Other Sight of the Coin

Are you selling a product or selling a business? Is there a difference between selling your product or selling your business and more importantly, is that difference critical when pitching for funds to fuel your start up? IMHO, Hell Yeah!!! Having sat through numerous pitches as a judge for Business Pitching contests, the most irritating and frustrating thing I face is sieving through an entrepreneurs pitch to understand their business model. In the few...

KLIA, Kuala Lumpur to Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. Then connect on to London,transfer to Gatwick and then take another flight to Naples. All on the same day. Booking my flight online, their “Extra Option” asks if I would like to purchase Extra Leg room of “up to 9 inches” for an extra Euro/GBP 20 -90 per seat. Seatguru puts their Boeing 777–300 seat width at 17.5 inches. 0.5 inches more than the...

“What do you think, are the main reasons, why you aren’t employed yet?” This was a question I posed to local university graduates on the first day of our Graduate Employability Training program in Malaysia. Their main answers were 1. Weak English Language skills. Many interviews, even for government positions, are conducted in English. 2. Weak communication skills. Don’t know what to say in an interview. 3. Low self etseem. Not confident in speaking to the interviewer...

When I first came back to my hometown Kota Kinabalu to work, I was taken aback by a question  people I met would ask me. It didn’t matter if they were lawyers helping us prepare agreements, auditors helping us set up our books, suppliers or purchasers. They would ask the question. I wasn’t a newbie in the job market so to speak, that hadn’t proven himself yet and needed endorsements from...

Last week, I was conducting training for a volunteer group. We had just finished a session on Sympathy and Empathy and were now on the lunch break. One of the volunteers sat down next to me and I just have to share this story with you. The volunteer sat down next to me with her plate. In her plate, she had rice, some mixed vegetables on the side and had poured...

Well it’s only another 9 days to my most recent WISLAGIATT (well it seemed like a good idea at that time)…the Standard Chartered KL Marathon…! And as is usual where my running is concerned…I am so not ready. I will of course blame my work schedule…”hey,I just finished conducting training at a 2 day 1 night family camp”…the weather…”hey, it rains every afternoon”… (doesn’t matter that I run in the mornings)…...

There are two Sunday activities that I do which I categorize as my “well, it seemed like a good idea at that time” or WISLAGIATT activities. One activity is motorized Treasure Hunts..you know, where you are given a set of clues and you are supposed to look out for the answers on shop sign boards or any sign visible from the road…these hunts are normally held on Sundays or on public...

When my first child was born, I felt a great responsibility as a parent to raise her right and teach her about the world. Two years later, my responsibility to raise good children and teach them well, doubled, with the arrival of my son. Fast track 17 years later, and what I realized is that my children have raised good parents and taught my wife and I well. You see, what...

Well, it took 2 years  but I finally completed my first half marathon and got my first ever finisher’s medal. We started from Likas Stadium and what with the adrenalin, people, sounds, my pulse rate was higher than I wished it to be at the start. Before we had even left the stadium, I was struggling to get my breathing under control. I felt like quitting even before we had left...