Incitement @ MindValley

Last night I shared the stage with 4 other entrepreneurs to speak for nearly 20 minutes about my early journey as an Internet Entrepreneur and Marketer to a crowd of slightly more than 100 people at MindValley HQ in Bangsar.

I’ve been looking to get into the speaking circuit again since the time I completed the Train The Trainer program. Unfortunately my nausea feeling stayed with me for months and actually prevented me from looking for any speaking opportunities – not cool to throw up on stage halfway through, you know. 😛

Gotta admit, I was still feeling a wee bit nausea last night even though I spoke for no more than 20 minutes. Been exerting my body too much in gym training, I bet.

But it was a great start to build some visibility in the offline world once again, thanks to Khai Yong recommending me to Incitement co-founder Zikry Kholil.

I was juggling between finishing my next BM course “Mesin Komisen” and later doing my presentation slides on the fly this whole week.

Then came the night…

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I was off to a slow start as Natalia rigged me with the microphone… while the intro music played several seconds too early, haha! 🙂 incitement-entrepreneur-edmundloh-2Captured the crowd’s attention just in time. Hehe…

I started off with a quick survey and from my estimation, about 20% of the audience was already in a business of some kind whereas 80% want to learn how to start a business of some kind.

The right crowd indeed. 🙂

After all, this Incitement Episode was about Entrepreneurship.incitement-entrepreneur-edmundloh-3

So I spoke for the next 20 minutes about my early days journey before and when I took up the invisible mantel of an Internet Entrepreneur. 🙂

I wished I had more time though; would have loved to dive into some practical steps and tips really but that was taken care of by the subsequent speakers fortunately. (3 of the 5 speakers here are from MindValley themselves btw)

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The atmosphere was energetic and the environment electrifying!

I was the first speaker, followed by others – Eugene Hennie (Internet Marketer); John-Son Oei (Founder of Epic Homes); Daniel de Gruijter (Co Founder of Incitement); Amir Ahmad Nasr (Social Entrepreneur and author of My Islam).

Should go without saying but still worth saying… it had been a great pleasure and honor to share the stage with these wonderful folks and I too learned heaps from them. The audience had been a positive bunch as well.

The slightly overdue night concluded with an Appreciation Round. I thank some of my friends who came over to support me and it was great to hear they came specifically for me. Nice!

Khai Yong (he’s already with MV so naturally he’d be there); Chon Giap and friend Chris; Elton Kuah; Shatish Rao (who also helped me record my presentation… video will be ready later!); and of course Elle 🙂incitement-entrepreneur-edmundloh-5On a separate note, I will be speaking again at another event, more on Internet Marketing this time. The date is tentatively May 1st and details are being nailed down (can’t set this on stone just yet; it might change due to the General Elections looming around the corner). More details to be announced later!

PHOTOS: Battle of Sai Kung

3rd March 2013.

8 years ago today, I was just starting out my online business on a second hand computer and 56K modem for Internet connection in the suburbs of Gelang Patah.

On this day, another list from my Dream Bucket was about to be realized.

The 15 of us had our early breakfast in the streets of Mongkok before taking a bus to Sai Kung with the Hong Kong airsoft players. We would later take a ferry across to an island – and damn, the jungle here is super dense! The last time anyone came here was 6 months ago.

I was nervous at first, in spite of being told that this is just a friendly match with no serious competition whatsoever. Probably because of the fact that 6 of my team mates came to Hong Kong last year only to get trashed badly in a series of CQB skirmishes.

And the fact that their average player has nearly 20 years of experience in airsofting – the ‘youngest’ player has 10 years of experience. I feel like a rookie now.

For most of the day, our Malaysian team pitted against the Hong Kong team Unicorn and its allies in over 4 rounds.

The outcome for each round is not that clear since each round timed out with survivors from both sides, but this much is clear: the Hong Kong players are superior in tactics. And of course, since we are fighting on THEIR turf they have the benefit of knowing the terrain already + they get to mod their airsoft guns, whereas for many of us our airsoft guns were stock.

I don’t know if this is something to be proud of mentioning but… we actually did pwn them badly in 2 of the fast, direct-confrontation matches – maybe thanks to us growing up in our Malaysian ‘samseng’ culture? Haha!

I’m pretty certain if they put in an effort they could beat us flatly but that wasn’t the objective. 🙂 At the end of the day, we forged new connections and friendships through the tactical sport – and we are now in touch through Facebook and WhatsApp. Will this be a great motivator for me to finally speak Cantonese?

And hey, the prospects are bright – since these guys are national players we are now in the loop whenever there are airsoft games or tournaments going on outside of Malaysia.

Alright I won’t bore you too much with the details, I’ll share some of the photos I took on this big day. 🙂

 

It was an expensive trip to Hong Kong – and a rushed one – but I don’t regret coming here at all. 🙂

ADDED 9th April 2013:

This is overdue… finally here’s the compiled video footage from my GoPro camera when playing Airsoft in Hong Kong. Enjoy! 🙂

FINALLY! Got The Keys To My New House!

After what seemed like nearly forever, I finally got the keys to my new place last week! As soon as I got them from the lawyer’s office, I drove over to check it out 🙂

(To be very frank, I feel somewhat emotional now.. Feel like crying lol)

On this rock, I shall establish my new forward HQ. New office. New home.

I met a potential Contractor just today to discuss the renovation plans. Here’s my plan in a nutshell for my new place.

Ground Floor: Home Office, Incubator Space, Private Armory
First Floor: Mini Lounge, Bed Rooms

Watch me transform this ordinary house into a 3-in-1 Forward HQ in the coming months!