I was sick during the earlier part of the week so I wasn't fully sure if I would be able to attend Seedly's annual event. It was exciting as this is the first year they are back fully in a physical space. Thankfully, I felt ok on Friday evening and was eventually able to go. Having shortlisted about 3 - 4 key sessions that I wanted to attend, mainly due to the speakers, I came up with my own schedule for where to go within the event space on the day itself. Most of the sessions I went for did not disappoint, so here are some key learnings I took away from the event, many of which pertain to life more than finances directly.
1. Make Smart Decisions Today that Your Future Self will Thank You For
The first session by our Health Minister saw him sharing some great insights on learning, taking care of our health and prioritising relationships. In the past few years, I somehow saw the importance of learning beyond examinations and grades, but really to acquire knowledge in areas that I was keen in. It was freeing to learn solely to satisfy my curiosity as opposed to learning in preparation for a test.
Mr Ong also shared that investing in our health is a discipline and we will only see the benefits over the long term, which is not too different from investing our money. In the short-term, we may not see the value of our present decisions (e.g. taking less salt, less sugar, more vegetables and less meat, sleeping well, exercising well), but each repeated decision will compound over time and our future self twenty years later will thank us for it.
In the area of relationships, we need to recognise that time is a non-renewable resource. Recently, I was having lunch with a colleague when she shared that she would really like to spend more time with her parents, especially now that they are getting older and she is unsure how many more healthy years they have left. Work is always never-ending, but our loved ones step into different seasons when the time is up and we usually cannot return to a previous season. Once your young child goes past 2 years old, you cannot experience the joy of him/her first standing up and taking the first step again. There will be other milestones to look forward to, but what has passed has passed. Knowing this, we have to fiercely guard the moments we value with our loved ones and choose to be fully present whenever we are with them.
2. How to Build your Own Business I have always known Rachel Lim as the co-founder of Love, Bonito but have never heard her speak live in person before. Earlier this year, when Endowus sent me an email invite to attend their Leadership Forum, which was held in conjunction with International Women's Day, I had the privilege of hearing Rachel share on one of the panels and was impressed by how candid she was in sharing her journey thus far. Hence, when I saw that she was one of the speakers for this year's Seedly event, it was a no-brainer to attend her session.
Even though I am probably not going to start a business anytime soon, it was still refreshing to hear her advice to budding entrepreneurs. For anyone looking to start something on their own, she shared 2 main points.
A) Before We Fire Cannonballs, Fire Bullets Rachel shared that before Love, Bonito established physical stores in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, they did a series of testing with pop-up stores first to gauge demand in various locations and gather feedback from their customers. She shared this quote with us:
"Shoot bullets before cannonballs." - Jim Collins
The wisdom here is that the ability to turn small proven ideas (bullets) into huge hits (cannonballs) counts more than the sheer amount of innovation. You may think you have a great business idea, but if you cannot get it to work on a much smaller scale, you may just be setting yourself up for disappointment eventually. I see a similar parallel in investing here. How we invest the first $10,000 will determine how we eventually invest $100,000 or even $1,000,000 subsequently. If we do not find an investing style that we are comfortable with and also follow through in a sustainable manner, the consequences will be greater when we start to manage a larger sum of money. This is of course assuming that luck causes us to even grow our wealth in the first place. If you would like to explore more of this concept, you can check out Jim Collins' book Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. This principle of firing bullets first before cannonballs is the actual title in Chapter 4 of the book.
B) Don't Be in A Hurry to Start Anything Rachel's second piece of advice is to not rush into things. Take time to know yourself first. Understand what your strengths are and which are the areas you are weaker in. Once you have some level of self-awareness, start looking for the right people. You need to bring the right people to do it together with you, people who are smarter than you in different disciplines but yet very aligned with you in values and principles. This is really important, as people will make or break the business.
Beyond these 2 points she also shared the following quote which really resonated with me.
"Enthusiasm is common, endurance is rare." - Angela Duckworth
It is easy to get into a high of starting or exploring something new like starting your own business, but is our why of starting the business strong enough to see us through tough times? That is something only we ourselves have the answer to. Even though perseverance is a valued attribute, I love how Rachel also shared that sometimes the advice of "don't give up" may not always be the right advice in certain situations. As a business owner, we also need to learn how to be humble and nimble - we need to know when to pivot or even give up completely when we know something is not going to work out or has deviated from our values. Once again, these can be applied in our investing journey.
3. There is More Than One Path to Financial Freedom The last session of the day was one I highly anticipated as Wei Choon from The Woke Salaryman was going to be sharing. Having heard him and Ruiming on their Youtube channel and podcast, I knew I was going to be in for a treat with some of his unique perspectives and insights. Even though I was not familiar with the other panelist, I have been following The Simple Sum for some months now and also love the way their comics are produced - simple and to the point with amazing illustrations. The one that they presented for this session was nicely done and provided food for thought.
Both panelists started off by sharing that we need to first define what financial freedom means to us. To many people it may be amassing that magic number and then having the option to choose the kind of work they want to do or passions that they want to pursue. While there is nothing wrong with that, I really like what Wei Choon shared. He mentioned that financial freedom is not necessarily about being super rich but as long as you are ok with your situation and are not too worried about your future - that can also be a form of financial freedom as you are not constantly worried about not having enough.
I love his sharing about how even as we are trying to delay gratification there are some things we can enjoy in the here and now that are free or cost very little. For him it is taking photos of the sun during the times it rises and sets. I see that as soaking in moments where nature takes your breath away. Simple but wonderfully enjoyable if we allow ourselves to experience that moment fully. Kai Lun also chimed in to share about finding happiness. Often times we want a certain situation to happen the way we want it to before we are happy, but practising contentment and gratitude on a daily basis is underrated.
At the end of the day, I am reminded that although we may not be at where we want to be yet, we also need to look back and be reminded of how far we have come. I will end off my sharing with this timely reminder by Kai Lun:
"There is no point comparing your journey to someone else. It is impossible for everyone to walk the same journey."
Hope you enjoyed my ramblings from the event!
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