Busy month this month! But on a short notice, I squeezed in time for The Art Of The Startup seminar at the MindValley HQ just before I drive to Johor.
Vishen delivering the seminar on stage at The Hall of Awesomeness.
Right now I’m on a speaking circuit and workshop gigs and while I’m picking up steam for the last several months, I am looking to get fresh ideas and strategies to grow my business to the next level – or heck, start something new altogether!
Splendid 1-day presentation from Vishen Lakhiani “The Art of Startups”!
It is also interesting to note that I met Vishen and his then partner Mike Reinings for the first time back in 2006. At that time, their office was in KL Sentral and their employees numbered no more than the fingers on both my hands. Me? I had just got myself out of the mountain of debt I was in the year before, LOL they’ve been experiencing Quantum Leap ever since!
What do you know? 4 of the Wealth Summit 2013 speakers are here in the same room! I didn’t think we’d meet again so soon, let alone altogether! (Not In Picture: Cayden Chang, cos he needed to catch his flight back to SG)
I didn’t expect to meet a lot of familiar faces at the same event – 4 of the Wealth Summit 2013 speakers to name one.
Adam Wong (bestselling author of Lucky Bastard!) and Joel Chue came from Singapore – too bad, like Cayden Chang, they had to leave and catch their flight back… so no opportunity to take a photo with them 🙁
L-R: Aaron Teng (Incitement Youth founder); me; Jonathan Quek (Silver Malaysia); Chon Giap (TEDxKL)
On a trivial note, I have met many mutual friends between myself and Michael Teoh, and even though we have known and interacted with each other online since 2009, we have yet to meet in person until now! Hope that comes soon… before we get any older!
Now, the big question: to start my own office or no? Hmm…
Finally done with the major speaking event I had been looking forward to for the big break this year! After some speaking engagements here and there, I landed on the biggest one yet – Wealth Summit 2013!
I shared the stage with other reputable speakers and experts like Robert G Allen, James MacNeil, Andrew Baxter, Jonathan Quek, Sean Seah & Cayden Chang, Peng Joon, Kathlyn Toh, and more in two Wealth Summit events back to back – first in Singapore, the following weekend in Malaysia!
I remember being very anxious when I first arrived in World Resorts Sentosa and carefully observing how the other speakers presented their best knowledge distilled into under 2 hours each.
True that I had been speaking for some events and sessions here and there – and I did more this year alone than my previous years combined – I suppose I haven’t shake off the impression that I was going to be a speaker this time, and not a member of the audience that I was so used to see myself in.
Unlike my first speaking engagement with Success Resources in 2009, this time I was slotted to be a speaker on the last day of the event. This gave me ample preparation and the opportunity to see how the other speakers give their best performance.
Okay won’t bore you with the details… in short, I am glad it ended well and I walked away from stage learning just as much as I shared mine with the audience on all of my years in Internet Marketing distilled to the time I was given on stage.
To me, I consider this a massive breakthrough… and there will be more to come!
Arrived at World’s Resort Sentosa on 15th August, one day before the Wealth Summit event in Singapore. Stayed over at Hard Rock Hotel. I seldom stay in a 5-star hotel and it’s a shame I didn’t get to enjoy it to the max because I spent the rest of the stay here preparing for my presentation!
One of the exhibits outside the hall. It was just a year ago that I finished Train The Trainer.
Peeps at the Wealth Summit, Singapore!
Peeps at the Wealth Summit, Singapore!
I made my Continuity Income Secrets presentation on Day 3 of the event here in Singapore.
Singapore was done but it’s not over… the following weekend the other speakers and I were at Wisma MCA in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! I did not rest mentally until the entire Wealth Summit event was over!
With Jonathan Quek of Silver Malaysia!
With James MacNeil “The Guru Builder”
The bunting outside the hall. It was a great honor to share the stage with these amazing speakers!
With Peng Joon
The Men in Gray 🙂
Surprise! Secret Patric Chan discovered lurking around the hall!
With Kathlyn Toh after her speaking segment on CFDs! In her words, this year is the first time there are more Malaysian speakers than Singaporeans… Goooo Malaysia!
As with the arrangement in Singapore, I still made my presentation on Day 3, this time in front of 600 fellow Malaysians.
Here is a quick stop gap update. It’s been 3 months and counting ever since Internet ceased to work at my new home. With interference from the nearby lake and surrounding house holds crowding in on the already weak signal, it is hopeless to try to get anything done at home. So I have been working from Starbucks almost daily – like right now.
1. Two weeks ago, I invited the representative from Telekom to my place to discuss how they can bring UNIFI to my residential area, and I could have sworn the whole neighborhood entered my house when I informed them on the meeting!
Turns out, our new area is short of 20 more applications before TM can consider coming over to install the fiber optics for the phone lines and UNIFI. I am now in charge of getting the remaining submissions from the neighborhood and once this is done, it will be another 3 more months until there are phone lines and reliable Internet connections at my area.
2. So in the mean time, I have been leeching WIFI from various Starbucks outlets, friends houses and offices. Next week I will be viewing a potential office space to rent so I can get my business going and growing. This predicament has forced me out of my comfort zone, literally!
3. In spite of the predicaments, I was still able to pull off my product launches, three of which were a success! White Label Firesale did 1000+ Front-End copies. My Continuity Income Videos PLR made JVZoo POTD. And a third covert launch took place under a pen name, which made to #2 on ClickSure marketplace during the launch week (if you know about ClickSure then you will know why I am secretive about my pen name there!)
And being at Starbucks, I have been seeing friends by chance that I otherwise would have been too busy to catch up.
4. The success of Continuity Income Videos PLR happened at an impeccable timing. It was the same night I was doing my preview seminar “Continuity Income Secrets” to a group of 40 participants.
Considering this is a warm up to my speaking gigs, this weekend I will be in Singapore, speaking for the Wealth Summit event. 🙂
5. To sum it up, I have been flying by the seat of my pants for the past 3 months and there’s no sign of that stopping anytime soon. It had been very frustrating but it also reminded me how hard I tried when I was just starting out. As my friend Khai put it, “at least it makes you feel more alive now.”
Yup buddy. I guess if I were just rooted at home, I wouldn’t have conceived the idea or gather the courage to call her out. 🙂
My Internet crisis is far from over, but exciting times are happening now indeed!
I’d like to write more but I better get going now. I just started printing my own hard copy DVDs for my upcoming seminars and workshops and I have to collect them soon!
It was Elle‘s big day and pivotal point in her life!
I caught a flight to Alor Setar, Kedah in the wee hours of the morning (before the sun came up) and joined two of Elle’s other friends, Grace and Ewen. They picked me up from the aiport before we went to the temple where Elle was about to be ordained as a Bhikkuni (or Buddhist nun).
This might come as a surprise to some of those who know Elle but she’s been interested in Buddhism since her late teenage years; it was only in the recent years that she took greater action in her faith.
I didn’t believe the first time she told me about becoming a nun a few months prior. She invited me to come to her ordainment day and I agreed in spite of my own reservations and concerns for her, not because of the gifts of high merits as believed by the Theravada Buddhism. (But then, I’ve been taught to be an excellent receiver so I should just accept it, haha!)
There were many other people gathered at the gazebo outside the temple, all of whom will be monks and nuns walking the path. Thus the ceremony began with a group prayer led by a few monks.
I’ve not witnessed an elaborate Buddhist prayer and ceremony before so I watched with curiosity.
(FYI I was born into a Buddhist family and that was the way it was for me the first 12 years of my life though I have little recollection on how we prayed in Buddhist faith… that was until my mother converted to Catholicism in 1999 and naturally my sister and I followed.)
The monks then sprinkled holy water on the crowd of soon-to-be ordained monks and nuns. The monks then snapped a piece of hair from each of the soon-to-be ordains, and the piece to be wrapped in the lotus leaf they each have.
Next Elle’s friends and I took part in cutting her hair before it was completely shaved. In this ritual practice, I have to make a wish that I really, really want deep within me while snapping each strands of hair, all the while exclaiming the Sanskrit verses “Putang, Tangkang, Sangkang“.
I made my three wishes; Elle knows one of them beforehand already!
And yep, completely shaved. This includes her eye brows too!
After a shower and donning the clean white robes, Elle is one more prayer ceremony away from being officially ordained as a…
Bhikkhuni!
Now I cannot address her by name anymore; I have to call her “Meichi” (which means Mei = Mother, Chi = Nun; so ‘mother nun’).
No body or physical contact is permitted.
And she has to treat me and any of her friends / family members as equals – meaning no favoritism whatsoever.
She will be meditating, praying and serving in this temple in Kedah for the next 8 days, and after that she will be traveling to Myanmar and other places to do charity works for the next one month.
Oh yeah, and also disconnection from materialism, wealth and the world outside! So we won’t be hearing from her for some time.
So why did Elle want to become a nun in the first place? She’s shared quite a fair bit of her side of her story months leading up to her big day today. Fortunately she’ll be doing this for only a month (phew!) Initially I thought she wanted to become a nun… permanently! Haha! I would do anything to talk her out of it. 🙂
I stayed up until the last evening prayers for the day and bid the new “Meichi” farewell. (Remember… I cannot call her by her name for now!)
I hope she finds the inner peace and rediscover herself through this personal journey, albeit somewhat unusual and unexpected!
