For the past weeks, I have been enjoying the Antartica timezone lifestyle, where there's less than 5 hours of moonlight a day. Trying to sleep in the day, and struggle to stay awake at night. It's taxing, and my friend JUST started introducing ginseng tea to me today. It worked. I was up like a light. Gotta drink more of that. PoweruP!
I attended a lil talk by gothere.sg and hungrygowhere.com, organised by Incub3 just two days ago. It's been a while since I attended talks like these. To me it has always been meaningless. For I seldom gain stuffs from these talks. Perhaps it's the crowd. Perhaps it's me. But one thing's for sure. I turned up to support my friend who happens in Incub3 and I got what i wanted. Inspirations and motivation. Though I already know that it's sux to be an entrepreneur, I know for sure ( ok, not for sure, but somehow ) that all of us who take the shit in the beginning as entrepreneurs will make it somehow, at the end. Yes. Failure is inevitable. Those quotes which we hear time and again : you have to take the shit. If not, you don't have what it takes.
Honestly, this path is not for everyone. For a lot of people in this red dot, it's not a matter of whether they can or not. It's that the environment and odds are stacked up high against them ( compared to entrepreneurs in other countries )
I have to quote Dennis from hungrygowhere about the kids in the States for example. He said that at the age of 7, they have already started selling coke ( he's referring to the drink ) in front of their house. I agree. Young kids learn the basics of entrepreneurship when they make lemonade out of lemons. By the time they start their first company at 18, they already ate so much shit. Their learning curve would be shorter than us. Here, we were still busy studying when we were 24. How to compare ? We will never be able to compete with other countries in terms of the number of successful startups.
I have heard about this long time ago back in those technopreneurship classes : Look at our culture. We don't celebrate failures. I believe Asians in general or maybe just the chinese ( ok maybe not ) bang too much on the 'face' issue. Losing face is one thing we fight hard for. Looking at the trends in the classroom. How do we learn ? Where do we learn ? Not by raising your hand and asking questions in the classrooms certainly. We prefer to memorise it out of some books written by authors we barely know.
Oh wells. The risks. The sacrifice. So don't complain and moan when you heard of some successful entrepreneurs' stories. Don't ever say life is unfair. You don't know how much they gave up and sacrifice. The fear. All the cold water which others pour at them. All the looks that they get. All the insecurities their parents, spouses feel. Don't you even dare say quietly to yourself : I could have done that too. For words are cheap.
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To end it off, i would like to paint 2 scenarios which we always encounter with hi-bye friends.
Scenario A
HB : Hey, so where are you working at now?
ME : Oh at ABC company.
HB : Oh, is it at ABC Road ? ( Guessing a location )
ME : Nope. It's at ZYZ..
HB : Oh. yah. I have gotta friend there too. So how is it ?
ME : Oh it's ok.
HB : Cool. You take care. I gotta run.
ME : Ya. sure. See you on fb.
Scenario B
HB : Hey so where are you working now ?
ME : Oh I just started my little company doing web stuff.
HB : Oh yah. i remembered - you were doing freelance last time right.
ME : Yep. So now it's full time lo.
HB : I see. So are you planning to get a job ?
-_-
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