Insights

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Empty cup, open mind

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Empty cup, open mind

After the death of Chairman Mao, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping led his country towards market economy reforms. He understood that it will take significantly longer if they were to figure out the ropes themselves. So he reached out to the World Bank for help to educate his countrymen on how the Western world have been managing their economies.

This helped kickstart the amazing growth China have been experiencing for the past few decades. He famously described the transformation as crossing a river while feeling the stones. He not only understood that they needed help, he also realised those frameworks and insights from others will need to be tweaked and modified to work for their unique situation.

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There and back again

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There and back again

This is an email written for my team to remind them of the values & principles that brought us to where we are now

It has been more than three years since we embarked on this unexpected journey together and for some reason, we tend to find ourselves back to similar situations again and again.

When John and I first join Mindvalley, we were tasked to build Omvana Online. Then soon after that, we started working on Elula while growing the team. And recently, we started a new quest to develop the greatest personal growth learning platform the world have ever seen.

Personally, I think we are amazingly lucky to have the trust of the company to be the go-to team to build the next big thing. All of us should be thankful for the opportunities given to us and we should never take it for granted.

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Why I Love Carebears

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Why I Love Carebears

I'll admit I may have seen more than 1 episode of Carebears when I was younger. I don't remember what it was about except that they are colourful bears with different icons on their tummy.

But I like Carebears. Not so much the cartoon but rather people who are caring and are willing to sacrifice themselves toward things that matter to them. If you ask me what type of people I would hire, I'll choose a Carebear any day, any time.

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The User Experience (UX) of an Elevator

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The User Experience (UX) of an Elevator

You may have heard of the term User Experience (UX) and wondered what does it mean? Lots of companies including startups are looking for UX Designers to help improve their products. Why does it seem like everyone is raving about user experience and why should you care?

Even if you are not building a product or directly is involved in the creation of one, as long as you are consuming and using any product or service, then you are part of the equation. User Experience or UX is about how you as the user feel and think about a product or services you are using.

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The myth of the average consumer

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The myth of the average consumer

Whether you are running a business or a marketing campaign, ideally, you would prefer to target as many people as possible. Since by definition, most people are average (yes you are), the largest target market is the average consumer.

But, who is the average consumer? How do they make decisions and what are their preferences? Let’s take a look from the consumer's perspective.

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Successful entrepreneurs are great at capturing value

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Successful entrepreneurs are great at capturing value

Most would say entrepreneurs are job creators. Businesses and companies they build, employ workers and drive the economy. You could also say entrepreneurs are value creators. Their ventures create and deliver value to their customers.

In my mind, an entrepreneur is someone who is exceptionally good at identifying gaps in the market, fills it and captures the resulting value of this exchange.

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Effective communication is more than just words

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Effective communication is more than just words

If you could only improve one skill at this moment, choose to get better at communicating. Communication (listening, verbal and writing) is one of the most sought after skill in the workplace. It doesn’t matter if you are in a managerial position or not, being able to communicate effectively, provides tremendous value to the company.

A good communicator is not only someone who can listen, speak and write well. She also knows which channel to use to get her message across and chooses the right mode of communication to improve its effectiveness. To get the message across, you have to care more than the words you use.

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My toothbrush is better than yours

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My toothbrush is better than yours

Even if your toothbrush is newer, cleaner, fancier, more colorful, electrically powered or emits ultrasonic wave, I still prefer mine. After all, why would I want to use someone else’s toothbrush. Yuck!

This is fine if we are just talking about toothbrushes but in reality, we have the same concept towards other peoples’ ideas. We tend to prefer ideas we came up with rather than those from others. This is known as the Not-Invented-Here bias or the Toothbrush Theory.

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Outsource your decisions

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Outsource your decisions

Take control of your life by deciding to decide less

At last year’s Team Retreat, while enjoying the breeze on Khao Lak Beach in Thailand, I told the rest of the team that I don’t care about people. We were playing Two Truths One Lie and there are times when I’m unsure if that statement was true or a lie.

Studies have shown that willpower is a limited mental resource. Every time you make a decision, it depletes that same energy resource your willpower uses and eventually you’ll give in to your desires. This is known as Ego Depletion.

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10 lessons I learned building & growing the WebCamp KK community

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10 lessons I learned building & growing the WebCamp KK community

On the first Tuesday of every month, for more than 3 years now, I have had the privilege of meeting some of the most talented and inspiring people in our city — Kota Kinabalu. All thanks to WebCamp KK.

WebCamp KK is a community of people from different backgrounds and industries who are passionate about what they do. These are the ones that inspire others into action. The ones who believe in sharing and helping each other improve our city.

What started as a simple gathering of like-minded people, has now turned into a movement that sparks connections, spawns communities and continues to be a source of inspiration for many.