Blizzard Entertainment as a small, struggling startup.
Posted by Kevin Chan in Uncategorized on March 9, 2011
I make it no secret that I love games from Blizzard Entertainment. I still remember the days when cousin Andrew used to ask me out to the neighbourhood cybercafes to enjoy multiplayer Starcraft – usually allied against a couple of AI-controlled-players. Since then I’ve played nearly every title they’ve produced – Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and now most recently, Starcraft 2.
They have been consistently producing top-quality computer games that stand the test of time, and today, as I listened to the founders of Blizzard talk about their humble roots as Silicon and Synapse (their original name as a fresh startup) and about how they persevered in looking for the most passionate and committed individuals despite having to constantly having to max out their credit cards just to make the payroll, I learnt quite a huge bit about creating real art.
Artists out there who dare to push the boundaries and create, I respect thee. Watch the video, it’s pretty darn awesome.
What if you just had 5 minutes to live?
Posted by Kevin Chan in Uncategorized on March 3, 2011
What would you do if you just realised that you accidentally took a fatal dose of poison and will die in 5 minutes? What will you do? This wonderful short film just draws you in and makes you see that in the face of certain death, the unimportant just falls away, only leaving what’s truly, meaningful in our lives.
Amazing how even though we face certain death at the end of our mortal existences we still put the unimportant, the mundane on high pedestals in our everyday lives.
Death’s real. Life’s precious. Hope you guys enjoy the video as much as I did.
The taxi driver that lost it all.
Posted by Kevin Chan in Stories on March 1, 2011
That fateful meeting.
Last night I was taking a late night cab home with my friend Grace. The taxi driver was a pretty nice, old Malay uncle over 60, but yet still hip enough to play pretty cool 80′s music. Grace was happily singing along behind; I was happily just closing my eyes and enjoying the moment – it seemed like a pretty relaxing end to a long night.
We dropped Grace off at her place about mid-way through the ride, and as we were about to reenter the Pan Island Expressway, the uncle casually mentioned, “things are getting really expensive these days”.
“I totally agree,” I replied, having heard quite a number of taxi drivers complain about how difficult it is to survive in Singapore. I thought he was going to complain about the government not doing enough, about foreign talent stealing jobs, about it being so difficult for the everyman to just keep living in this competitive, meritocratic society. I was wrong.
“The most important thing is to have savings. Always try to put aside some for a rainy day. When you get any money, do your best to put away 20% of it. If you can’t, put away 15%. Even if you really can’t, at least put away 10%. What’s important is that you pick up the habit soon, before it is too late,” he continued, with a look of resignation and regret on his face.
It all made good sense to me. I believe in putting money aside for my personal investment and venture capital purposes and have recently picked up the habit too. I told the uncle that I agreed with him and I thanked him for the thoughtful reminder, but then he went on.
“Make sure you take that advice to heart. If not, things can get very bad,” he continued. It was already getting pretty late and guess it wasn’t the first time that I heard such advice, so I just gave a smile and a slight nod of agreement. It was getting late and I was losing interest by the second.
“Did you know that uncle used to drive a Mercedes, not a taxi, and used to own several travel agencies? I used to take the kids for month long vacations overseas and spent lavishly on them. But it ended up all for nothing.”
This time he had my full complete attention. “What happened uncle? Why did you decide to drive a taxi then?” I asked.
“It all goes back to the savings I talked about. Back in 97′, during the Asian financial crisis hit Singapore, even though I thought I managed my company’s debts pretty well, because I had to write off a lot of my debtors debts as bad debts, and when that was through, my company went bankrupt,” he related. “Bad debts… bad debts… you know bad debts right? When everything came through, we just couldn’t survive.”
“It gets worse, when my wife realized that I lost it all, she left me, along with my four kids. Money really is everything. Without money, no one respects you. Even your wife leaves you for another man,” he added, with bitterness ringing clear in his voice.
“At that point in time I was really just so close to ending it all by jumping off a building. I had lost it all – my business, my wife, my kids. The one thought that kept me going on was the fact that I didn’t want my children to be teased for having a father that took the easy way out. I couldn’t have that.”
When the cab reached the drop-off point, the bus-stop outside my dorm, he added, “I hope you remember what I told you. It’s a tough world, but I wish you luck.”
I never went on to ask the taxi uncle why he didn’t give his business another shot, or another try or what happened after that, but I left the cab richer because I learnt two important things – one, I was reminded about the importance of saving, and two, that say what you want about it, but money’s a really important issue in the world as it is. A lack of financial prudence can easily destroy one’s life.
I woke up today more inspired to put my best foot forward and make the most of what I’ve got. Dear taxi uncle out there that lost it all, thank you for having the courage to talk about your pain, and for your kind advice. I wish you the best of luck too.
Your desk matters!
Posted by Kevin Chan in Uncategorized on February 21, 2011
A really nice setup!
To be completely honest with you guys – I’ve been a total slacker the past weekend. Tried sitting down to get stuff done, to write but my attention kept wavering.
I thought about it and in retrospect I think I have two main reasons for my lack of focus – starting the day lazy, as well as being too lazy to de-clutter and keep my desk tidy. My desk was an absolute mess and I found it so hard to sit still and work.
I decided to finally do something about my messy desk this afternoon because I realized that I just kept getting irritated and distracted by the messiness – books piled up at the side, ticket stubs, polaroids – all made it really hard for me to just focus on the tasks at hand. I told myself that all the clutter had to go. I took time to clear it out and magically, the desk transformed from slob central to a usable workplace once again. And it really got me thinking.
The transformation reminded me of the times past when I took time out to clear out my workspace – it felt so good and it made my desk feel suitable for work again. I once read that a man’s workspace is a reflection of his inner world – if it’s messy and cluttered, his inner world most likely is as well. Maybe this relationship works the other way round as well, where a clean desk breeds focus, inner peace and calm.
Whatever it is, I’m gonna have to keep reminding to keep this desk of mine clean! Now on to focusing on getting things done!
2010 in Review
Posted by Kevin Chan in Uncategorized on February 15, 2011
2010 in Review
2010 was a pretty awesome year for me. I remember starting the year telling myself that this will be the year where I commit myself to understanding who I really am as a person, and now that I look back (here’s one of the first posts of 2010, “What 2009 taught me” ) , I am so much more certain of my values, beliefs and direction I want to head towards right now!
Here’s just a brief recap of the many awesome things that happened the past year:
I completed most of my really challenging university modules! Just my final year project left!
Loved those big classes!
I had the opportunity to meet and interview Idol superstar Adam Lambert! (Check out my video interview here: Adam Lambert in Singapore)
Mr Lambert and I!
I had the best ever internship experience an entrepreneur-to-be could ever wish for at Jipaban Pte. Ltd!
Elaine, my manager, and myself!
I fell in love.
What love looks like.
Love, Health and Wealth
Love
2010 was the year that I was fortunate enough to get to know someone that changed my life entirely. There I was, finding myself completely attracted to someone that seemed like a total opposite of me – I’m extroverted and social, she’s introverted and shy – but we still had the same sense of humor.
We're different, but it's awesome!
Going through the ups and downs of my relationship helped me understand what my mom meant when she always told us to find someone who is willing to work and make a relationship right with us – as I slowly found that real relationships take very real work to succeed.
Wealth
I set my goal of making possessing at least 1 million Singaporean Dollars by 17th January 2015 quite some time ago and while I feel that I have still yet to make significant progress in accumulating that sum of money, 2010 brought about quite a number of experiences that have shaped me to become a person who is beginning to resemble the likeness of the entrepreneur that I aspire to be – limitless, creative and wise.
My financial goals.
My internship with Jipaban was a very significant experience in this respect as my experience in a startup really helped me gain greater clarity of what I was getting myself into. I learnt that managing a startup sure was a whole lot of work (much more than I expected), long hours, unique problems and the list goes on and on. But guess what – I realised I loved it! It was the ultimate intellectual challenge for me! I loved the problem solving, I loved possessing a compelling vision of the future and sharing it with the awesome people around me!
When I really thought about it, I realised that I would really regret it if I didn’t fully focus on my entrepreneurial plans and focus on it full-time, but only treat it as a part-time hobby. The experience really taught me that the skills learnt as an employee are very different from the skills necessary as an employer and I figured that starting out an employee would be a rather roundabout means of achieving my objective of being a successful business owner! When all that became clear to me, I decided to be firm and stay clear of any conventional job offers lest they are too tempting and cause me to lose focus of my targets.
Hence, I decided that I will not look for any conventional jobs this year. Should something awesome that ties in with my plans for world domination come along… then that will be a different story altogether.
Health
This was pretty much the one dimension of my life that kinda took a back seat in 2010. What is clear to me is that somehow I got a little bit rounder around April-May but lost weight towards the end of the year.
What I need to work towards.
I remember taking a food journal at the middle of the year, but discontinued it somehow. Come to think of it, it was pretty interesting recording the things I ate, and now with my measuring tape, I can also plot the progress of my fat-loss program! I guess it’s something that I want to try again!
I guess the most significant health related piece of development for me in 2010 was that I really started to understand the true importance of health. Like Robin Sharma wisely put – health is the crown on the head of a well man that only the sick can see. And it is all so true. A body in a world class condition is a prerequisite for living a world class life! After being really sick a couple of times during 2010, and after hearing all my friends who are in medical school talk about how truly fragile the human body can be, I really decided to make health a priority this 2011.
This coming year, my commitment to health will not be just about getting that aesthetically pleasing six-pack that my girlfriend keeps dreaming about, but rather to become stronger and healthier so I have more energy to pursue my dreams with the intensity and passion they deserve.
So I guess that’s it for my reflections of Love, Wealth and Health for my 2010. In the next blog post, I’ll share with you guys my goals for the coming year! I really want to make this blog a more enjoyable experience – not just for me, but also for all of you dear friends out there that actually read it! Please drop me feedback in the comments section below on any feedback on how I can make this blog more interesting for you!
Thanks so much for reading! It’s great to start posting once again!
My name is Kevin Chan, and welcome to my blog on personal development.