Pursuing Career Success: How I Went From Rag to Riches

From senior high school to University, I went from sucking to Wow!, in terms of pursuing career success. Based on my failures and successes, I want to share with you many lessons I learned along the way, and let you know more about me, the face behind this site. Enjoy!

Content:
1) How I learned to distrust established institutions and systems

2) Painful experiences that enabled me to let go of my weaknesses, and focus on my strengths

3) Wrong career choices, and excuses I succumbed to that caused me to suffer for years

4) Why I should have implemented outsourcing and business principles in every part of my life earlier

• What ego and poverty mindset prevented me, and cost me
• Time and stress management skills I learned through years of struggles

5) How I finally catapulted to the top after many dry years of pursuing career success

• How I overcame the fear of public speaking
• How to avoid competition and go straight to the top
• How I achieved goals in two weeks, which took other people years
• How I overcame tremendous odds and intimidations from the “inner cycle”

High School - Hong Kong

I immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong in 1998, so I’ve been really speaking English for 10 years now. Before that, I was taught by Asian teachers who pretended to be good in English. Years later, I reflected on my pre-Canada English lessons. I realized that English class was just as agonizing for the teachers as for us students. It wasn’t easy to fake your way through an entire semester.

Now that I look back, I feel stupid for forcing myself to memorize all those vocabulary and grammar theories because the teachers said so. I discovered that I have made most of my improvements by reading books, and communicating with people I love. This is what’s known as “the immersion method”.

Recently, I emailed one of my English teachers in Hong Kong. Her reply showed that her English wasn’t as good as I had thought it to be.

One valuable lesson that I learned from it was that established institutions and systems can do harm to your well-being. Often times, they stand in your way, because they exist for their own interest, and conventional ways of doing things. They tend to grow big and grow old, instead of growing great and becoming more effective. The same is true for governments and business corporations. Please understand that I didn’t come to this conclusion until I had several other major experiences that supported it. I was just connecting a lesson I have learned to what I had experienced in junior high.

This lesson is one of the factors in why this site aims to defend customers against money scams, guru scams, time-wasting information, financial institutions, and established systems that are ineffective.

The problem is that they like to justify their existence by messing with people’s minds. We’re put through guilt trips and intimidation because they want to keep us captive for their financial wellbeing or to keep their power: Schools reduce children’s self-esteem by pointless, invented, unimportant homework, and “elite only” sports leagues. Banks and financial institutions make us feel that we’re too stupid to handle our own money. Network Marketing Companies try to “brainwash” us into harassing friends or family members, and call it a “Crusade” (or whatever they call it. Sorry if you’re in the NM industry, but I can explain - NM has a lot of potential if we merge it with something else).

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Pre-University: Learning to play by my strengths, instead of fixing weaknesses(Toronto 2000-2001)

Going to university was a big thing for my family and me. No one in my family tree has ever graduated from university except one uncle.

I was eager to pay the tuition and living expenses myself. Guess what I did to save up that money? I went to work at a Fish and Chips restaurant in 1999. After being fired within a month, I sought assistance from a government youth program, and managed to get a part time job at a Second Cup coffee shop.

I sucked at the job. I couldn’t multi-task. I would make mistakes that others wouldn’t make, and was obviously slower than my co-workers. It was a super busy Second Cup though, so those who managed to keep working there were professional, multi-task-jugglers. Others who found it tough like I did quit quickly.

Compared with selling pop and water as a vendor during my last summer in Hong Kong, the work at Second Cup was hell! As a vendor, I made $40 (Converted to Canadian/U.S. dollars) per hour. I could go to any soccer field I wanted with my vendor bike. Freedom felt great!

Nevertheless, I endured because I thought I needed the work experience, and being the very persistent person that I was, I decided to overcome the job. The second time I worked in that coffee shop, which was in 2005 working as a temp during Christmas, due to a promise I made to the owner in 2000, I finally admitted that I really sucked at it.

After years of reflection, I’d come to learn a few things:
1) Discern your career choice carefully (Second Cup on Resume? Give me a break…)

2) Don’t spend too much time to improve your weaknesses. Play by your strengths. Sometimes you need to quit before you can win. I learned from one of my heroes, Timothy Ferriss that most people are only good at a few things and suck at the rest. Exploit that strength as much as you can. Let go of the ‘I-need-to-be-perfect’ ideal.

3) Working for myself was so much easier. I was free to do what I liked, and I got to keep all the money!

“Most people are good at a handful of things and utterly miserable at most.” Timothy Ferriss.

“Extreme delegation—-giving away every task that is not in your area of special competency—-can be the recipe for extraordinary riches.” Warren Buffet.

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University and Internship: Be careful of excuses and wrong choices, because you will live with the consequences

I went to the University of Waterloo from 2001-2006. It was a Co-op program. In the Co-op program, you switch from the school term to work term every four months. During the school term you look for a job that is relevant to your study, and go through a real interview process with real employers and all. It’s like looking for a job after graduation in other schools. At UW, you have to start that process over and over again until graduation.

You can make full time money from co-op work. It is a win-win-win situation. UW, students, and employers all benefit from this program.

Except me.

Back then I didn’t have the psychological makeup to face the challenges that the co-op system brought me. I had fears that I couldn’t get a job offer before the school term ended.

It was also during 9/11 when my first school term started. I succumbed to the excuse that it was 9/11 that hindered me from getting an offer. The second excuse was that school was busy enough, so I should focus on school instead of job hunting. On top of that, back then I mumbled in tiny voice, avoided eye contact, and didn’t have a clue of what I was doing career and academic-wise, which was a recipe for unemployment.

It was during my co-op unemployment that I recalled my high school days (Toronto 1999-2000- I spent two years in a Canadian public school). In high school there was an Intern department that helped students find internship opportunities. I declined their help because internship made no money.

Big mistake. I should have taken the opportunity to get some real work experience then. “Great, now I can put Second Cup on my resume!” I thought.

I regretted that I had declined help from the internship people.

“It’s okay”, I said to the intern counselor.

“It’s not okay”, he replied. I gave him some long-winded rebuttal, and he gave up gracefully.

It was the first of many wrong choices I made that caused me to suffer my way through the university co-op program.

Lessons learned after years of reflection:
1) Although I didn’t have enough work experience then, I could have offered to work for free any time to get through the doors, instead of stalling.

2) Be aware of the consequences of every choice you make because you will have to live with it after.

3) Be careful with excuses and fear. If you believe them, they will hinder you from achieving any success.

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Quitting Co-op and back to school full-time: Why I should have outsourced and started a side business

For my first co-op term, with some luck I managed to hop in on a data-entry job. The employer recruited 25 UW co-op students to do the grunt work, and I was one of them.

In two months, I almost got fired, along with the student who did quality control over my entries. He didn’t know what he was doing, and he thought he was doing me a favor by not letting me know what I did wrong. We almost got fired and it showed on our co-op record.

In the second co-op term, I signed up with a network marketing financial company. It counted as a co-op credit. I was happy.

I didn’t have much success in that company. By the time the co-op term ended (April, 2004), I was still optimistic about NM, but decided to finish school before giving it a second try.

Returning to school after my first NM attempt, I decided to quit the co-op program and finish school first. This time, the university co-op adviser (strange, now that I think of it, how odd that it resembled my high school experience with the internship counselor) rebuked me for quitting co-op. He thought it was a bad choice. I don’t remember what I said to him, but at the end I declined his parent-like plea. I felt heavy instead of relieved when leaving his office.

School was getting harder each year. I was in the Actuarial Science program. It was a prestigious program that trained actuarial professionals for the insurance and financial industry. UW was world-known for its actuarial program. At times, I was really worried if I was going to make it to graduation.

Due to what I found out about life insurance from the NM financial company, I decided not to participate in the life insurance industry. Life insurance, in most cases, are a legal rip off. Because of that, I joined the company again in 2007 after graduation to expose the truth about life insurance, and to teach people about “buy term and invest the difference”.

Still, I wanted to finish my studies, because I hadn’t learned how to quit yet. I thought I should at least finish the degree, since it was already half-done.

School was really hard. There were so many deadlines, quizzes, projects, and exams. I was also heading some student organization activities. I failed a few courses, not because I was dumb, but because I lost focus and motivation due to multi-tasking and burnout. Since I had quit co-op and switched to regular study, I borrowed student loans. By the time I graduated in 2006 I owed the government 30k.

Lessons learned after years of reflection:
1) If I knew what I know now, I would have started a side business during school. I thought I was stressed, but now that I have acquired some useful stress/time management skills , university and extracurricular commitments seem super easy to manage now that I look back. This lesson deserves a full page. Make sure you take a look here

2) I should have hired some bright students to take notes, tutor, summarize and gather study materials, and write down crucial tips for me. UW is full of poor, but bright students who can make any impossible, intelligent work a breeze. If I had done that, I could then have focused on developing the hypothetical side business I mentioned above in lesson 1. Ego prevented me from getting help. A mindset of poverty prevented me from spending money to buy time, and cover my incompetence.

3) I should have hired assistants, or agencies to help me find jobs during my co-op years. Fire a lot of bullets, and you will get one in for sure.

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Kicking Ass during my university prime time: How I overcame intimidations and catapulted into stardom PART 1

A path was slowly formed, and by the beginning of 2005 I became the president of a Christian student organization. People around me were telling me how I’d changed. All of a sudden the Sai Kit who was dreamy, apprehensive, avoided-eye-contact, mumbled-in-monotone, and was slow became affirmative, visionary, and was always prepared.

I didn’t ask for the presidency. The committee opened the path for me. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes, since I wasn’t a committee member when they decided to invite me for the position. Some argued in favor of the motion, because they thought I was experienced and spiritual, and some argued against it for reasons I wasn’t informed of.

Despite the pessimistic predictions of some, I handled the position with natural confidence and pervasiveness. It was weird when I first received compliments from students/peers. I’d never received that much praise before. People reported that I touched their lives. What I did was simply focused on the important goals, and lived out what I believed.

I also implemented some organizational changes, and headed some initiatives that brought about a new and healthy batch of student leaders.

The facts were that I was still slow, still spoke in monotone, still avoided eye contact, and still worried too much. The outward changes were a result of previous years of silent observations and preparations. I spent countless hours observing and reflecting on other students’ leaders prior to 2005. I didn’t say much during those years (Prior to2005). People thought I was just daydreaming. In those times I had read books, masterminded with mentors, and reflected on life intensively, which brought about major paradigm shifts, and transformation. If you want to know more about this spiritual journey, click here.

The sudden emergence of the new Sai Kit surprised many. To this day, some of my friends still tell me how they were amazed by the changes. I documented my changes and thoughts since 2003. I was sure that my changes were gradual, but people who looked from the outside didn’t care. For a lot of reasons, they like to remember the old you, and exaggerate the good or bad.

Lessons learned after years of reflection:
1) The power of thought, observation, and reflection is tremendous. Feed them with high quality information. Search for books, people, and situations that you can learn from.

2) You don’t have to have official and committed coaches or mentors. Simply look out for top people that you respect, and befriend them. Ask them questions, and pour out your heart to them. 99% of the time they can’t answer your specific questions, (at least you know you’re not alone- people don’t have all the answers) but the point is that you will probably get affirmations, encouragement, and share similar experiences from them. In time, you will come to see that if they can do it, so can you. The more intensely you observe someone, the more likely you will emulate some of his/her characteristics. Don’t expect them to find you, or reciprocate the friendship. You will probably be the one who has to take all the initiative. Why? Like-minded people befriend each other, but you’re not there with them yet. If you’re really like-minded, then you should have already became one of the top people, instead of seeking their mentorship. In that case, it’s called masterminding, not mentoring.

3) Passions and preparations will pay off someday.

4) People will come through to praise you if you’re real good. Don’t force confidence on yourself, or boast.

5) Don’t seek personal glory or praises, because this motive is too fragile to get you through tough times. Most likely, your recognition will come years later. A higher purpose is always needed in order for your pursuit to last.

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Kicking Ass during my university prime time: How I overcame intimidations and catapulted into stardom PART 2

Toward the end of my presidency, our tiny organization stepped on the toes of a giant one - the Federation of students (Feds). The Feds were the official student government of UW. It was a multi-million dollar corporation (it still is). Its businesses included the largest nightclub in Canada, a very profitable bookstore, a convenience store that sold cigarettes to students, and a profitable sushi booth. Under the umbrella of the Feds, there were faculty based student societies and their subsidiaries, 150 different student organizations (including us), and divisions that existed to serve the interests of tiny activist factions.

The heads of the Feds are students themselves. Each year, candidates with a lot of Feds related experience would run for election to get into the prestigious, well paid, and powerful executive positions. I barely knew that the positions existed during most of my years in school. Many students barely knew the executives. Those who’re in the know either covet the positions, or admire them.

Usually students who run for such positions are activists, aspiring-politicians/lawyers/administrators, or part-time employees who have worked for the Feds before.

This was how we stepped on the Feds’ toes: One day, the Feds’ club director, a full time staff under the Vice President Internal office (VPI is one of the student executives -one of the top people in the Feds who is elected into the office), walked around the campus, and saw our poster. He spotted an issue in our poster.

Officially our organization was a division under a parent organization. Our division itself didn’t have an official club status, but the parent organization did. The club director made it an issue, stating that our poster should have mentioned the official club, which was the parent organization.

He threatened to take disciplinary actions of some sort. This particular club director, Rick Theis, had a hand in the closing down of another Christian student organization in the previous year. It concerned me that the Feds reacted so dramatically to us this time based on a non-issue, and again by this particular club director.

When my term as the president ended, I knew I was going to graduate soon. I had to look for a job. Looking back at my co-op experience, the future was uncertain.

After some long and serious soul searching and spiritual discernment, I decided to run for the Vice President Internal position of Feds for the term 2006-2007. If I succeeded, I would become the boss of that club director. Sweet! But the main reason why I ran for VPI was that I wanted to change the Feds from within, and make it less interruptive over clubs’ affair.

The VPI office oversaw all the student clubs on Campus, which meant if I was to get elected, I would become the supervisor of my previous organization, and the parent organization as well. It was a big leap.

Almost no one on the campus believed that I would get elected. I had only spoken English for 7 years. I didn’t have experience with student politics. I had never served in any function or department of the Feds before.

I ran for the position as an independent candidate. No one had ever won an election independently. Candidates who won the election had always ran in tickets.

The student media hated me. They thought I was a joke.

I recruited three loyal friends to be my webmaster, graphic designer, and campaign manager. They helped me a lot during the campaign.

I solicited testimonials from prominent people in the university. Although my perceived odd to win the election was slim, a lot of people wanted me to win because I represented the typical student, instead of the usual suspects who belonged to the tiny group of activists.

During the 2 week campaign, I went to 60-80 classes to deliver my election pitch. I’d never spoken to a large crowd before. Surprisingly, I was the only candidate who made the audience cheerfully scream. Other candidates simply repeated their scripts over and over again. Boring!

In the end, I got 1108 votes and won the election for VPI, beating the second runner up by 23 votes. It surprised everyone. The usual suspects were offended. The candidate who won the presidency was bitter because I beat her teammate for the VPI office. For my entire term as the VPI, she would use every opportunity to insinuate that I was not fit for the job. I couldn’t care less.

A lot of my friends were happy for me but it was nothing short of a miracle to all of us.

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