A Smooth Life

By Billi Lim September 2000

Many of us would undoubtedly love to have a smooth, peaceful life without much problems, worries and struggles. But sad to say even if one could have it, it is advisable not to have it. You may be thinking that I'm joking. But no, it is the truth.

For years I have studied the lives of people (my own included) and I have come to the conclusion that whether we are in the old economy or the new economy, one thing stands out - if we want to reach a real worth-while goal, hardships, disappointments, struggles are unavoidable.

Recently I was in Singapore to conduct a seminar for Nestle Singapore. By chance I came across a seldom told story of Sim Wong Hoo, the Chairman of Creative Technology who is in the class of Microsoft founder Bill Gates in the innovation stakes. He would borrow shirts from his relatives to go to the US and knock on door after door to promote his "Sound Blaster" Audio Cards. After numerous rejections, one dealer finally agreed to carry it. But they asked for 10,000 pieces of the "Sound Blaster" - but on consignment (In other words if it can't sell, Sim will get nothing!) - The story to be further verified when I interview him soon.

Of course the rest is history. Interestingly the stories of Bill Gates, Jerry Yang of Yahoo sang the same tune. They would work up to 16 hours a day on their project - before fortune finally smiled on them. Interestingly also, even though they are already very wealthy, they are still working very hard - climbing "new mountains".

To them life is a challenge. Just consider this scenario - If you can get everything that you want easily without much effort - after a while, what would happen? Yes, life would become very dull and boring! It is in our human nature that we have to struggle in order to be strong. And victory would only taste sweet if we have surmounted real challenges to achieve it. Life should have it's up's and down's. In other words, life should have its fair share of success and more importantly its fair share of failures too.

A recent research from the University of Tulane, USA states that most entrepreneurs make it big after failing an average of 3.8 ventures. So if you haven't failed yet, you may not be taking enough risk.
If you have failed once - you still have 2.8 times to go. And if you have already failed more than 3.8 times, it merely means you have still not learned yet.

Whatever it is, remember that all the great thinkers, inventors and entrepreneurs have all been dumped into the cesspool of the "Failure tank" where they were cleansed of the stink of failure before they finally succeeded. So don't you ever ask for a "smooth life".

Till then.

Your fellow traveler in time.

BILLI LIM

More Articles | Questions/Comments/Suggestions [click here]