort to the only other means of income she knew: buying Toto. Unlike my father, my mother had better luck and there were actually several times she struck the consolation prizes, enough to get us by at times. But I hated the hopelessness we felt at the dread of having to pray and be at the mercy of luck.

So if you have always wondered why I don’t smoke, don’t drink and don’t gamble… now you know why!

Business in Indonesia

Posted on by Edmund

12th – 14th January 2014: I flew to Bandung to meet a group of underground marketers. When I arrived, I didn’t know what to expect as I knew only one of the members in their band. For one, I didn’t know the weather here was so cold! Regret not bringing my jacket or any thick clothing.

What followed later was a crazy 2 days with these guys. The word ‘underground’ is overused and jaded in the Internet Marketing scene but these guys are truly the definition of underground (hence the blurred out faces).

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I got checked into a 4 star hotel here on the treat of one of these guys (thanks a lot! Will do the same for you when you come to Malaysia).

Anyways, one of the guys in this photo makes an average $50,000 a month and growing, and his teacher banked in $300,000 during the holiday season just a month ago. I also got to meet their ‘fledgling students’ who make anywhere from $1K a week to even $1K a day.

And get this: these folks are one-man online marketers, not conventional business owners with showy office premises and a massive team to impress (though they do work as a team of their own).

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I also visited the most successful person in their group at his own residence, where all his students and even employees work at his place.

While I have sworn under oath not to reveal their secrets, what these guys – and more not shown in the pic – have accomplished are feats that put many self-proclaimed Internet marketing experts and ‘seminar teachers’ to shame, and I had to fly over and meet them to believe it. It was both eye opening and humbling experience learning from these unsuspecting giants.

15th January. Now I am in Jakarta. Dee Ferdinand had arranged for me to speak at his Inner Talk event at the DBS Tower, this being the fourth time they are holding the event already.

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The event is sponsored as part of Global Entrepreneurship Program Indonesia (GEPI) with the aim of growing and training more entrepreneurs in the country. It’s akin to being an incubator hub.

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So I delivered my 45 minute keynote presentation to the audience, and by extension some more time due to the late arrival of the second speaker.

I was slowly recovering not long ago but my case of nausea worsened again while I’m here, so the 45 minutes seemed longer and torturing! I survived on several packets of Fisherman’s Friend and downed countless bottles of lemon.

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How I pulled it off is still beyond me, but I crashed on the hotel bed by the time I got back.

And that brings me to the here and now. I’m typing this from my hotel room. For the next two more days I will be at Calibre Works to brief Dee’s people on how to carry out the next product launch we are working on together.

I’m glad I got done deal with that talk, however it made me seriously think about how I am going to carry on some more talks and seminars if my health is constantly threatened by nausea.

On the 18th, I will be flying to Singapore before I go back to Malaysia.

Evening Tuition Class?

Posted on by Edmund

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Calvin Woon and Patricia Lin‘s first time in KL! I drove them over to meet the other entrepreneurs in the city and the casual meet up turned into an ‘evening tuition class’, joined by best-selling author on Gold & Silver investment Jonathan Quek and Youth Entrepreneur Icon Michael Teoh. An enriching evening indeed with great company and an awesome learning experience!