7 Principles of Life

Are You Really Living Each Day?

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

Rumi (1207-1273)

I am now 54. How many more years? How many more days? To live. To matter. To dream. To do. If I am average, I have just 10,000 more days!

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I thought I had lots of time. Now, I think I have about five projects I can do with strength and vigour. I am more aware of why Warren Buffet reserved ten slots to invest well. He said he envisioned a punch card with ten slots, and every time he invested, there would be one less slot. Quentin Tarantino only planned to make ten movies. He has made nine thus far. One more left. Wow. I can't wait for his 10th and final film.

I have many dreams, but I have narrowed my list to the following: a Broadway musical, an AI company, a health and wellness retreat at Camp Howdy, publishing a series of books, three movies, and Gospel Media Network… Which ones shall I do first?

Life is short, but there is enough time to do what you are uniquely positioned to do, that only you can do. I have thought a lot about the principles of life. There are many, but if I had to boil it down to just seven, these would be the top for me.

1. You are a miracle. A unique miracle who will never walk this earth again.

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Out of the tens of millions of sperm cells from your father and one of the half a million egg cells, you are the unique genetic and environmental combination that will never exist again. You are truly unique. You seek to belong, to have purpose and meaning. That which we seek will eventually be found, but you must ask, seek and knock with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength. The world is waiting for you to reveal your heart. Someone is waiting for you. That has always been my philosophy, even when I was in despair or felt invisible. But after decades of seeking, I am discovering myself, finding my tribe, and voicing my heart. It may be one person (me) or some others who feel similarly or aspire to a greater vision and version of themselves, but I know each of us is here for a reason. Just like your chair, your table, your bed.

2. You are born upside down. You need to be born upright.

Being born again means becoming who you were always meant to be.

Siri Mitchell (1965-present)

My first child, Jessi, was about to be born, but she wasn’t coming out. She was feet first. A footling breech. We had an emergency C-section. She was fine and it was one of the most glorious days of my life to hold her in my arms.

The natural way to be born is head first. This means almost everyone in the world is born upside down. I believe that while you walk this earth, you need be once again be born rightside up- upright. We all wish to be upright before a Creator and our fellow man. Sometimes we lose our way and feel like we are tumbling around all over the place, stuck in sin and in guilt. We honour those who have integrity, who admit their faults, who are humble, who sacrifice, who serve, who are trustworthy, who are good and kind. We do so because they are being upright. Plant your feet firmly on the ground and stand upright, stand tall, and be who you are meant to be.

3. Your days are numbered, but you believe you are immortal.

Teach us to number our days so we may have a heart of wisdom.

Moses (1391 BC - 1271 BC)

We say ‘Friends forever’, ‘Love always’. We have eternity in our hearts and yet we know that just as we have a birthday, we will also have a death day. Most do not think about this latter day. We see it on tombstones. In my quotes, I reference the year of the quoter’s birth and their death. It is a reminder that we are mortal, that we should be wise to spend each of our days, as if it were our last. Memento mori - ‘remember death’ is wise. It seems sombre and grim, but it reminds us to be grateful for each moment, each breath, each person, whether good or bad, for everything is a tutor for us, if we have the eyes and ears to sense. Steve Jobs never believed in an ‘off’ button, because he believed life persisted forever. His products tried to eliminate this on/off button. We will one day have an off button but our souls and spirits will persist. That is forever in our hearts.

Don’t count the days; make the days count.

Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

4. You are just water, dust and air. But you have a soul and spirit too.

The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear.

Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

We are 70% water, just like the earth. Why water? We are but recycled dust for the remainder of our bodies. We have iron. Why? We have metals like Selenium, Magnesium. We breathe air, but why? 80% of our cells are red blood cells. 20-30 trillion red blood cells (rbc). Each rbc has 270 million hemoglobin! Each hemoglobin can hold 8 oxygen molecules. This blood must flow so that it supplies this oxygen to the rest of our cells- to produce energy (ATP) in the mitochondria in our cells. It’s complex but we don’t even have to think about it. Just breathe and life happens. We can then use our thoughts, our minds and our spirits to create amazing things that nourish and inspire one another. This is the gift, our creations, our innovations. We have become like gods, creating and destructively innovating to the heavens above. Our bodies are just temporary vehicles for our soul and spirit that longs to live forever.

5. What separates you from life and death is just a breath. But that breath of life has more power than anything in this universe when combined with love.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

We breathe 12 times a minute all the time. The minute we stop breathing (try holding your breath for a minute), we start to suffer. Four minutes without oxygen, our brain stops working. After five minutes, we are no longer alive. Just 5 minutes separates us from the living to the dead. Grim. How are we so fragile?

While we have breath, we desire to share this breath with others. With some, it is a deep and lasting love. Others, a seasonal love. And sometimes heartbreak, when our breath ceases, we part from loved ones.

When breath combines with love, it is the most potent force in the universe. There is nothing more powerful. This is the most important principle in the universe and is contained in one word: LOVE.

When the breath is unsteady, all is unsteady. When the breath is still, all is still.

Hatha Yoga Pradipika (15th century)

6. You are love, but that love is trapped inside your soul and spirit.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Rumi (1207-1273)

We are love incarnate, but that love is wrapped and encased in protective layers we have built so that our hearts never get hurt. Love wishes to escape and express itself through thoughts, emotions, words, works, and actions, but rejection and criticism imprison it again. The layers of encasements over the years make us invulnerable, 'protected,' but we are now entombed alive, our hearts buried, and the grounds of our hearts hardened and loveless.

Let love be free. Let it endear other's hearts. Love hurts because it is sacrifice.

The 30 trillion red blood cells each gave up its nucleus, its life, and thus lived only 120 days in the service of the rest of your cells. This is an expression of love embedded in your life, in your body, for an example to follow. Serve, provide love and life to others, and forgive and take away their hurt and wastes of life.

7. You wish to do all that is in your heart, but to do that you must rest deeply and be still.

He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

While we spend most of our thoughts and time in activity, the law of life requires that for one day a week, we rest completely, pondering life and our purpose.

Each day, we are also required to rest, not only sleep. And each hour we also require rest. Each moment we blink, we rest. Each moment we breathe, our heart and our body rest. After we exercise intensely, it is followed by rest.

We must be still and rest, not only in our bodies but also in our soul and spirit. Our minds must rest. But we are bombarded more than ever, and there is no separation between work and life, family and self. COVID tried to teach us and ask us, "What is essential? What really matters? If you are quarantined alone, what is life without anyone else?" We must rest a short while, but then we must reconnect deeply with others, with the world, to serve and give.

My Life Questions:

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

1. What will you start doing today that you dreamed about all your life?

• Only you can search deep into your heart and mine this out. Seek it deeply and start today, as soon as you can. What is your first step? Do it. What is your next step? Place the last step to your dream and work backwards. And pray. Amen means "Let it be so."

My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):

God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with.

Billy Graham (1918-2018)

1. I thought I had lots of time to do all that I wanted.

• Experiment to find the ten things you want to do in life. Write and narrow your list down to 10. Continually revise and replan as you discover yourself.

2. I dreamed a lot but realized action is equally as important as dreaming.

• We only have one life on this earth. Please don't waste it idly. Press on diligently, like the ant. In their short lives, they teach us that we are part of a community that serves.

3. I am a romantic idealist.

• I always dreamed of 'happily ever after in love.' My mother died in 2006. I fell sick and ill. I was heartbroken many times. I failed many times in school and business. But I still dream of 'happily ever after.' I get back up after I am knocked down. One day, I won't be able to get up. But my spirit will live on. Happily ever after.

Life Advice Now (from my present 54 year old self):

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

1. Love deeply, self first and then others more.

• Seek to know yourself deeply. This is the first law. But even more is to love yourself deeply. Then, love others deeply. Besides, there is only one greater law. To love God. But if you cannot love yourself, how can you love others? If you cannot love others, how can you love God?

2. Forgive always. It is the greatest gift you can give.

• Whether someone apologizes or not, forgiveness is the greatest expression of love and is even more powerful when given without an apology.

3. Wander outwards but eventually come home to your heart and then give your heart everywhere.

• You always have to come to your true home—your heart. All life and love stem from the heart. Keep your heart pure and cleanse it from the stains of this world and yourself. Love always.

To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.

Lewis B. Smedes (1921-2002)

Next week:
7 Principles of Blood

You understand life If you understand blood.

In every drop of my blood, there is life, and in every beat of my heart, there is love.

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Do you wish to retire early?

You can. Everyone can.

The concept of freedom is never truly realized until one settles into the idea of a fulfilled retirement.

Byron Pulsifer

I retired at 39 but realized I had the definition of retirement wrong.

Life is full of activity and work, but life also dictates that we need to relax, rest, and enjoy the dreams planted deep in our hearts. In the ten stages of life on this earth, each blink, each beat of our heart, the sunset, and the seasons remind us that life is a cycle and that we must rest in our set stillness.

We all dream of retiring to paradise and living happily ever after. Thus, we toil, we sweat, we labour so that we may one day enjoy the fruits of our labour of love. We call this retirement—finally being able to do that which we always wanted to do in life.

But what does it really mean to retire? 

When Should You Retire?

Retirement is a blank sheet of paper. It is a chance to redesign your life into something new and different.

Patrick Foley

I lay in the dark, eyes closed, praying, asking God for wisdom. I had never taken a business course or a computer class, yet I wanted to start an Internet business. In University, I had forsaken the liberal arts, music, literature, and philosophy to ensure I got high marks in the sciences, math, and all the pre-medicine courses in University. The arts were too subjective, while the sciences were exact.

"God, give me the wisdom to do business, to connect with those needed, for I do not know anything about business. Then, any success can only be attributed to the gifts, connections and wisdom you have given me. Raise me for I am nothing."

With this prayer, I started a side business during my last year of medical residency in 1999. By the end of my residency, I made more in one month ($80k) than I had made all year as a resident ($50k). This was built during the evenings, the days I wasn't on call every third day and on the weekends. It took a toll on my wife (thank you honey).

By 2008, I had made hundreds of millions of dollars.

When people asked me, "What was the secret to your success?" I forgot how God had blessed me incredibly and replied, "The wisdom in books and my team." I started to believe it was me, my knowledge, my ability. I had seen the steps and vision so clearly. But then suddenly, this vision blurred, foggy, and quickly darkened. I could no longer see the path. I felt blind. I thought of Samson, whose power was lost when his hair was cut. I no longer had the power of vision and prophecy in business.

In 2009, I decided it was perhaps time to retire and pursue my dreams. My first definition of retirement was the freedom to do anything one wants without financial restrictions.

At first it was great. I didn't need to wake up to go to the office, or have any meetings. I felt free. As the months passed, I played the piano, I went to the Christian bookstore, I watched movies. Then I started to get bored. I was only 39, with my fifth child, a newborn, Gabriel. His middle name was Wire because I one day dreamed of creating a social commerce business on wire.com.

I had officially 'retired' but I felt a lack of purpose, drive and joy. I loved creating businesses and tweaking and making them work. I was like a tinkerer and inventor who was no longer tinkering and inventing.

Is this how I was going to spend the rest of my life?

The challenge of retirement is how to spend time without spending money.

My New Definition of Retirement

Retirement is when time no longer equals money. Time becomes much more valuable than money.

I was wondering what was going on in the world of business. I saw Groupon, a business that aggregated great deals online based on volume discounts for restaurants and other lifestyle activities if enough people purchased them. This is social commerce. I believed this would be an integral part of society.

I wanted to experiment and build a social commerce business like Groupon but with a charitable component, giving 10% of the proceeds to a local charity. Thus, Goodnews.com was born. After a couple of years, we built a team of developers, sales, and customer service to 60 people and expanded across Canada. But each new city had to be grown from 0. It didn't scale well and was heavy in sales and marketing, requiring lots of cash. I was used to technology businesses and soon realized I did not enjoy heavy sales organizations. I decided to exit this and start a different business.

Over the years, I have tinkered with and created many businesses. Many did not do well, but some did extremely well. Once they did well, I would divest and move on to the next one. People wondered why I still worked when I had so much wealth.

I pondered this question. For how long would I do business and create businesses? Should I invest like Warren Buffet instead? I spent a year waking up at 6:30 am PST to learn how stocks worked and see if I enjoyed it. I traded leveraged commodities like oil, natural gas and gold. I learned a lot as I studied and applied what I learned. After a year, I knew I did not like day trading stocks. It was stressful and had very high and low emotional volatility. But I learned a lot.

I am wealthy enough that I don't have to work day in and day out. I can continue to invest and make strategic long-term bets. But is this what gives me purpose, mastery, and joy?

Now, when people ask me when I will retire, I say I already have. My kids ask me this a lot. But Dad, you are still working just as hard as ever! No, I am retired. It's just that my definition of retirement is different from yours.

What is your definition of retirement?

I define retirement as doing what you love to do when you want to, not out of duty or obligation, but from your heart. When time becomes much more valuable than money and you use your time to do that which you love.

I removed the financial condition from my definition. Just as we are active and then rest, why do we always have this notion of "all or none"? It can be done in fractals of time. It fulfills your "To Be" and "To Dream" lists. Feel joy, purpose, and mastery; fill your days and nights full with the dreams of your heart and the people you love, and give this overflowing joy, purpose, and mastery to others as best as you can, not only for your immediate loved ones but also for those who may not even yet be born. 

And if you are paid for what you love to do, that's a super bonus, as it creates more optionality for you to thrive and be more generous.

Are you doing what you love to do, when you want to, filling your heart with joy, purpose and mastery? Why not start now? Retire now… Live your dreams in your heart and find a way to make the economics work.

Ikigai - Your Reason for Being

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Ikigai, the intersection of

1. What you love to do

2. What you are good at

3. What gives value to others

4. What others are willing to pay your for

The first two are inputs, and the last two are outputs. Focus on the first two, and practice and integrate your love and talents to give the outputs over time.

I love the Bible, health, entrepreneurs, and biking. These are my loves.

My talents are associated with these, including tech, distilling and applying the principles of life and I dream of building a wellness retreat, make a Broadway musical, writing books on wealth and health and self growth, and making some movies. 

I've ridden 40% of the Tour de France course and have a community of biking friends, including pro riders and Tour de France champions. I do my zen 100 km ride up hills and mountains once a week. I collect old Bibles (1611 King James Version), dream of opening healthy restaurants to disrupt the fast foods of burgers, donuts, and pizza, and write books and poetry. I want to build an AI business.

This is my retirement. I also want to live in Hawaii during the rainy, cold months of November to February in a few years and go on a sabbatical where I spend a year just doing what is at the top of my heart. I have earmarked 2026 and 2031 for these sabbaticals. I am fully blessed and grateful for each day of my life, and I ask my teams to express gratitude before every meeting. I wonder why I haven't instituted this daily in my family gatherings.

May you retire today.

Youth is wasted on the young.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

My Life Questions:

In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.

Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

1. When will you retire?

• Start living the rest of your life with joy, purpose and mastery.

• If you have retired, I would love to know your life philosophy. I enjoy it when you send me your thoughts. I read each one, and they are my fruits for these newsletters. I welcome you to send me a thought or two as I send you my heart each week.

My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):

The only journey is the one within.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

1. I thought retirement was the last stage of life.

• Retirement is not at the end but in the pauses of your life since the day you are born. It is the rest after the activity. 

• One day, when our bodies return to the ground and our souls go before God, we will fully rest in God's heart eternally.

2. I thought retirement was unlocked with financial freedom.

• We spend most of our life hoping to attain financial freedom.

• One of my businesses is losing a lot of money each month. We must reconstruct the business model as the industry has too much capacity. It's hard to make ends meet, as well as cash flows, debts, and unexpected expenses. We wonder when we will ever retire. And if you are healthy and live a long life, how will you survive 20 or 30 years after retirement? Retirement savings. Yes, we must plan for finances until the end of our life, but while we are living.

• Since I was young, my philosophy has been to make one more zero than I spend and not limit my spending. So, my mind has always been on offense and how to create a sustainable financial source and multiple just in case. God has blessed me with this wisdom. I strike out a lot, but I hit more home runs and base hits than I strike out.

3. I thought life was just for me.

• Once I developed my self to be reliable, consistent, discipined and confident, know who I am and who I wish to be, I started to think of others and future generations, as my legacy. It is in this stage I am in. Some people call it philanthropy. I call it ethos, my being. Human being.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

Gratitude turns what we have into enough.

Aesop (620-564 BC)

1. Live with great dreams.

• Writing these life lessons is so powerful as it reminds me of the heart I had when I was younger, those lost and buried dreams. They are resurrecting and coming out of the coffin to rejuvenate my heart. Thank you, everyone, for this blessed opportunity.

2. Live each day with gratefulness.

• Gratitude is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself and others.

• Say your gratitude each morning and evening. If you peer deep into your heart and mine your gratitude, I guarantee you will be a changed person by the end of the year.

3. I support those who dare to dream. I cannot convice you to dream. But if you dream, I support and can help nurture that dream in the incubator of your heart.

• Dream always. Never forget to dream.

4. Create your Top 5: “To Be” list and “To Dream” List.

• Make it a checklist. 

• Prioritize it. 

• Schedule 10 minutes in your calendar each day, either planning or doing it.

Next week:
7 Principles of Life

Do you live or die daily?

Live each day as if your life had just begun.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

7 Life Crisis Moments - The First 4: Identity, Belonging, Purpose, Relationships

It isn’t a question of if, it’s a question of when.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

W. M. Lewis (1878-1945)

Life is a miracle. The sun, 192 million miles away, gives us light and warmth. The clouds give us rain. The seas and mountains are the calm and majestic grandeur of being. Like the waves that toss to and fro in the storm, some moments in life swell our souls up and down through the vortex of crisis. We have seven major life crisis moments. Each one a major challenge, but also necessary as steps for growth. These crises are universal, through which every person must traverse. I am in the final two life crisis moments, having passed five.

Crisis of Identity (Youth)

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

Who am I? I am not my body. I cannot see my soul or my spirit. The world tells and taunts me to conform — just fit in. They tell us who we should be. Don't stick out and be myself. Societal norms and our education label us and conform us, and we tend to gravitate to a standard, and so we lose our individuality and the development of our soul and spirit.

I often stared at the sun, pondering this question. I read books to explore the human spirit. I travelled in these writings far and wide and felt I was not yet myself. My family life was in disarray. My father left us, and my mother, reconciling with him, moved us from London, Ontario, to Vancouver, Canada. 

You are not defined by external labels or circumstances, I realized. I am shaped by my values, and my words and my behaviour shape my reputation. I was both a sinner and a saint. I would try to lean into the saint side of me. I would embrace this journey of self-discovery, a lifelong process to answer this age-old question: Who am I?

I am me. I am Kevin Ham. I am a dreamer who dreams of doing something great for my fellow humans — to inspire, to help others unlock the heart of their human potential, and also do great things myself. I would be a healer of souls. I would be a renaissance man, living and creating the dreams in my heart. Diving deep into my heart, I would explore myself, unearth the gold deep inside of me, and show it through pictures, words, poetry, books, musicals and movies.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Crisis of Belonging (Adolescence)

True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.

Brené Brown (1965-)

My father left his job at Ford and started his own business, a grocery store called Pinto. I would see the bags of coins he brought home. I would take handfuls of coins, go to school, and give them to my classmates. That was my way of quickly making a lot of friends. I did this until the teacher told my parents.

Where do I belong? That is the next question we need to answer. While we start to discover ourselves, we quickly realize that we need to be part of something greater than ourselves to fit in yet be authentic. Peer pressure to conform to the group to belong outstrips the desire to be who we truly are. Do we fit into predefined, predetermined moulds and lose ourselves in the pursuit of acceptance?

It forces us to absolve our identity in return for acceptance and belonging. We encase our spirit and soul with layer upon layer of armour that protects us from being hurt. We shield our inner selves and mask ourselves to look and feel part of our tribe. We no longer unsheathe or unclothe our hearts to be vulnerable.

But despite being part of the tribe, we don't feel we truly belong until we find a person or cause that allows us to put our guard down and be truly vulnerable — to speak and feel with our hearts.

True belonging comes from self-acceptance, not the airs of conformity and camouflage. It happens when you connect with people who see and appreciate your authenticity.

Value depth over breadth of relationships and seek out people who value you for who you truly are rather than what they want you to be.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Crisis of Purpose (Early Adult)

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

But why am I here? I want to do something in this world, but what? I want success, but what is success for me? We are told to get a good education, a good job, a good salary, and a good title and position. Without a deep purpose, these feel hollow. 

It is said there are two most important days in your life: the day you are born and the day you understand and know why. The first was September 25, 1970. The second was August 5, 1986, the day I first believed in God, when I was born again. 

It is the reason I keep going. I dream of building God.com, Religion.com, and Heaven.com once I get Jesus.com. I obtained the first three over 7 years, and the last one is still pending after 24 years.

I just came back from Guatemala, where I gave two health talks on the 7 Principles of Life and the 7 Principles of Blood. I felt that this is what I love to do. I connected these principles to body, mind, and spirit.

The pursuit of purpose isn't about achieving a title or status. It's about finding work and a way of life that brings deep meaning to your life and fills your spirit with joy and peace. Instead of focusing on external reward and validation, focus on internal fulfillment and peace.

Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.

Viktor Frankl (1905-1997)

Crisis of Relationships (20s/30s)

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

I am a romantic. Aren't we all? We dream of princes and princesses, fairy tale endings, and happily ever after. The Bible tells the story of Adam. He was given authority over all creation. Then, he was asked to name all the animals. As he named them one by one, he saw that each animal had a mate, male and female. This is what he lacked. He had no soul mate, even though he was all-powerful and perfect. His soul lacked love.

Then, from his rib was made a woman, Eve, bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, and the two became one — two bodies, one heart.

In the pursuit of success and ambition, relationships are in the background. Instead, they should be the most important. It isn't for what we live but for who we live our lives for and with. Our spirit and soul desire a deep-seated connection with someone who matters most to us and who matters deeply to us. This feeling of love on so many levels, whether it is friends, family, or a life partner, fills our souls with love.

Love is the most potent force in the world. Kings fall under its sway and give up their thrones. Love is blind because it does not adhere to the rules and laws of cultures, religions and countries. Love has no boundaries. Who matters most in your life? Prioritize them always. All that you do is for them.

Relationships are not just maintained; they are nurtured and cultivated with love, genuine care, and empathy over a long time. Make sure you create these moments, taking the time to make people feel special.

Find your true loves in all facets of your life.

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.

Mother Teresa (1910–1997)

My Life Questions:

Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.

André Malraux (1901–1976)

Who am I?

• Sometimes, it is helpful to break this question down into sub-questions.

• What are your three core values? Write them down.

• What are the dreams in your heart? Write them down.

• What are the plans to make your dreams come true? Write them down, experiment, and redefine this plan often as you navigate them.

My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

1. Be true to yourself. Focus deep.

• You may go far and wide, but eventually, you must go deep into your heart and explore its depths for your fears, dreams, and being.

2. Never quit.

• It's easy to quit because sometimes life becomes too hard. I often thought of suicide when I was younger. But I didn't want to disappoint my mom. If I had lost her early, I perhaps would have had no hope. When we are in moments of despair, we may call it quits. At these times, we must go deep and resolve never to quit. I made that decision. I think it was the best decision of my life. Maybe I will fall into despair again in the future. But this lesson has stayed deep in my soul.

3. There is always hope. There is always love.

• I thought I would never find love. But as I found love, I marvelled that love found me. It wasn't perfect, but love is overlooking all the imperfections, yet still loving. I realized that love is everywhere if you open your eyes and heart widely. There are so many people in this world looking for love. It's not just one soul mate you have in this world, but potentially millions—each unique and different. Like hide-and-go-seek, you must seek the love, define that love and let that love grow once found. 

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

1. Forever in my heart

• I seek eternity in things--to live a life beyond myself. Out of this body, I wish to pen words and thoughts for future generations. I want to make modern musicals and movies that stir the soul and move the heart.

• Forever is a lifetime of being and living and dreaming.

• Each of us has this within us.

2. Only one

• You don't need a whole lot. Just one. One love. One purpose. One friend. It helps to have one more just in case something happens to the one, which we know, given time, it will. Then, we live in the moments, in the memories. My mother died in 2006, but I still think of her often. It was hard growing up under her strictness and her high expectations for me to do something great, to live her dreams. But I am who I am because of those struggles, those expectations. I did not let them put me in despair but rather used them as stepping stones to build my character and life as I struggled through them.

• Find that one.

3. Purpose. Never forget.

• Just do it. Let His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Next week:
Life Failures, Mortality and Legacy.

Are you doing what you are born to do?

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

The Power of Your Dream

What do you really want?

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically — to say ‘no’ to other things.

Stephen Covey (1932-2012)

1. What were your dreams as a child? 

2. Who did you want to become? 

3. What did you want to do?

Deep in Your Heart

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

Just think back and dig deep into your heart.

We all dreamed of something, often borne out of our needs and our wants.

When I was hospitalized at age 14, I wanted to be a doctor, which became my main drive in life. Then I became a doctor, but I also wanted to be an entrepreneur on this fast-growing Internet. I decided to go for it.

Then, I dreamed of making epic movies in my 50s, writing books in my 60s, and building a health and wellness centre and a meaningful Gospel Media Network. I'm 53 and turning 54 in a couple of weeks.

It's a constant drive that informs my choices. I work backward to give birth to these deep-seated dreams.

But before all of this, the pertinent question is:

"What do you really want in life?"

If there is only one thing you want to accomplish in life, what would it be?

Curing Cancer

The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.

William Osler (1849-1919)

One day, not too long ago, I found myself in the most elegant European hotel, Burgenstock, sitting atop the mountains above Lucerne, an hour away from Zurich. My friend, Ron Baron, suggested I spend a week there, citing it as the best hotel in Europe. Okay! I said, so I booked it. I love Lucerne, but this required a 30-minute boat ride away on Lake Lucerne, followed a cable car ride up the mountain straight into the hotel.

As I perched over the mountains in my hotel room, I started reading a book called 'The First Cell' by Dr. Azra Raza, an eminent oncologist and researcher at Columbia University.

I couldn't put it down.

Azra had known for the past 50 years, that she wanted to cure cancer. As I read the book, my heart leapt onto the pages. Her opening brought streams of tears flowing down my face.

Her husband, Harvey, also an oncologist, had just been diagnosed with his second cancer--the very same form of cancer that he was trying to cure and treat--blood cancer. Azra and Harvey had devoted their lives to treating those afflicted with this horror. And, now, she would be asked by Harvey to be his oncologist.

Pure Poetics

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

As I read each chapter, I sent her an email telling her how wonderful and heartfelt her book and her heart were. I wanted to help her. She had written about how difficult it was to get funding from billionaires. She had written to 100 and received one reply, who endowed her research: Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire oncologist, part owner of the LA Lakers, an astute early investor in Zoom, and producer of groundbreaking cancer therapeutics.

Then I asked Dr. Azra Raza (is this not the coolest name ever?) if I could be so bold as to write a book with her. She asked me to call her and proposed we do a documentary combined with some related writings. And so began our relationship. I asked her to be my mentor, as I marvelled not just for her heart to cure cancer but also for her love of poetry, especially Emily Dickinson. She could quote her by heart and from many of Emily's 1,800 poems.

Her daughter Sheherzad, who lost her father at the age of 4, had gone to film school and interned under Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, also a cancer researcher, whose phenomenal books would be made into documentaries by the great documentarian Ken Burns. Sid had won the Pulitzer Prize with his first book, a stellar story on the biography of cancer from its first appearance to now, The Emperor of All Maladies. Both Sid and Azra are superheroes in the realm of cancer fighters. Both will change the world. I can tell by their hearts and their minds, a dynamic duo who will revolutionize these immortal cells that refuse to die. And Sheher is documenting everything, our discussions, including the fundraising concerts with Hugh Jackman, Diana Krall, Christopher Cross, Elvis Costello, produced by Susan Brecker, another dear wonderful friend, whose husband Michael Brecker, famed Jazz saxophonist, passed away from cancer.

Left to Right: Siddhartha Mukherjee, Susan Brecker, Azra Raza, Me.

The Dream to Cure Cancer

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Langston Hughes (1901-1967)

Since I started riding my bike to help raise money to cure cancer in 2008, when my good friend, Elliot Koo, age 28, had terminal cancer, I began dreaming about holding a charity ride with pro cyclists. I was infatuated with four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome. I had a Team Sky bike and kit (his team at the time).

Chris grew up in Kenya and trained in South Africa. The problem was there were no mountains to practice climbing on. So, he mimicked the mountains by pressing his brakes to create resistance for himself. Try that yourself. It's almost impossible to do for very long.

One evening, I met a guy named Simon Williams at a dinner with friends. He told me he produced charity rides. On our way out, I asked him, "If there is ever a time I organize a charity cancer ride, could you help?" "Yes," he said, "It is what I was born to do." Simon had survived cancer himself at a very young age.

In 2021, I became part owner of the pro cycling team Israel Premier Tech.

A year later, who signed with the team? Chris Froome. Wow. The first time I met him, I was star-struck. I started asking him question after question, and he politely answered them all. Then, I took a lot of photos with him.

A year or so later, I asked my partner, Sylvan Adams, if the team could send someone to help with a fundraiser for Dr. Azra Raza's cancer research. He said, "How about our best, Chris?" Wow, that would be amazing!

So I called Simon, and we organized the Dream to Cure charity event in 2023. Chris graced us with his generosity and humility. We captured videos of him riding side by side with each participant.

A couple of days later, at my birthday dinner, Chris surprised me with a gift. It was his Tour de France yellow jersey—the champion's jersey he wore when he won the Tour de France. And he signed it for me. I was so humbled.

Another dream come true.

How did this happen? I reflected.
No plan could have been written for this.
It was just a very high-level dream.
All heart. A little bit of mindfulness. And a lot of luck, but I call luck by her other names, Providence or the hand of God.

P.S. In a couple of weeks, my daughter Jessi and her good friend Bella will be interning at Columbia with Azra and staying with her at home. Wait until they see her living room full of books, where she had guests like Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate, give talks. It's priceless.

Thank you, Azra. Thank you, Sheher. Love you both.

My Life Questions:

We do not remember days, we remember moments.

Cesare Pavese (1908-1950)

What is your dream?

• Your dreams a like a GPS. Your life will keep reorienting you to that want until you face the mountains and valleys that stand between you and that want.

• It is scary to embark on a new road, where no path exists, to your Dream.
  
  

My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

1. Dream and connect by heart.

• There is a pairing and need for every dream and fulfillment of your dream. Someone out there is looking for your heart, for your skills, for you. We play hide and seek, a metaphor to teach us that the things we seek are hidden but found when we seek.

2. Everything you do has value and is of use.

• Many people thought I had ‘wasted’ my medical doctor dream. Azra, one of my great mentors and friends now, and I bonded and I was sitting with her, Sid, and the President of Columbia in New York Presbyterian Hospital for an hour. I hadn’t practiced medicine in two decades and there I was being introduced as Dr. Kevin Ham.

• Those charity bike rides, 200 km in two days, trained me enough to be able to ride with the pro cycling team, riding in Israel, a place I had read about most of my life in the stories of the Bible. Then I met with the President of Israel with the cycling team. Wow.

3. Dreams are like clouds. Rains pour forth, but clouds also shield us from the sun.

• Dreams inspire us but also they can feel so far out there, that they just remain dreams. Pray. Think. Speak. Act. On behalf of your dreams.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

In youth we learn; in age we understand.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916)

1. Keep dreaming, even when things seem impossible. There is always a way.

• Deep prayer, meditation, reflection and then thinking, speaking, writing, acting by heart is the key to our human powers. Our heart unlocks the doors that remain shut. The heart sees the way more than the eyes.

2. Life is a dream, even when it may seem like a nightmare.

• The object of our want casts a deep shadow in the light of our hope and belief in our dreams. Don’t let the shadow fool you. Keep your eye on the object of your want. Let it be true. Let it be pure. Let it be heart. Let it be real. All true art is a reflection of our hearts.

3. Dream.

• Go for it, always.

Next week:
Life Crisis: Teens. Mid-life. Late-life. End.

It isn’t a question of if, it’s a question of when.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

W. M. Lewis (1878-1945)

See you next Thursday!

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God.com Vision

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

I had just finished my medical residency in June 2000, when the dot com imploded and started to become the dot com bust. AOL had just acquired Time Warner, one of the largest traditional media companies. AOL did that with phone dial-up internet services!

I paused and prayed as I pondered my next big step, whether to practice medicine or go all-in on the Internet. I was excited about the possibilities of domain names and acquiring virtual real estate.

Vision of a Better Future

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

I believed the Internet would be a revolution, like the Industrial Revolution, powered by the steam engine. It would be more transformative than the automobile, airplane, radio, or TV revolutions.

As I pondered and prayed, I had a vision. If I were to enter this Internet revolution, I would want to own some of the best virtual real estate properties. Four domain names appeared in my vision:

1. God.com

2. Heaven.com

3. Religion.com

4. Jesus.com

I saw them in that order. I researched to see who owned these domains and emailed the owners. I never got a reply from anyone except Religion.com. He was asking $150,000. What? That's crazy. This is not a business name, I thought. Good luck. Later, the God.com owner said he would never sell and just wanted to safeguard the domain. The same for Heaven.com. I never got a reply from Jesus.com.

As I saw things, acquiring these four domain names would require millions of dollars, and it seemed virtually impossible to acquire all four of them as I had envisioned.

How to make the Impossible Possible

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC)

It was a chicken-and-egg problem. I had to make enough money to acquire these four domains if any of the owners were even willing to sell them at some point. I decided to keep in contact with each of them and email them monthly.

In the meantime, I decided to acquire a supporting cast of religion domains; why not pay for them by creating a business around commercial internet domains? Yes, that sounded like a great idea.

I saw how a handful of domainers had impressive domain portfolios, like my now good friends Scott Day (the watermelon farmer who acquired watermelons.com and then just started registering and buying great domains like recipes.com, webdesign.com, and webhosts.com), Frank Schilling, who just sold his domain business for $160 million, and Yun Ye, who sold his 100,000 domain name portfolio for $164 million in 2005.

To accomplish the heart of my visions, I required not only money but also great providence, God's helping hand. I determined that I would also have to have a pure heart and focus on missionary work while figuring out the business of domain names.

I wrote these thoughts down on a page of paper to visualize them. This would be the method I'd use to develop all of my future go-to business plans for subsequent ventures. If it could fit on half to one-page of paper, it would be simple to focus on and execute.

It's usually one big thing with a few supporting things that make a business work.

Think of Instagram. Initially, it started as a location social network, but photos were the main feature users used, so they simplified the app to just photos with filters and social sharing—perfectly timed to ride the wave of mobile photos.

Think of Slack. It started as an internal communication tool for the team developing a big game. The game failed, and they pivoted to Slack, which they later sold to Salesforce for billions.

Heart and Character

The true test of a man's character is what he does when no one is watching.

John Wooden (1910-2010)

I also envisioned that I would not be ready as a person to start this massive stewardship of God.com if I were to ever be granted it. It was put in my heart that the time would come when all four were granted, if ever.

Four years passed. I asked my friend Richard Lau to help me and offered him a 10% brokerage commission. As my friend was talking to the owner of God.com, the domain was hijacked (ie. stolen). Richard worked with the FBI to help recover the domain. He told the owner that I would be a great steward of the domain name. He agreed to sell it for just under half a million. By then, my commercial domain name portfolio, in the hundreds of thousands of domains, could easily afford it.

God.com. Check. Thank you God.

I then asked Richard to help me with religion.com. The previous owner donated it to the Presbyterian church, which put out a press release saying they would never sell the domain. My heart dropped when I read this. Yet, five years later, they agreed to sell it, with the condition that it had to be the same price they had offered the previous owner the donation receipt for the domain.  $150,000 five years later. Wow.

Religion.com. Check. Laus Deo.

In 2007, I had been offering unsuccessfully increasing amounts for Heaven.com. The owner was still adamant about not selling. One day I received an email that he was ready to sell. I asked how much, expecting a reply of millions—$ 350,000. I had just sent him an offer to buy for $500,000 a week earlier so I told him if I could get Director approval, we could do it in one day for $350,000. He agreed. The fastest deal I had ever been a part of. Surreal.

Heaven.com. Check. Soli Deo Gloria.

I had secured other supporting casts like messiah.com, trinity.com, proverbs.com, devil.com, satan.com and wanted to have the mate of heaven.com--hell.com. The owner of hell.com had a steep asking price: $7 million. A no-go for me. One day, a decade later, he said he was ready to sell. I asked how much. He asked me what my offer was. I said no more than what heaven.com cost. $350,000. He said yes and looking back I should have ensured hell.com cost less than heaven, even if a dollar less.

24 years later, there has still yet to be progress on Jesus.com. Patience truly is a virtue.

Upon reflection, I realize that after these 24 years, my heart and character still lack the responsibility to steward such majestic domain names. 

It may sound odd, but I knew that to realize this vision would require at least 20 years of my life. I also envisioned making three epic movies based on the Bible that fascinate me. I had pegged 2020 to start venturing into movie-making, but I've learned to trust God and not to place deadlines on my dreams.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day.

Heraclitus (535-475 BC)

My Life Questions:

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

For what and why me?

• What on earth are you here to do? And why is it you who needs to do this?

• As I pondered these two questions over the decades, they became: For who and why me? I realized it isn't for what but for who.

• My 'what' is not for me but for my loved ones, for my fellow man, for Jesus who died for me, and for God who sent him. 
  

My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):

Dream big and dare to fail.

Norman Vaughan (1905-2005)

1. Make the dream in your heart real. Never lose faith. Never give up. I still dream my dreams. 

2. Don’t be afraid to be crazy. I announced my vision to many people close to me. They thought I was crazy. Seven years later, when I was on the cover of my favourite business magazine, one of my friends, wondering how I could predict what I would do so many years later, asked if I was from heaven. That was funny to me since we had gone to high school together. I'm just a guy with a vision that I believe in. And though decades have passed, I still believe in it.

3. Keep the faith. No one really knows how much we can do until faith is absolute.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

1. Continuously knock on doors and solicit help from above and around you. Prayerfully and in full faith, pursue what you are destined to do. 

2. Do not take lightly this vision and stewardship set in your heart. It has been planted in your heart for a reason. 

3. Finish what you start. You are a quick starter and persistent, but ensure you complete the vision. Each day is one less day. Ask, and you shall receive, but only with faith. Seek and you shall find. Then knock incessantly until the door is opened to you. You stopped knocking. Keep knocking.

Next week:
What Do You Really Want? Really.

You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically — to say ‘no’ to other things.

Stephen Covey (1932-2012)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Purpose and Mastery

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

I became fascinated with the great composers Bach and Handel. Both were born in Germany in 1685, and both have changed the hearts of people and the world of music. Bach stayed home and wrote music for the church, and Handel went to the empire where the sun never set--England. They have each inspired me and led me to ponder what it is like to live a life dedicated to mastery and to live with such purpose.

While I took that sabbatical from work in 2009, I immersed myself in the world of music, playing the piano and dreaming.

Johann Sebastian Bach

I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.

J.S. Bach

For most of his life, Bach was beset with tragedy and sorrow. He was orphaned at the age of ten when he lost his parents within a year of each other. He had 20 children, but 11 of them died. He lost his young daughter, three sons and then his first wife. He then remarried and lost four more daughters and three more sons, 11 dear children total. When he was old, he was in poor health and had cataracts that made him blind. How could someone produce such a treasure chest of music while being overwhelmed by such loss and hardship?

Perhaps Bach set his heart on fire by composing the world's most beautiful and meaningful music. Bach's music was the first music sent into space. He set his heart on composing music for God and man; perhaps that is why we feel so peaceful listening to his music.

At the beginning of each piece of music, he wrote, "Lord help." At the end of his music, he wrote, "Soli Deo Gloria" (Only Glory to God). His music was praise, prayer, and honour to God--a conversation between man and God in the form of musical notes.

Bach was prolific, writing over 1,000 works. The depth and complexity of his music pushed the boundaries of what was possible with music, and his music became the standard of excellence.

Bach believed his music should have a higher purpose. His sacred works like "St. Matthew Passion" were composed to honour God. His music was an expression of his faith and for mankind to feel the passion and love of the beloved Creator.

His works were not well known outside his country, but 70 years later, Felix Mendelssohn praised Bach and revived his work to worldwide acclaim. Bach's unmarked grave was discovered and raised to prominence, as his music inspired and lifted the great musicians and crowds who would listen to his music.

I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well.

J.S. Bach

George Handel

My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them. I wish to make them better.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Despite suffering from poor health and financial distress himself, he put on concerts to raise funds for people imprisoned for unpaid debts.

Handel's profound sense of purpose is evident in his great Magnum Opus "Messiah" (Hebrew for 'Anointed One'), which, at 260 pages, he wrote in just 24 days as he set the words of the Bible to music. Handel said it was as if the music were dictated to him by God, and he just transcribed the notes furiously onto paper. The Hallelujah Chorus in "Messiah" is said to have inspired and uplifted King George II so much that he stood up during this part. It has now become a tradition to stand up during that moment of the performance. The delightful and powerful Hallelujah ("Praise the Lord") chorus has the power to transform the heart through the power of its music and singing.

Handel composed over 40 operas and 29 oratorios, but when he first incorporated Scripture into his music (though now very accepted and praised), it was a point of contention among the civil and religious communities of his time. He fell into hard financial times and struggled until his revival with the popularity of "Messiah."

I have been most industrious and have achieved much with my music. However, I desire to create works that will outlast even my lifetime.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Beethoven was inspired by Bach and Handel and throughout his lifetime, he relentlessly pursued musical mastery despite much hardship. In 1797, around age 26, Beethoven started to lose his hearing, and by age 44 (in 1814), he was almost totally deaf.

Beethoven's famous Symphony No. 5 was written in 1804 and Symphony No. 9, considered his Magnum Opus, was composed between 1822 and 1824.

How could it be that he wrote his greatest work of music while completely deaf?

He knew and felt music intuitively. During his "late period," he became an innovator. He pioneered the transition between classical and romantic music periods, reinventing the symphony, sonata, and string quartet. He stirred souls with emotional depth and complexity that were familiar yet entirely new.

He believed that music had the power to stir the human soul and convey profound human emotions and ideals. Through his music, he expressed his beliefs in freedom, justice, and the triumph of the human spirit.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

John Milton

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

John Milton (1608-1674)

John Milton had a dream to write an epic poem like Homer's Odyssey and Virgil when he was just a teenager. He studied Latin and Greek, literature and theology and studied at Cambridge.

In a letter written in 1645, when he was 37 years old, Milton expressed his long-held ambition to write a great epic poem. He referred to the project as something he had been contemplating for many years.

His early writings and sonnets also reveal that he was formulating ideas for an epic narrative even before he began working on "Paradise Lost."

The concrete work on "Paradise Lost" began in the early 1650s, when he was in his early forties. Yet as he embarked on his dream, his vision faltered until he was completely blind in 1652, at the age of 44.

He thought he had to give up on his dream of writing the epic book he had envisioned. This caused him unspeakable agony. He valued the power of vision and the loss of his sight was devastating. He expressed his sorrow and frustration in his poetry, "Sonnet 19," where he laments his inability to serve God through his writing due to his blindness.

“When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;”

Despite his despair, Milton also saw his blindness as a test of faith and resilience. His struggle with his disability became a part of his creative and spiritual journey. He started to envision his book deeply in 1658, recited it to his daughter, and completed his Magnum Opus in 1667.

While his epic took nine years to complete, it was in his heart from a young age. He had composed much of the book in his mind and recited it to his daughters by memory so they could transcribe it.

It is considered one of the England's greatest literary works.

My Life Questions:

The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it.

William James (1842-1910)

What is my Purpose in Life?

• Each of us has a purpose in life. What is yours?

• A chair has a purpose. A building has a purpose. You have a purpose.

I have many dreams. Most of them I will never realize, but why?

• Perhaps because you do not have the courage to start.

• We limit ourselves. These limits prevent us from ever starting.

My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.

John Wesley (1703-1791)

1. I wish to do something for someone that outlasts my life.

• This is called a legacy. Deep down we all have this deep seated desire to matter, to have purpose, to have mastery of something.

2. Mastery takes time, with deep thought, deep work and practice over a lifetime.

• Every master starts as a baby, an apprentice, a novice who was not great at their dream. Over time, with deep focus, deep practice, deep work, they became a master. So it is the great lesson of life.

• The adage, “Practice makes perfect” rings ever true.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.

Chuck Swindoll (1934-)

1. I will create my own Magnum Opus, my great work for which I am purposed.

• Just like these masters reinvented what they experienced with the dream in their heart, they took something familiar and made it entirely new, imbibed with the passion in their heart. People recognize this passion, as it sparks life in your soul.

• I believe everyone has a Magnum Opus, but it must be pursued like these great masters.

2. You will be beset with trouble, obstacles and resistance. Yet you should push on.

• As I struggle with my own likelihood of blindness—due to severe wet macular degeneration, that I was diagnosed with at a relatively young age of 50—I wonder how many more years I will have my sight.

• Draw inspiration from John Milton, who wrote his Magnum Opus while he was blind and Beethoven, who composed Symphony No 9 while he was deaf. And, Helen Keller who wrote 12 published books and flew a plane while being both blind and deaf.

3. Dream for that things that bring spice and joy to your life. And when you make your dream come true, that will be your legacy. Through that action, you will inspire others to dream.

• Go for it, always.
  

Next week:
My Dream: God.com

A pipe dream in the making

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Starting a Side Hustle in 5 Steps

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

Step 1: Start. It’s the Hardest Step

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Arthur Ashe (1943–1993)

In today’s day and age, if you want to gain wealth and have optionality, you must create. In order to create, you must dream, imagine, and think of what brings you joy. In the beginning, there will be nothing but thoughts, ideas, and dreams.

To go from nothing to something is alchemy.

There will always be a beginning, and there will always be an end.

All great dynasties, empires, companies, organizations, products, and people adhere to this life cycle.

But you must still begin. 

You must have the courage to start. You must take the first great (and hardest) step. Take a leap of faith.

In my final year of medical residency, I took a leap of faith in the new year 1999. I registered my business name, Hostglobal.com, incorporated the company in Nevada and launched my website within three months.

I got my first client, who paid $300 per month. then, I got another one at $3,000 per month and then a third at $20,000 per month. All of a sudden, I was making more in one month than I was in a year as a medical resident.

Step 2: Own a Niche

Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.

Walt Disney (1901–1966)

Back then, I had many ideas (I still do)—some great and many bad—but I had to choose one. I had to make one idea work.

I wanted to build a Yellow Pages online, but that idea was too big and too broad.

I didn't have the time, resources, or skill set to go big, so I niched down to one category: Web Hosting (because I believed every business would eventually have a website and therefore need a web host).

Hostglobal.com was born when I registered the domain, created the website, and populated it with web hosting companies. I built a system to get reviews and ratings on each web host and then had these web hosting companies sponsor Hostglobal each month, pulling in $25,000 USD per month.

I started with a web hosting directory.

Amazon started with books.

Netflix started with mail-order DVDs.

Apple started with a personal computer.

Meta (Facebook) started as a networking site for Harvard students.

What's your niche?

Step 3: Have a Singular Clear Vision

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944), The Little Prince

What is your vision? 

What do you see as your end destination?

What is the success metric that measures your progress to your vision?

When you have clarity and can clearly see your idea's destination, it is much easier to navigate all the obstacles and resistance you will encounter as you embark on your side hustle journey.

After all, life is a journey full of obstacles that either strengthen or weaken one's resolve and spirit.

Envision your destination and articulate your vision. Simplify it to its core so you can express it in one paragraph, then one sentence and possibly in a few words.

All great companies, movies, shows, buildings, and relationships start with a person with a dream, then an idea, followed by thoughts on how to express that idea. Then, formulating and creating and building word by word, brick by brick, scene by scene, and editing it over and over again until it felt just right—until it worked just right.

Bringing an idea to life takes enormous energy in the form of thought and effort. But there are many ideas in your heart waiting to be born. Don't let them reside in the womb of your heart too long, for time passes impatiently.

Here are some of the world's most famous ideas; imagine if they had never been brought to life.

FedEx: Connecting the World Responsibly and Reliably (Overnight delivery)

Google: Organize and Make Accessible Information (Search)

Tesla: Accelerate the World's Transition to Sustainable Energy (Electric Vehicles)

Amazon: To Be Earth's Most Customer-Centric (Everything store)

Ford: Build the Best Vehicles Possible (Cars)

Southwest Airlines: Affordable Travel with Exceptional Service (Cheap travel)

IKEA: Create a Better Everyday Life (Cheap Furniture)

Costco: Deliver the Best Value Always (Cheap goods)

Netflix: Entertainment On Demand, Everywhere (Entertainment)

Disney: Make People Happy Through Magic (Happiness)

Step 4: Have an Executable Plan

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

George S. Patton (1885-1945)

What is your plan?
Can you execute it?
In what timeframe?
What are your constraints?
How will you overcome them?
What are your top 3 risks?

Design your plan in three to five steps, and start on the first step to make your idea real.

Your plans will change as you learn, encounter obstacles, meet new people, and get feedback. Adjust your plans. This process is called the path to product/market fit. You try to fit your product/service with your dream customers like a jigsaw puzzle.

This past year, I wanted our church lands to launch a tea lights festival. I had no actual position, only influence. We decided to go for it in October and launch in November. We had no product and very little money but many volunteers. I put together a website, 123festivals.com. I used artist renditions to show people what the experience would be like until we could make it real. I promised an amazing dining and guest experience, asking people to pay upfront, including a 20% tip.

Five days before launch day, the Parks Board told us that our customers could not use their section of the road to access our property. What?!

Fortunately, our property is on a waterfront, so we were able to charter boats to transport our guests to our festival by water. However, this created significant logistical and financial nightmares.

It was one of the most challenging things I've dealt with in business due to the extreme time constraints, obstacles from the Parks Board, and lack of expert resources. Ultimately, we chartered 1,800 guests over seven weekends.

Here are images from the first rough mockup by me.

Initially, our dome dining started at $79. However, by the last weekend, we had such high demand that we were able to increase it to $170 per guest.

We felt God's guiding hand as Vancouver's social media channels filled with free promotions for our Christmas Tealights event, and our guests shared their experiences on Reels and TikTok (that story is for another newsletter).

Here is the finished website (in the span of two months)

My executable plans typically fit on half a page of handwritten notes. They have 3-5 steps, 3-5 risks I should consider mitigating (e.g., boats instead of cars for the festival), and how I can execute the first 3 steps, listing my assumptions. 

Keep it simple and execute the 80/20 tasks.

Step 5: VPD. Vision. Plan. Determination.

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas Edison (1847–1931)

Now that you have your vision and plan, the last step is determination. Persistence and perseverance are essential.

Can you imagine failing 10,000 times like Edison to invent a city of lights with light bulbs?

Can you imagine getting rejected by 222 Venture Capitalists like Howard Schultz did for his Starbucks idea?

Can you imagine practicing like Kobe Bryant to become one of the greatest basketball players of all time, waking up at 3 am to have extra practice at 4 am to get in one extra practice than every other player?

The chapter on Persistence, a key principle of the 13 principles in the book "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, is worth reading monthly. One of my mentors, Bob Proctor, read it daily for a month every year for 30 years. He practiced Persistence by reminding himself of the principle of Persistence.

Be determined. Persist. Persevere.

My Life Questions:

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

Robert Byrne (1930–2016)

What have you always wanted to do but have not yet started?

• Set aside an hour each day (morning is best) and write your thoughts, dreams, and plans with a timeline.

• Just do it :)

My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

Life is going from hustle to hustle. Sometimes, it starts as a side hustle, but it often grows into a full-time hustle.

• You might as well love and enjoy your hustles so you can hustle well.

You are much bolder and more fearless when you are younger because you have nothing to lose, only to gain.

• Start young and focus on learning rather than earning.

• Seek good mentors and memorable experiences.

See who does it the best and make it your own.

• We are all inspired by something or someone. Find what and who thinks and operates at a level of excellence and extraordinaryness, and then practice becoming excellent and extraordinary.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937)

Imagine you only have ten big life decisions that you can make in your lifetime.
What would those ten choices be regarding how you spend your precious time on earth?

My list:

1. I knew that I wanted to help people with their health ✔

2. I knew that I wanted to ride the Internet wave ✔

3. I knew that I wanted a loving family ✔

4. I knew that I wanted to praise God ✔

5. I knew that I wanted to ride the crypto wave ✔

6. I know that I want to build an amazing wellness retreat

7. I know that I want to write books

8. I know that I want to make movies

9. I know that I want to make a Broadway musical

10. I know that I want to live a healthy, strong, fit life to at least 108 years old

Study and know the basic principles of life, for they apply to all areas of life, including business.

• Many people don't realize that one of the best business books is the Bible, which contains life principles that can be applied to business. Some of the wealthiest people in history were blessed with this wisdom, like Abraham, Joseph, King David, King Solomon, and Daniel. I especially enjoy the books of Proverbs and Luke for business.

• I'd like to focus on the 80/20 principle, the compound effect, and network effects in future newsletters.

Dream big. Whether you dream small or big, it takes similar thought and effort. Default to big, but take small action steps to start making your dream real. 

• You started as one cell and multiplied to billions over nine months. Everything starts from zero to one. That first step is the beginning of something bigger. Travel that path of your heart.
  

Next week:
Your Vision. Your Purpose.

Bach. Handel. Beethoven.

I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Fear VS Faith

To Lead or Not to Lead

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Will You Live in Fear or by Faith?

Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

As the subprime financial crisis smacked the world into fear and trembling, entire industries started to crumble: the financial industry, the real estate industry, and then the tech world and other sectors.

This doubt and uncertainty about whether we were going into a global depression as industries suddenly went on life support made everyone, including me, fearful of the uncertain future.

Fear infected the entire world. Much like the global pandemic did for everyone's health, this fear infected every heart with the fear of losing house, business, and wealth. With banks collapsing, people's savings and deposits were at risk. Wall Street shut down, and brilliant finance MBAs had nowhere to go for jobs.

I started emailing Harvard MBAs in early 2009 and offered them jobs at Reinvent. One of them was willing to come to Vancouver. Her name was Michele Zaitlyn. Then, at the last minute, she emailed to tell me she decided instead to start a business with her classmate, Matthew Prince. That business was CloudFlare. I wish I had been more curious and funded their startup idea. They are now both billionaires and have done a fantastic job of providing cybersecurity for Internet businesses. And Forbes has listed Michele as one of the world's richest self-made women in 2024.

My business peaked in 2007, and I saw the downtrend cycle happening all over the domain world. Fear started to slowly infect my heart, too.

I purchased my last $20 million domain portfolio in Dec 2007 and stopped buying domains.

Though I was alive, my heart stopped believing

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

William Wallace (1270-1305)

As subprime continued into 2009, I decided to be prudent, go back to foundations, and reduce the size of the team to the essentials. It was the most difficult business decision I had to make. I decided to keep tech but downsize all other departments. I couldn't sleep or eat a single meal, and I felt heartbroken having to let so many of my team go, to let the dream of becoming a great company die.

I would often hug my children and cry inside.

As I addressed my team about our decision to let two-thirds of the team go, my voice trembled with sadness and care. Many came and tried to give me solace, saying they understood. Some were upset and disappointed.

Reflecting on this time, I realized that whatever I felt was ten times worse for those impacted by my decision. A part of me died that day. I felt it was time to leave business and return to my original passions: health and God. I had only planned to do business for three to six months back in 2000. It had now been nine years.

I made a cowardly and difficult decision to also part from my Director and mentor, Dr. Chris Hartnett. I took the easy way out and cut it off quickly, without an explanation, thanking him and giving him something for his heart and mentorship. It's a decision I regret immensely.

I asked three team members to take over the business, and I would start transitioning management to them: Rob, Mona, and Don.

I would move on to the next phase of my life. I would play the piano to console my soul and study the Bible more deeply to come closer to God.

A New Heart

The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

I played Moonlight Sonata and Disney songs, as well as played and sang hymns. It helped me. I thought a lot about life.

As the days, weeks, and months passed, new ideas began to flood my heart like lightning.

Three dreams took hold of my heart.

1. Social commerce

2. Gospel Media Network

3. Three movies I envisioned

In the next six months at home, I was absorbed in network effects and social commerce. The network effect is one of the most powerful effects in the world, and I believe it is even more powerful than the compound effect. During my time at Harvard, I studied network effects intensively. 

What are Network effects?

A network increases in value with every new user. A good example is a phone. It has more value as you have more people you can 'network' with. This is the principle that social networks, commerce networks, and movie networks are based on. If leveraged well, they have inbuilt virality.

Instead of starting from scratch, I thought I could buy an existing network. Startups are hard!

I tried to buy Myspace, the declining social network displaced by the uprising Facebook, but it sold before I could place my offer. Turns out Allen & Company could only be reached through a warm introduction and I couldn't make the connection in time. In 2011, Myspace sold for just $35 million, six years after Rupert Murdoch's (FOX, Newscorp) company had bought it for $580 million.

I decided to learn the ropes of social commerce. The latest phenomenon was Groupon, and I wanted to recreate it with a social cause component by donating 10% to a local charity. I hired a COO, Tony Lam, from Electronic Arts, who built a team for this new company, GoodNews.com.

Little did I know that the pattern above would repeat itself as I embarked on new startups in new industries over the next 15 years.

I had wondered why the people in the Bible didn't learn the lessons from the past, repeating the same mistakes despite the warnings.

Now I know. :)

My Life Questions:

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

1. What decisions can you make when in fear?

• Flight or Fight? Run. Hide. Cower. Or the very few who Fight! Fight! Fight!

• Fight the fear.

• The remedy for fear is hope and faith.
  

My Life Lessons Then (from my 29 year old self):

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

1. Are you making decisions in fear or by faith?

• Decisions are drastically different when based in fear versus based in faith.

• Fear crumbles and destroys while faith believes, making even the impossible possible.

2. Life always gives you chances to learn the lesson over and over again until you do

• It, too, shall pass. That is the lesson of the Bible and life. Everything passes.

• We have one life to live, learn, and make a difference for someone else—even just one person. Sometimes, that person might just be you. My goal is to make a difference to more than me, one by one.

3. You will make bad decisions.

• You do not have to be mean, demeaning, and uncaring when you make hard or bad decisions. Even if it is wrong, do it with care and compassion.

• You need to make tough decisions. It's part of the seasons of business. Leaves fall, trees become barren. This happens to all businesses in time, to mighty empires, and to us in our seasons of life. There is a beginning and an end to products, businesses, and life. Be grateful for life's journey and those who walk the same path with you.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

1. You do not have to make hard decisions in haste.

• You did not have to lay off your team suddenly, with no warning, explanation, or compassion. Give people time to adapt, even at your expense.

2. You did not have to be so extreme.

• Instead of abrupt changes, think of transitioning and succession planning. Be gracious and help grow leaders. Build your systems to innovate and, believe and operate at the highest levels. Be great. Make those around you great.

3. Do good even at your own cost.

• A good name is more important than ego, money or power. You must endeavour to keep your character and name, as well as respect and honour.

Next week:
Starting a Side Hustle

Making it work for you

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

The Entrepreneur of the Year

The Oscars of Business Awards

Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.

Peter Drucker (1909-2005)

Are You an Entrepreneur?

Risk more than others think is safe. Dream more than others think is practical.

Howard Schultz (1953-) Starbucks Chairman

What is your definition of an Entrepreneur?
Just take a minute to think about it.

Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World) painting sold for $450 million in 2017. What was it worth in Da Vinci’s day? The fruits of an entrepreneur’s labour are often better appreciated over time, far after their death.

The term Entrepreneur was derived from the French verb “entreprendre” (“to undertake”) and first coined by Richard Cantillon in 1730 to describe someone who was taking a risk and making decisions in uncertain conditions.

Later in 1803, Jean-Baptiste Say described the entrepreneur as taking things of lesser value and creating higher value. Joseph Schumpeter in 1911 said the role of the entrepreneur was as an innovator and a driver of economic development through creative destruction.

My definition? 
An entrepreneur is anyone who creates value for others and themselves. And everyone can create.

By my definition, God is an entrepreneur because I believe God created the world and us. A most beautiful creation. I’ve received so many business lessons from the Bible, which describes the entrepreneurship of God.

To All the Unsung Entrepreneurs

The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

It’s not just business people who are entrepreneurs.

Artists, poets, writers, philosophers, musicians and scientists are also entrepreneurs. They use paint, words, thoughts, music, theory and experiments to create and express the beauty, joy, and wisdom of life and nature. 

Bach’s music was for the church. He died relatively unknown until Felix Mendelssohn resurrected his work 70 years after Bach’s death. They later searched for Bach’s unmarked grave to give recognition to his great works.

Those who scale their works of creation are recognized as Entrepreneurs, but it’s the unsung heroes who have allowed the greats to stand on their shoulders to whom we should also pay homage for making a dent in the world.

I further describe entrepreneurs as those who have the courage to live their dreams.

This was my father and my mother who left Korea with the shirt on their backs. My father went from an almost non-existent elementary school education to the German mines and then to Ford in Canada. He then had the courage to set up his own grocery store and laundromats. My mom left Korea as a nurse to come to a new country to learn English and work as a nurse in a small town in Ontario Canada called Owen Sound.

I am especially impressed by entrepreneurs who bootstrap with little money, few resources, little education, and little time because they are typically working many other jobs. This requires ingenuity and persistence along with the 12 hallmarks of entrepreneurship.

Do You Have the Credentials of an Entrepreneur?

There’s no shortage of remarkable ideas, what’s missing is the will to execute them.

Seth Godin (1960-)

I had dreamed since 14 of becoming a medical doctor, so I took no liberal arts courses or any business courses in university. So when I started my side hustle in 1999, I often had the impostor syndrome. I just did what made sense. Offer a unique service that gave more than I asked for. It worked and then I expanded and raised the prices as I gave more value. And most of the other bootstrap entrepreneurs in the domain industry were just like me. 

Who were the experts in domains?

It was us, who spent 16 hours a day, figuring out how to value a domain, register great domains, and make money from the domains. We built systems to automate as much as we could, because we were one-person operations. We were the visionary, the executer, the financier, the marketer, the salesperson, the administrator all-in-one. We wore all the hats of the business.

I would argue that being a bootstrap entrepreneur is the best business education in the world. You learn everything first hand. The lessons of entrepreneurship are inscribed into your soul.

We had no unfair advantage except a dream we sought.

Our failures are our battle scars and oh do we have so many.
Our successes are built on these piles of failures.
We learned to iterate and test our assumptions quickly before spending much money,  time or resources.

But my Director pulled me aside and asked me to seriously consider going to the Advanced Management Program at Harvard.

My wife was pregnant. There was no way I could. Would this help me?
It wouldn’t hurt. And no one could look down on you.
It made sense. I asked my wife. She paused and considered the implications.
I would be in a Harvard dorm for two months. She would be 4 months pregnant, yet she gave her full support.

And the Winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year is…

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.

Colin R. Davis (1927-2013)

I applied to Harvard’s Advance Management Program. They suggested that I apply to their Owner Management Program. My director Chris Hartnett gave them a call.

They accepted me. I was the youngest along with Gary at age 37.

I had applied to E & Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year for Technology. I was nominated as a finalist. I would have to fly from Boston back to Vancouver during my Harvard education and then fly back that night after the award ceremony for class.

We did 200 business case studies in two months. It was intense and I loved every minute of it. Harvard in the fall was beautiful. And then the subprime financial crisis I had predicted hit like a global hurricane in September. 

We had the most interesting speakers. Founder of Vanguard, Meg Whitman CEO of eBay, Michael Dell, and the list went on. We did the case study and then we were able to directly ask the founders and executives questions. Wow.

At the awards ceremony, it was like a red carpet gala event. I met David Suzuki, a finalist as well. It was so cool to be amongst so many great entrepreneurs. I had three tables. Fellow teammates, beloved family. It felt like the Oscars for business. I had a strong intuition that I would win in my category.

And the winner of the E & Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year for Technology goes to…

Dr. Kevin Ham

Wow, it felt like I had won an Oscar. I was hugging everyone. My father, my wife, my family, my teammates. It took me a while to get to the podium.

The MC said I had only two minutes for my speech. Two minutes. How could I thank and express eight years of emotions.

I thanked God by acknowledging the two words that sit 555 feet hidden at the top of the Washington Monument: Laus Deo, which is Latin for Praise God, along with the good book, my guide, the Bible. I thanked with all of my heart my wife, my family, and my team.

It brings tears to my eyes as I think of all that my parents and family went through for me to get to that moment.

Blood, sweat and tears… of many generations. I am shedding these tears even as I write this.

Here’s to all the entrepreneurs, who dared to dream, who dared to start what seemed like an impossible dream and got up after every No, after every failure, after every false start. Here’s to you. I believe in you, your heart to dream and make that dream come true. Never, ever, give up. Until your last breath, dream and live.

My Life Questions:

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

George Eliot (1819-1880)

1. What is your life dream that you wish for?

• Never forget the dreams in your heart. They are your life. Perhaps they lay buried deep in your heart. Mine those dreams out and make them shine. This world needs your light, your dreams. Disney showed you what is possible when you dream.
  

My Life Lessons Then (from my 29 year old self):

The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph.

George Washington (1732-1799)

1. Everything you dream about is possible, if you have enough faith and courage to pursue your dream.

2. Starting and believing results in learning about the obstacles you need to navigate around.

• These obstacles are there for you to grow stronger, to be more resilient so that you can be the person you need to become to fulfill your dream.

3. If you persist, someone or something will open the way.

• A door will surely open for you. You will find the right door.

• Howard Schultz had 222 No’s before someone said Yes to his Starbucks idea. Just lock into your destination GPS and the routes will go around the obstacles and find the path.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

1. Cherish these moments. The highs and the lows.

• You have become resilient because you kept on the path and persisted. The lows have brought you high, The highs are heights where you can fall and are more dangerous than the valleys.

2. You made your father proud, I wish mom could have shared this moment.

• She passed too early from gall bladder cancer in 2006.

3. You had more faith and courage in your dreams than I do now.

• What happens as we grow older? Does fear of failure, self preservation, ego start to kick in or am I spreading myself too thin by focusing on too many dreams instead of just a few?

• Focus. Dr. Azra Raza sat me down recently and asked me, “What do you really want?” Take two days in nature and really ponder this question. Be certain of your answer. Great advice.

Next week:
Fear VS Faith

To Lead or Not to Lead

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Raise $300 million to roll up the industry

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Mike Tyson (1966-)

Anyone have $300 million?

Money often costs too much.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

On the plane ride back from the Domain conference, I had this idea. Why not add to the flywheel of business by buying the best domain portfolios? Not only would they be very valuable assets in and of themselves, but they could be monetized and garner even more revenues at scale. This would be like buying up more waterfront real estate.

I could pitch the top domainers, who had become great friends, Frank Schilling, Scott Day, Garry Chernoff and others. Webdesign.com, recipes.com, prayer.com, performance.com (the one I thought I had for $100 when I first started).

But where would I get the money? Again, I didn’t have the cash on hand to do this.

Then I had an idea. I could invite all the top investment bankers from Wall Street and see if I could either raise or borrow $300 million.

The Players of Wall Street

The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value of nothing.

Philip Fisher (1907-2004)

I asked my network to introduce me to anyone who could help me. Bob Seeman, one of my innovative business friends, connected me to some along with my lawyer, Steve Lukas, who would connect me with Scott Earthy, who came from this world of finance.

I was planning to move into our newly acquired Yaletown building, but the renovations would take too long so instead we upgraded our offices to an 11,000 square foot sub penthouse office in our existing building, with 270 degrees of city, water and mountain view. Much too large for our team of 16 but we would grow our team to 60 as we built the infrastructure to scale our business.

Pretty soon, we were hosting all the big Wall Street banks. I really wanted Goldman Sachs, but they were the only ones I could not connect with.

I would even be invited by big private equity (PE) companies like Cerberus and Blackstone. Cerberus offered the $300 million right away on our first meeting but at a higher interest rate. They were the PE that had acquired Chrysler.

And just like that, I was on my way to do the deals I had already lined up with my domainer friends.

The cover story coincided with the meetings and validated the story of our business and I was viewed as an entrepreneur who could deliver the goods.

I presented to S & P and Moody’s to get investor ratings and that was the ticket into this world of Wall Street. In the elevator before the pitch I saw a guy staring at me. When I looked up, it was John Travolta! Hi John. Hi. He seemed normal, but also mystical at the same time. Wow, a whole new world.

The Subprime Crash of Real Estate

The four most expensive words in the English language are, ‘This time it’s different.’

Sir John Templeton (1912-2008)

Out of the 7 investment banks, I was impressed by Bear Stearns and Bank of America. I liked their team. Maybe it was my first amazing meal at Nobu that BOA treated me that won not only my stomach but my heart.

There I was sitting in the Manhattan tower that housed Bank of America, overlooking beautiful Central Park. The head of leveraged finance was popping in and out of the meeting. But what I noticed was his very stressed and concerned demeanour. He seemed very distracted with bad news. At the break, I asked him, “What’s wrong?”

He simply replied, “Subprime.”

What is that?

Subprime loans are real estate loans to home buyers with low credit scores that were then bundled together to reduce the risk of default of any one borrower.

Hmmm, not sure I quite understand. What’s the potential fallout?

Hundreds of billions of dollars. Likely more.

Sounds big!

Yes, it’s very concerning.

Will this affect what I am doing?

Possibly.

Fear of Impending Doom

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

I went away from this deep in thought. If this fallout happened, what would happen if the economy crashed?

As I looked into this more, it looked like potential impending financial doom, the collapse of the banking system.

I started to tell my home builder to build faster so I could sell my current house at the top of the market before the financial crash occurred. They said I must be wrong because real estate was only growing and couldn’t suddenly crash like I was saying.

But my intuition said I was right.

I was telling many people about this coming crash, but it fell on deaf ears. 

Bear Stearns, one of my joint arrangers, would go bankrupt and sell for under $300 million, less than the amount I was raising. I decided not to go ahead with the $300 million acquisitions. I apologized to my friends, saying my intuition said to not go ahead. They are still my friends, so true friends. Instead I got a credit line of $60 million and acquired a much smaller portfolio for $20 million and promptly paid it off.

Then in September 2008, while I was attending Harvard, living in the dorms, the financial crisis took full effect. The Director of Goldman Sachs would speak to us and say how subprime nearly collapsed every financial institution.

Lehman Brothers would fall and sell to Bank of America. The CEO of Bank of America and most of the team there would be swapped out. So many would lose their homes, home prices would fall across America and ripple to other markets around the world.

My Life Questions:

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

1. What is your life plan?

• Dreams are important but a plan to make it real is just as important. The plan will change. But you must have a plan to start. Map out your life to 100 years and work backwards by decades. What do you hope to accomplish by 100, by 80, by 50, by 40, by 30, by 20? Line up the dominoes in your mind (and on paper).

• Physically I wish to be able to do 10 pullups daily, do the splits (ouch) and ride 100 km on my bike at 100 years old (century ride at my century mark). I am working backwards. I am 53 and worked my way up to 20 pull ups, can do 100 km easily on my bike up mountains. My big challenge is the splits so every morning I am trying to move my hands to my feet from a pushup position.

My Life Lessons Then (from my 29 year old self):

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

1. Is growth by acquisition the best way or optimizing what you already have?

• Walmart has 8.6% market share in the US. Do they need to acquire and expand globally? Southwest Airlines expands in the US 99% of the time. In-n-Out Burger is slowly expanding out of California. Brand density. Market density. Expand in your niche market and once you have things ironed out, expand into adjacent markets.

2. Listen to your intuition and ask questions.

• Intuition is your gut sense of something right or something wrong. You feel it right there. Your gut. Listen to your intuition. You are a prophet. You just haven’t learned how to use this super power fully yet.

3. Don’t be dazzled by numbers. Be focused on purpose.

• The allure of big numbers blinds one from one’s path and purpose. Don’t lose sight of what really matters to you.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Yoda

1. Keep listening to your intuition, gain insight, deep on introspection.

• The “in” deep inside of you are delving to know yourself much deeper and in more dimensions. Focus on “in*”.

2. When a secret is revealed, ponder on how you can leverage it.

• I didn’t know how to leverage the secret knowledge of subprime. The Big Short revealed how Michael Burry shorted the market and made $4 billion. I realized afterwards it would be beneficial to know how the markets worked and did commodity (oil, gold and natural gas) leverage trading daily for a year. The education was interesting and somewhat invaluable. I 100x my money in stocks as a result. Bought NVIDIA in 2018 at $60 a share after 12x my Google buy in 2006. It slingshot to $1,180 a share (20x) [now $118 after a 10:1 split]. I will explain my thoughts on my decision to buy NVIDIA at that time in another newsletter.

3. Don’t let fear dictate, have courage and faith in yourself and your dreams.

• I’ve noticed that the periods in my life when crises hit, it’s natural to have fear. But to act and make decisions in fear has mostly not garnished any good results. Some like bowing out of my big $300 million deal. But for the most part, fear resulted in bad decisions mostly. Don’t ignore the fear. Be prudent, yet act with courage and faith.

Next week:
The Entrepreneur of the Year

Awards leads to Glory and Hubris

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Confucius (551-479 BC)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

The Man Who Owns the Internet

How the Master of Web Domains built his $300 million Empire

Fame is a bee. It has a song— 
It has a sting— Ah, too, it has a wing.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Just a Cover Story

How do you stand out amongst so many?

Kevin Ham (1970-)

I was in Hawaii on a spring family vacation. One of my favourite places. My childhood memory ingrained in me that Hawaii was paradise. We have a family ritual to spend loving time there. Eventually I wish to be a ‘snowbird’ and live in Hawaii for 3 months of the year.

I was about to write to Paul Sloan, the reporter of Business 2.0, that I don’t want to be part of the article he wished to write.

Just then, a new message came in from Paul. He told me he was excited and had just booked his flight to Vancouver.

I paused my email and then decided to delete it and replied to Paul that I would love to host him.

In the ensuing meeting, he asked me so many great questions. I asked him not to write about certain topics like our Cameroon venture, that he was so curious about. I thought it was a great experience and looked forward to a nice article in Business 2.0, my favourite magazine back then. It had inspired me a lot in my early days, hearing how entrepreneurs overcame adversity and came up with novel solutions to obstacles they faced..

Weeks later, Paul called me and asked me to sit down as he had some big news. The chief editor wanted to make our story the cover story. I said, “No, I don’t want to be famous. I just want to have credibility in an inside article.”

Paul said he had more news and to brace myself.

Just Half My Face

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

St. Jerome (347-420)

He said that my face would be on the cover. 

Me: What? No!  

Paul: I had the team only do half your face and in black and white, out of respect of your desire to not be fully seen.

Me: Really? Oh no!

I asked Paul Sloan if he had written anything bad about me. His response: “Nobody knows you so we introduced the most interesting aspects of you and what you’ve done. Now that people know you, this is where they either lift you up or tear you down.”

I resigned myself to the fact that I would be recognized. I was both happy but also disappointed. Reflective and mind racing. What would this mean for me? For my family? For my future? A turn of events unexpected yet not unanticipated.

Did you ever have the feeling that you would one day matter? That you were destined to do more than what you were doing? That feeling deep in your heart, however buried it might be?

We call that a DREAM. Seemingly like fantasy, just a cloud seen briefly, that fades into the heavens when not acted up, when not believed, when not realized.

Dream and believe. Believe in your dreams. Believe in yourself. Believe in that higher power that brings it all together.

Read the full article here

Fame. I want to live forever in Books.
TV Interviews. Dragon’s Den. Autographs. Oh no.

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, 
then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

Fred Allen (1894-1956)

Once the magazine came out, the barrage of emails, letters, requests came fast and furious. My response. Ignore them all. My friend even bought many copies of the magazine and asked me to sign them. What? That seemed so odd but in retrospect, makes a lot of sense. Starstruck were the people around me.

TV interviews, major newspapers worldwide including our local newspapers, The Vancouver Sun, The Province, major magazines were all requesting interviews. No replies from me. They printed front page stories based on the cover story anyways.

I received copies of newspapers around the globe that had me on the front page.

But the best part is almost a decade later when I heard the impact my story had on young students and entrepreneurs in India and China. They were inspired to become entrepreneurs. I met them at a domain conference and they had a staff of 50 people.

He said my story had filled most of the front page of India Times and part of the second page. Wow.

The Fear of Success is greater than the Fear of Failure

Fear defeats more people than any other one thing in the world.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

But why did I neglect all this media attention when most people and companies tried sometimes desperately to attain this moment?

Later on, someone told me about the fear of success is just as real as the fear of failure.

Fear of Success is really a fear of change at the extreme when success changes the people around you. Who are your real friends? Who loves you for who you are versus what you have or the status you have obtained? Who are you really vs who the world thinks you are. It gives rise to the feeling of the Imposter Syndrome. Embrace you. You know who you are. Everyone else will have a varied view of you.

Define yourself, don’t let others define you.

Success brings you over the threshold into a different world where people see the superficial aspects of you and neglect the deeper character that brought you there.

You fear this and so you go into a shell and hide, like I did. Classic fear of success.

Don’t Forget Me When You’re Famous

Fame means millions of people have the wrong idea of who you are.

Erica Jong (1942-)

Frank Schilling, my domain competitor and friend, asked me for one thing. Don’t forget me when you become a celebrity in the business world. I said, “Of course not, I won’t change.” He was much more street smart than me. I’m pretty naive. I’m just me.

The struggle to please others vs living my dreams was constantly on my mind in the past. Now that I’ve reach the pinnacle of success, I wondered what my next steps were.

I thought, one more thing for my father and my mother, who had just passed away in 2006. It would be something my father would love. I would apply to be Entrepreneur of the Year. I would also go to Harvard at the suggestion of my good friend and mentor, Dr. Christopher Hartnett, who had attained billionaire status with Voiceover IP during the dotcom boom.

My Life Questions:

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

1. What is the success that you wish to attain?

• Ponder and write out what success is to you and put it on your phone screensaver where you can always see it.

2. How will you overcome fear of failure and fear of success?

• Fear is wetting your pants and overcoming fear, courage and faith, is doing what you believe in with wet pants.

• Once you have tasted success, then fear of failure becomes larger because you don’t want to fail despite your success. Without success, you can continue to fail, but with success now you have a ‘reputation’ to hold. Keep on failing for success arises from the learnings of many failures.

3. How will your world change with success?

• Your world will change, whether success is a job, a business, losing weight, overcoming obstacles. Like a Clark Kent who turns into superman. Different worlds that have different egos and expectations. Learn to live in the new world and hold onto what’s important in your former world.

My Life Lessons Then (from my 29 year old self):

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; 
not only plan, but also believe.

Anatole France (1844-1924)

1. Really think about what you really want.

• Your thoughts are powerful. Your dreams are very powerful. When you start to speak and act according to your thoughts and dreams, they start to become real in your world. You will attract those who are inspired by your thoughts and dreams. It leads you down a road that opens new paths. Make sure you want to walk down this road.

2. Success is a big peak of accomplishment that shines.

• Your results speak louder than any aphorisms or inspiring words. People look for signs and not just prophecies. Focus on results, the manifestation of your thoughts, your ideas, your dreams.

3. Believe in yourself

• This is one of the most powerful things you can do in your life: Believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? A mentor. Mentors and leaders believe in you more than you believe in yourself until you believe in yourself more than they believe in you.

• I wished I had a mentor like this. Well, it was my parents, my family and my team and my faith in God.

Life Advice Now (from my present 53 year old self):

Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)

1. Do not run away once you attain success.

• God set you on a journey to attain the highest peak of success but you squandered it by not opening the gift and the blessing. The gift remains unopened. How much good you could have done, but you weren’t prepared to sacrifice and give up some of your old ways to help and benefit so many others.

• But it’s okay. The gift remains for you to open even now, if you so choose. Embrace your gifts and blessings and give them away to bless others.

2. Remain humble.

• Don’t let the fame, the praise get to your head. Balance ego, the mind, with your heart, full of generosity and love. Keep counselors in your life who will tell you when you stray off the good path. Have people who say No and not only Yes.

3. Be grateful in good times and bad

• The law is that once you get to the summit, you need to come down. Be grateful on the descent, the fall from grace. Life consists of peaks and valleys. The valleys build strength and resilience for higher peaks. Don’t remain in the valleys too long though. Climb your way out through hope, faith and love.

Next week:
Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men.

Raise $300 million and roll up the industry.

Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

Mike Tyson (1966-)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Insignificant. Unknown. Rejected. Despite a Lot of Money

You are not someone unless there is undeniable proof

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

— Ralph Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

You are insignificant

“ You are never too small to make a difference.”

— Greta Thunberg (2003-)

I was interviewing a software engineer in the early days of my company, 2006. We were in a big boardroom. He seemed impressed. He asked me, “How many people are there in the company?”

8.

8? His jaw dropped and he started writing the number 8 on the table. 8 or 80?

8.

I could tell he was frazzled. The interview ended rather quickly after that. He had lost interest.

You are not worth my time

“ Not all those who wander are lost.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

I was attending the Harvard Advanced Management Program in the fall of 2008, just when the financial crisis hit.

I was the youngest student in the program at age 37. I was surrounded by Fortune 500 executives or soon to be executives.

I was speaking to a top executive at Goldman Sachs Hong Kong. He asked me how many people I had in my company. 60.

He looked at me and then just walked away.

I told this to my mentor, Dr. Christopher Hartnett, also a Director of my company. The next day, the Goldman executive came up to me at lunch and apologized to me, saying he respects me and to ask him for anything at all. I wondered what had happened. My Director had told him about my accomplishments in business.

You are rejected

“I take rejection as someone blowing a bugle in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.”

— Sylvester Stallone (1946-)

We wanted to move to a building with a view of the Pacific ocean, the sunrise and the sunset. We had our eye on Harbour Centre. We applied for a small 2600 square foot office. We got rejected. We asked why. The landlord wasn’t confident in our ability to pay. We were doing tens of millions of dollars. We sent them our financials. They begrudgingly agreed. We would later rent out almost an entire floor. Plenty of Fish, the free dating site and Markus Frind would take our 2600 sq ft office as we moved out. They sold for $600m USD to IAC.

Establish undeniable proof

"Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself."

After the 8 incident, I had this thought that I should get our company in some media article so that our company would have credibility.

I considered contacting our local papers, The Vancouver Sun and The Province. They were a stone’s throw away. My heart said no. Wait. God will direct. Hmmm, ok, I shall wait.

I was set to go to a Domain conference in Las Vegas in March 2007.

On welcoming night, I had a gentleman come up to me and ask, “Are you the man behind Cameroon?” That question took me by surprise. I had tried to keep my association with that secret. I replied, “I had help.”

He, Paul Sloan, was a reporter with one of my favourite business magazines, Business 2.0.

I had dinner with him and learned he was half Jewish and half German with a Lutheran background. I was curious with his ‘religious upbringing’. I asked him questions like why God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and not Cain’s? He asked me a lot of questions about how I built my business.

He told me he wanted to write an article about me along with several other domainers. Maybe this is what my heart had told me, to wait. God would provide. It felt right.

My Life Questions:

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”

— Bruce Lee (1940-1973)

1. What is your secret identity that no one in the world truly knows?

• You have a superpower that the world has not seen. What is it? What are your 3 core values?

2. How do you overcome rejection, insignificance?

• Rejection doesn’t mean you are insignificant. It signals that you are not with the right people, the right values, the right tribe, the right time. Change perspective, environment, tribe. Find where you ‘belong’.

3. How will you matter?

• You will matter, even if to yourself, one other person or a group or a community or even a future generation. Many an artist like William Blake died unknown in poverty and is now proclaimed as one of Britain’s great poets.

My Life Lessons Then: (from my 29 year old self)

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today.”

— Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

1. Establish your results as your ‘resume’.

• Results speak loudly. Having no known credibility makes everything harder. You don’t need to brag, but boldly and confidently proclaim your value in the service of others.

2. Focus on the results of your Vision.

• Your vision is your north star. Never lose sight of it. If you don’t have a vision, pray for one, seek one. This is the “WHAT” of your life. The mountain peak you climb to in a decade or decades.

3. Believe in something greater than yourself.

• When you fall, the fall is endless if there is no bedrock of faith to anchor you and be your foundation. For me, this is God and Jesus. The next layer is loved ones. Who will you ‘pray’ to if there is no one more powerful to you than yourself?

Life Advice Now: (from my present 53 year old self)

“The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.”

— John Ruskin (1819-1900)

1. Humbly acknowledge praise to whom praise is due.

• I could not have planned nor orchestrated many things in my life. I thank Chris Hartnett for his guidance and helping me at Harvard and in life. I thank God for His countless blessings in my life and those around me. I thank my team, my wife and my kids for always being there for me when I fell hard.

2. Leverage what is given to you.

• Don’t run away and descend once you get to the top of the mountain. Stay there a while and enjoy the view. It took a lot of work and luck to get there. Savour the moment and reflect, write about it. You let the fear of success, the imposter syndrome get to you too quickly.

3. Be humbly confident in yourself

• The gifts of life are handed freely. Unwrap them, open your heart and give them freely away. This is your true gift. One day they must be returned.

Next week: Cover Story. The Man Who Owns the Internet

Kevin Ham is the most powerful dotcom mogul you’ve never heard of

Here’s how the Master of Web Domains built his $300 million empire

“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures, and that is character.”

— Horace Greeley (1811-1872)

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

No Money? No Problem.

Three $10 million deals with no plan

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.”

— Helen Keller (1880-1968)

Just clear vision with faith and purpose.

I had spent the last 15 years with the singular goal of becoming a doctor. I achieved it but now felt disillusioned. I was newly married and had a beautiful newborn daughter on the way. Needless to say, I was at a big crossroads. 

I pondered whether this was what I wanted to do for the next 40 years of my life. I still wanted to help people but this was clearly not the way to do it.

“Even without money, a vision with faith and purpose are powerful enough to make the seemingly impossible possible.”

— Kevin

With the business back on track, there were a few dreams I saw in my heart.

1. Build my dream home

2. Buy a church property

3. Buy a commercial office building for work

Each of these would require at least a $10 million investment, over $36 million total. The problem? I only had $200,000 in the bank.

My dream home

“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

I thought about what I wanted in a dream home. I imagined in my mind’s eye:

• a view of the mountains

• the Pacific Ocean

• close to the city, yet a secluded, tranquil neighbourhood

• clean air next to parks and beaches, and

• a large lot 

So I looked on Google Earth and looked for areas that would match this. I found a few locations. I looked at houses for sale in these neighbourhoods. One house, when I stepped into it, I just had a vision and an intuition that this would be my home. It was already ‘done’.

The realtor said the basement was a mess and flooded, and likely had mold. I didn’t even go look at the rest of the house. I told my realtor, my brother-in-law, Gord, to put in a firm offer for $3.6 million just for the lot, I knew it was a bargain compared to the other neighborhoods. I would then spend the next five years building my dream house on this big lot. I would struggle to pay for the building of my dream home, as it took much longer to build (5 years) at double my budget.

Our church

“The Church is a place where broken hearts are healed, broken relationships are mended, and broken people find wholeness.”

Our church congregation is only about 150 people. Small. So we rented churches and we often had to move from one location to another. One day, the youth group gathered together and had a dream of buying a church property. Something we would own. Our elders told us we needed to think big, buy a place that was by the ocean, surrounded by trees with a creek flowing through the property into the ocean.

That sounded very expensive, much larger than our $300,000 budget back in early 2000. Over the next few years, we went to view many potential lots. They were very expensive. We had our eye on this one 78 acre property, owned by the YMCA. We had had a spring Bible conference there and we loved it. The problem was that it wasn't for sale.

A couple of years later in 2004, I was reading the neighbourhood newspaper and it mentioned that the YMCA might be selling this particular property in order to build a larger facility downtown. I quickly told an elder and he told me bluntly, “We can’t afford it.” I asked one of my mentors, Bryant, if we could pursue this.

We went on to raise $10 million and negotiated with the YMCA to pay it over the next three years. An impossible dream made possible by faith. We had very little money, but we raised the money with a dream that this property would help people with their health physically, mentally, and spiritually.

My dream office

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work.”

— Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

I noticed that downtown Vancouver felt a lot like Manhattan downtown. It needed to be accessed by bridges. The secret in real estate:  location, location, location!

I knew that downtown could only go up in density as I was looking around different neighbourhoods. I really liked this heritage area called Yaletown. I saw a building on sale and asked my realtor to view the property. As soon as I stepped into the building, I once again had a vision of exactly what would happen: a bank in one corner, a restaurant taking half the building, and my company occupying a quarter of the building.

I asked my realtor, Gord, to make an offer. I didn’t tell him I didn’t have the money. I asked him if we could have a small down payment of $100,000 and close in 12 months. I know that these were crazy requests, but we got the purchase price down from $12.2 million to $11.2 million, closing in 10 months. 

I thought that I could get a mortgage for 95% of the building, but did not know that commercial mortgages typically required 50% down payment. 

Where was I gonna come up with $5.4 million in 10 months?

A Hail Mary

“Faith sees the invisible, believes the unbelievable, and receives the impossible.”

— Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983)

With each of these three dream projects, I didn’t have the funds for any one of them, never mind all three of them.

With no obvious means to close them, I prayed for wisdom. I prayed for a means to acquire each of these properties. I thought about the stories in the Bible, the faith the great characters in the Bible had in order to accomplish something great. I had this kind of faith. All three of these dreams would be realized in a short period of time. We tend to call these events miracles.

I realized very quickly that once I had a goal, I quickly divided up that financial goal into mortgages, fundraising or making that money by a certain time. Wisdom and insight were provided to me for a few years of the respective plans to get loans, fundraising and accelerating my business. My business grew exponentially. It was on pace to make over $100 million a year with great profit margins, with only 16 people.

With just a vision with faith and purpose, these were accomplished. Thank you God.

Life Questions

“Pray as though everything depended on God.
Work as though everything depended on you.”

— Saint Augustine (354-430)

1. What are the dreams in your heart?

• Write your top 1 to 3 dreams down now. Yes, write them down. Something magical happens when you write them down. Now tell your dreams to your most trusted friend or to God.

• Review these dreams each day, each week, each month, each year.

• They are in the cocoon of your heart.

2. Imagine your dreams in your mind’s eye. Visualize them. 

• Make a 5 step (dominoes) plan with a timeline 

• Start on step number one.

• Just start it and stumble your way to step two, etc.

3. Have you ever prayed? Do you only pray when things are impossible?

• Pray for wisdom. Pray with faith. Trust the path. Enjoy the journey. Both the ups and the downs.

My Life Lessons Then: (from my 35 year old self)

“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”

— C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

1. Faith that is invisible is greater than money which is tangible.

• Often the most valuable things are unseen, not tangible.

2. Praying for wisdom and insight.

• Solomon’s request for wisdom may be one of the greatest prayers.

• Wisdom is the mother of all things. It’s seven children are love, faith, hope, serenity, joy, understanding, patience.

3. Sometimes ignorance is the reason for many innovations.

• Not knowing how the world works allows the impossible to be possible, for fear to be hidden behind the veils of ignorance.

Life Advice Now: (from my present 53 year old self)

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.”

— William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)

1. I am reminded to walk by Faith and not by sight. 

• Thank you for reminding me, my younger self.

2. I am very grateful for the blessings as well as the hardships 

• There arises in my heart a prayer for the blessings but more so, a prayer for the hardships that sharpened my faith, my strength as hardship shaped me.

3. May you always be bold as a lion and curious like a child

• Strength and honour to all who strive and ride into the face of the dreams in their heart. Scary but thrilling.

Next week: Unknown. Rejected. Despite a Lot of Money

You are not someone unless there is verifiable media proof.

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Turning Danger into Opportunity

"Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit."

— Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)

Crisis in Chinese is composed of two words together: Danger and Opportunity. 

Powerful.

Danger is Coming

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."

— Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Our domain business was starting to compound and gain momentum. 

We were on pace to do over a million dollars a year, and each month, new insights arrived that made the flywheel spin faster and get bigger.

We had made it!

Yahoo, who would later buy Goto (the pay-per-click search engine), was using a company called ASI (Applied Semantics) to target domain names with relevant keywords. For example, Laptop.com had laptop keywords and relevant advertisers for laptops. This allowed better monetization of the domain names.

Guess who decided to buy ASI for $102 million in 2003? A little upcoming company called Google. They were the new search engine on the block, and Yahoo had used them as their search engine, branding them into significance. This was a great strategic move by Google and the beginning of Yahoo's decline. ASI would become "Adsense" and its powerful monetization engine, where it still makes over 90% of its revenues.

This left Yahoo with no contextually relevant ads on the domain names and our revenues plummeted by more than 50%!

Imagine waking up one day to disaster. C'est la vie.

The crisis is Turning Danger into Opportunity

"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity."

– Sun Tzu (544 BC - 496 BC)

Yahoo was scrambling for a solution and asked the larger domainers if we wanted to build our own keyword engine. They wanted to avoid dealing with smaller domain portfolios and wondered whether a handful of us, the larger domainers, could consolidate them.

I would have thought a giant technology company would invest in this 'keyword' engine. Their CEO, Terry Semel, was a traditional Hollywood guy and also passed up the opportunity to buy Google for $5 billion before it went public. Later, they did invest in Alibaba, their $1 billion stake selling for $40 billion. The Yahoo Directors had to oust their Yahoo founder, Jerry Yang, in order to sell it.

So, we were presented with an opportunity to help smaller domainers monetize their domains. This allowed us to learn from the entrepreneurial insights of many agile domainers.

Domainers came from all walks of life and were scrappy, agile, bootstrappers with solid work ethics and ingenuity. I learned a lot from both the small and the legendary domainers. This entrepreneurial real-life boot camp may have been better than attending business school and getting an MBA.

Homage to all my fellow domainers and entrepreneurs. Strength and Honour.

The traffic in our domain network became a Top 100 Global Network, as measured by the industry standard Comscore. I was astounded. Now we were really big.

My Life Dream

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined."

– Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

When I was 13, one of my good friends told me that my cousin Don was actually my brother. What? Why are you saying that? I asked my mom, and she sat me down and told me that Dad had a previous family before she had me, and I had two sisters and an older brother. They were stuck in Korea and my mom helped my brother come to Canada. But my mom couldn't love him like a true son, so Don was sent to grow up in group homes, apart from me. I had no idea.

I prayed that I would be able to have a business in the future that would allow me to work with Don. I asked him to join me in this Internet entrepreneurial journey. He had just sold his dry cleaners and was interested.

So, Don managed support on our domain parking business, Hitfarm. I also had a prayer to bring my sisters over to Canada. One sister found her way to the US on her own and my other sister now lives in Vancouver. So blessed.

I couldn't imagine the life they had gone through without parents. I thank God for all the people in my life who have helped me find my way and build a business from scratch. I am so grateful to God, my family, and to each person I have met along this amazing life journey.

Thank you. Much love to each of you. May God bless you with everything in your heart and let you shine like the sun.

---

Current Crisis

"In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity."

– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

It's much easier to talk about crises that have already been averted or passed.

It's hard to see the opportunity in the crisis when it occurs.

But one must seek the opportunity.

My crisis is that one of my businesses, Chit Chats, a logistics company helping entrepreneurs ship their products, is going through a cash crunch as the industry is getting disrupted and rapidly changing. The business is submerged under fixed costs.

We are revamping our hubs from cost centres into profit centres and looking for key partnerships to survive and thrive. Stay tuned. I hope to write later how we turned this crisis into an opportunity.

Life Questions

"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers."

– Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

1. What crisis turned into an opportunity for you?

2. What is the opportunity knocking on your door?

Life Advice Then

From my 33-year-old self:

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards."

– Vernon Law (1930-)

1. Take a deep breath and sign.

   • Panic is a flight response. Instead of flight, you must first fight. To do that, you need a calm mind. Breathe and focus on controlling your breath, eventually calming your body. Then, you can calm your mind—serenity.

2. Zoom out and give it time.

   • What is the worst-case scenario? What are the new opportunities? Discuss to consider all perspectives. Write to gain clarity. Yes, write it down. You'd be surprised how much clarity comes from writing.

3. An opportunity for unity and efficiency

   •  Brainstorm with people on the barbells of

     • Plug the most significant holes (the most enormous hole is your biggest constraint)

     • What is the new opportunity?

Life Advice Now

From my 53-year-old self:

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

– Buddha (563 BC - 483 BC)

1. Be grateful for what you have right now

   • Do you have your health? Do you have your freedom? Do you have loved ones? Do you have food? Do you have shelter?

2. Pray and ask for help.

   • In desperate times, almost everyone feels a need to ask for help. "Hail Mary" is used as a miracle prayer or play in the last seconds of a game, business or life event. I pray to God and Jesus but you may pray to a greater power, the universe, or just ask someone, even strangers.

   • I heard the owner of 1-800-Flowers met the owner of CNN (Ted Turner) serendipitously at a time he needed. CNN ran ads for him, and then, with the Iraq war occurring, he had so much free advertising that it turned his business around. I wonder if he prayed.

3. It, too, shall pass

   • This is the message of the Bible, that all adversity and tribulations pass. Patience is the message of Job, who had severe tribulations, losing his family, wealth and then his health. He was restored manifold in the end. There is a lesson and opportunity in all life events, big and small.

   • God bless you with love, joy and peace.

Next week: No Money? No Problem.

Three $10 million deals with no plan and little money. Just clear vision and purpose.

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

How You Can Turn Your Junk into Treasure

Your Junk Maybe Someone’s Treasure

"What seems worthless to some may be priceless to others."

— Kevin Ham (1970-)

Come and See and Understand

"Innovation is seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

— Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986) Nobel Prize Laureate

It was the end of the year. Dec 2000. I was so excited for the coming new year. As I gathered with friends and family, I couldn't help but tell them about this new discovery about domain names, hoping to inspire them to invest in domain names.

People thought I was speaking nonsense because the Internet was going through its death throes. All the bad news made my claims sound irrational. "Is Kevin going crazy? What happened to medicine?"

I could tell by the look in their eyes that they were all skeptical. I became more reserved around family and friends. This pattern would repeat with future counterintuitive discoveries.

Ah, human nature.

But one of my best friends, Colin Yu, was interested. He invited me to a preseason Vancouver Grizzlies basketball game, my first NBA game, and asked me many questions about my thoughts on these domain names.

He was very interested in investing in domain names. He was one of my best men at my wedding. As he was super practical, so I was surprised.

I'll Take Your Junk and Turn it to Gold

"The art of turning lead into gold is not just alchemy, but also mindset."

— Kevin Ham (1970-)

But he had a twist on my vision of domain names. He wasn't interested in keeping domain names. He was interested in buying and selling, like Mike Mann of Buydomains.

Buy for $10 and sell for $1,000 (10x) or $10,000 (100x).

He asked if I could give him the list of all the domain names I didn't want to register, and he would register the "trash domain names."

I wasn't going to register them anyway, so why not? He was based in Hong Kong, working at HSBC. It would be his side hustle but eventually became his full-time hustle. We would later partner to create an even bigger business than our respective hustles, and Colin would retire in 2009, just eight years after that fateful basketball game.

Accelerating Time to Scale

"Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend."

—  Theophrastus (371-287 BC), Disciple of Aristotle

At the end of 2000, I sold a few domains to register more domain names. I sold TicToc.com for $7,500, equal to 750 more domains. Then, when I found the Goto Pay-Per-Click (PPC) monetization engine, I realized I didn't need to sell domain names to register more domains.

So, I knew Colin's model would work well and encouraged him to go for it. I helped him build a website and watched him work his magic.

Then I had an idea. We could amalgamate our traffic to get a better revenue share with Goto (our PPC advertising engine).

We only got domain revenue stats monthly by spreadsheet, which was archaic. We needed real-time stats daily, and it would be even better if we knew what each domain name made in PPC revenue and how much each click made. It seemed like an impossible request. We asked anyway, but they refused, saying we needed more traffic volume.

So I asked our Goto if I got the biggest domainer, Yun Ye, onto Goto, could we get a better agreement? They were interested. 

It was a long shot, but I emailed Yun, and to my surprise, he answered. Little did I know that he visited Vancouver often. I told him that he could 5x his revenue if he just swapped to Goto. He told me that Goto kicked him off earlier in 2000. That's why he was on Findwhat.

My assumption was wrong; I thought that because he was the biggest domainer, he was also the best. It turned out that Goto had terminated his agreement because they were dealing with internal issues, but Yun didn't trust them anymore. So I asked him, what if I could get him a contract that couldn't be terminated and got daily stats on each domain name and all the keyword data he could ever imagine? He was interested. So I brokered the deal with everything we wanted and that Goto wanted.

Our rev share went from 30% to 48%, along with daily domain stats, with keyword bids that would allow us to optimize the relevancy and monetization of each domain name.

Yun would go on to 5x his revenue to $20 million a year and profit $19 million. He and his wife were unstoppable. One year later, he sold his portfolio to Marchex for $164 million, an 8.6x multiple of his profit. He would retire in 2006. Mr. No name. He was a master of domains. Not many knew him, but a handful of us attempted to be as good as he was.

Yun, in his gratitude to me, said he saved one domain from his portfolio of 100,000 domain names to give to me: 

---

It was MyBible.com

Yun knew I was Christian. I was very grateful and promised him that I would develop it one day.

In 2000, I was given a vision to own four domain names, which seemed impossible at the time: God.com, Religion.com, Heaven.com, and Jesus.com. I had the vision that once I obtained all four domains, I would be graced with a vision for all of them.

God has blessed me with three of them over the past 24 years. It took 4.5 years to obtain God.com, five years for Religion.com, and seven years for Heaven.com. Jesus.com remains elusive. Perhaps my heart is not ready. I have much to work on my inner spirit. However, God has blessed me with a suite of other domains, such as Christians.com, Hell.com, Baptism.com, Goodnews.com, Rapture.com, Armageddon.com, Messiah.com and 2000 other 'religion' domains.

If you could help me connect with the owners of Jesus.com, I would be so grateful.

I realized right away that acquiring these four domain names would require millions of dollars, and so my goal was set. I was figuring out the plan to do this, and I would get glimpses of it.

My Compounding Flywheel

"The compounding effect is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn't, pays it."

— Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Everyone should conceive a Flywheel for each part of their life--

your health, wealth, relationships, faith, and happiness.

Here was my simple but powerful Compounding Flywheel for Domains

• Get more domain names

• Get more traffic per domain

• Make more $ per domain

• Make more $ per click

• Repeat in a flywheel

• Help others make more $ on their domains

This was my simple blueprint for the business, tt's based on the principle of leveraging strategic partnerships.

Leverage other people's unused:

• Capacity

• Capabilities

• Resources

• Know how

• Assets

Life Questions

1. What Opportunities pass you by because you aren't open to them?

2. How can you leverage what you have at scale?

3. How can you accelerate time by leveraging other people's unused capacity, capabilities and resources?

Life Advice Then

From my 29-year-old self:

"Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."

— Babe Ruth (1895-1948) Home run king

1. How much innovation comes from seeing abundance even in what is perceived as wasteful or useless

• Opportunity is everywhere. Be useful. Provide value.

2. Everything is “figureoutable” if you persist in asking great questions. 

• How do we scale 10x?

• How do you do it in 10x less time?

• These force you to think differently.

3. What seems nice on the outside may be toil on the inside.

   • What would have been of us if we had never been helped to see the light of a better solution, a better way? Most of the time, we live in this unrealized state because it is hard to imagine 10x or 100x. Just imagine, dream, test, and do.

Life Advice Now

From my 53-year-old self:

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

1. Wisely incubate your newborn ideas. Don't let others suffocate your dreams.

• "A prophet is not welcome in his hometown" is an apt proverb when it comes to newborn ideas that light up your heart.

2. Focus more on compounding the flywheel in all aspects of your life.

• Like the human body and its organs that work complementary with feedback and synergy, compound all parts of your life, especially the time and quality of time you have in this life.

3. Never forget your first vision.

• Disney reminds us that it all started with a mouse. Never forget why you started in the first place. Finish well. Be strong. Have faith. What was impossible was done. Why can't the impossible be done again and again? Oh, you of little faith?

Next week: The crisis is Danger and Opportunity, Together.

Turning Danger into Opportunity.

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

How do I Make Money?

Secrets that got me my first million dollars

"Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming."

— Richard Branson (1950-)

Living the Dream, but How Do I Make Money?

"The best way to make money is to put your nose down and get to work. You make money by making better decisions, and you make better decisions by learning and practicing. The more you know, the more you'll earn.."

— Warren Buffet (1930-)

I had just discovered how to be the best at acquiring domain names. I was quietly acquiring virtual real estate with great potential, amidst the Internet's implosion and the failure of dot-com ventures everywhere. The media said it was the 'death of the Internet ', and experts said no one would trust it or buy online anymore.

This was all music to my ears, as I imagined more people listening to the 'experts', giving up on their dreams of online fortunes and the domains connected to them.

It was a blessed opportunity I couldn't believe. It was a great reset. The Internet would crash 90% in the next year.

By Dec 2000, I had 300 domain names but $0 revenue from them. I wondered how these other domainers kept registering so many new domains and kept the flywheel turning with registrations on their existing portfolio needing to be renewed.

I would run out of money if I didn't learn how to make money from these assets.

Who is the Best I Can Learn From?

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

There were a handful of domainers who stood out. One was Yun Ye, who went under the moniker "No Name or UltSearch." His specialty was registering great two-keyword domains. He registered hundreds each day, like clockwork. Next was Frank Schilling. Then Garry Chernoff. Mike Mann of BuyDomains was a reseller, a different model than Yun, Frank, and Garry. 

When I went to Yun and Frank's domain web pages, they just had a bunch of links. I didn't understand how they made money. They used Goto.com search, which said they would pay 2-5 cents per search. This small amount wouldn't do much.

I looked up where Frank lived. White Rock, BC, Canada, is just an hour's drive away, so I emailed him to invite him to lunch in Richmond at Milestones. I was anxious, as I was an introvert and didn't know what to expect. I had a bunch of questions. He showed up. If you know Frank, you can immediately sense that he will do great things. He is super street smart, innovative, and a good reader of people.

I told him I was a medical doctor but couldn't turn down this opportunity to be part of this Internet revolution. Domain names seemed like a fantastic opportunity, but I didn't know how to make money.

He looked me in the eyes and asked, "How many unique do you get?"

Me: Uniques? What do you mean?
Frank: How many unique people come to your domains each day?
Me: I'm not sure. Well, I have 300 domains, so I'd say 8,000 daily uniques.
Frank: No way. I have been doing this for over a year and get 10,000 daily uniques.
Me: Well, I haven't actually turned on any of my domain names yet. I will do that and let you know.

I asked him how much money he made on those 10,000 uniques. He was silent. I asked for a hint. I quickly did some math: 10,000 uniques * 2 cents per search = $200/day. More than $200/day?

He was tight-lipped.

We finished our drinks (mine, non-alcoholic). I thanked Frank profusely and told him that I enjoyed meeting him. We became friends, and he became my hesitant mentor. It was just like the hospitals, where a resident learns from their seniors. 

“See one. Do one. Teach one” was our method for training doctors. I would take this model into business to see what the best did, then try to emulate them. Then, I would try to ask them questions when I needed help understanding or getting stuck. Once I learned, I would return the favour to others who would ask me and try by doing. It was how the apprentices became masters in due time during the Renaissance.

I went home and started to turn on the domains. I had 300, so I quickly automated it by programming it with a script. But I couldn't find an analytic program to measure uniques across so many domains. I asked Frank how to do that. He told me to log the IPs of each visit. Each unique IP equalled a unique visitor. I figured out how to program that in a few days and then had my stats.

3,000 uniques. I was disappointed. I was expecting more. Now, I had a baseline. My domains were live, and I was just measuring traffic to each one of them.

How Much Money Can I Make?

"If you don't find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die."

— Warren Buffett (1930-)

I invited Frank to a Chinese martial arts movie, Iron Monkey. We enjoyed that inspiring Shaolin kung fu, a metaphor for the discipline required to be guardians. We got to know each other. I made it a point not to ask any business questions but to bond with him. He later told me his wife Michelle asked him, "So what did he want?" he replied, "Oh, he just wanted to watch a movie with me."

I looked at Yun's and Frank's domains. Yun's portfolio was much larger, so I assumed he knew what he was doing and had a better monetization engine. He was with a 'pay-per-click search engine' called Findwhat, a platform that allows advertisers to bid on keywords and pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. Frank was with Goto. I signed up to Findwhat. I implemented their pay-per-click feed into each domain name. Voila.

I started making $300 per day. Wow, that would be close to $9k/month.

I achieved all this by getting Frank to be my mentor (and later great friend) and emulating Yun. Later, I learned Garry Chernoff had done this for Frank when he was starting. This is a secret to life: Help one another despite the up-and-comer being your competitor. It will all be a win-win in this abundant world.

Frank told me a hint: I could make a lot more. I pondered this. What did he mean? He then hinted that someone was making 10% on my domains. What? How could that be? I had asked FindWhat for a better revenue share, but they turned me down. I asked Dean, my account manager if someone was making money on my domains. David said, "Yes, David L, who referred you."

Me: I don't know any David L. Is this why I can't get an increase?
Dean: Yes.

I decided to sign up for Goto and spoke to Dan. He set me up quickly, and I swapped over my domains for a day as a test. I had thought it would do poorly and didn't want to sacrifice the revenue, but I wanted to test it.

Dan asked me, "Do you know how much you made that day?" $150?  "No. $1500!"  What? Really? 

I was so shocked. I 5x’d my revenue overnight. I was so overjoyed.

Thank you, Frank. I love you! You've been such an amazing friend, through thick and thin, like a brother.

This changed everything. I was on a path to a million dollars. I was onto something big now. All that blood and sweat brought tears to my heart.

---

The Path to a Million Dollars a Year

"0 to a million is the hardest one. The next million is easier, and the next even easier.."

— Kevin Ham (1970- )

I asked myself the question when I finished my residency and did my significant career shift.

"How does one make a billion dollars?"

"How does one make a million dollars?"

I read Forbes and looked for a pattern. 470 billionaires.

They all seemed to excel at one thing amazingly well: investing in real estate, stocks, a great scalable business, or they were good at retaining and growing their inherited wealth.

I had a big insight. I could be a millionaire and possibly a billionaire if I excelled at one thing better than almost anyone else. Could I do that with domain names? Possibly.

If I wanted to make a million dollars in 10 years, I would only need to save $100,000 annually. Certainly doable, now that I had made two businesses generate 2x-3x that in a year.

What's my Compounding Flywheel?

$1 million a year broken down was:

• $83,000/month

• $2,777 per day

• $116 per hour (just 10x the minimum wage)

I just had to double my current $1,500 per day. Wow! I'm halfway there. I 5x'd my revenue just by switching from FindWhat to Goto, and now I only have 2x to get to a million. This is totally doable.

Wow, the power of powerful partnerships. It seemed too easy.

It had taken me three months to register 300 domain names. I could see the pathway to double this, but now, equipped with metrics and a monetization engine, it could accelerate.

For the following 300 domains, I would target more traffic and relevancy for higher clicks and revenue per click.

This would be my flywheel and my focus. It became my driving obsession to be better than anyone in the domain world.

I would learn to compress and expand time to manage expectations and think outside the box.

Life Questions

"A wise person should have money in their head, but not in their heart."

— Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

1. How do I make money doing what I love?

2. How do I accelerate with the right mentors?

3. How do I multiply with a few simple essential moves?

Life Advice Then

From my 29-year-old self:

"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune."

— Jim Rohn (1930-2009)

1. Model and Befriend the Best in Your Field.

   • Find your mentor and master to apprentice you in ways you can't anticipate

2. Money is a result of providing value to your partners and others.

   • Someone needs you as much as you need them. Seek that vital partner.

3. You find success with just a few simple levers.

   • Life can change in an instant with one idea, one implementation, one partnership, one customer, and one metric.

Life Advice Now

From my 53-year-old self:

"It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure." 

— Bill Gates (1955-)

1. Be Grateful for the relationships you make during your journey.

   • These relationships are the most precious you gain. More than all the money in the world.

2. Enjoy the journey, the ups and also the big downs.

   • There is a meaningful lesson in every part of your journey.

3. Reflect more and write your reflections privately or publicly.

   • Others are seeking your learnings, and you pay forward the blessings you have been given, whether life deals you good or bad hands.

Next week: How to Turn Someone's Junk into Gold.

And your junk may be someone's gold. The best Win-Win!

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Mining the Internet Gold Rush

Opening My Gifts: Domains from Heaven

"Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God."

— Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998)

Open Your Gifts

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift."

— Steve Prefontaine (1951-1975)

I knew deep in my heart that this opportunity with domain names was my calling. Even though I didn't know how to do it, the timing seemed perfect. With the dot-com boom ushering in crazy money into dot-coms, companies raising millions of dollars for hock-eyed ideas like Webvan, raising ~ $800 million, valued at $4.8 billion with just $395,000 in revenues and $50 million in losses. Was that all it took to build a multi-billion dollar business? It didn't make any sense to me… But domain names did. With the coming implosion of these unsustainable dot-com companies, I could see a reset in the Internet and a massive opportunity with expired domain names.

But I didn't have any proof, and I didn't know how the domain name system worked. I didn't know when lapsed domain name registrations would default or when these expired domain names would become available again, but I knew there must be a system.

I decided to figure it out. I would give myself three months, maybe six months. If I couldn't figure it out by then, I would start a health practice (not a medical practice) that espoused preventative health lifestyles.

I asked my friends, church elders, parents and, of course, my wife for guidance. Everyone strongly advised me to continue my childhood dream of becoming a doctor. The Internet was a fad. After all, it was in a big bust. Everyone was predicting that Amazon would fail big and not last the next year as the big companies fell one by one. Masayoshi Son of SoftBank surpassed Bill Gates as the wealthiest person in the world at $96 billion for just three days, and then his fortune fell to $6 billion in the next year.

Going All In

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might."

— King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 9:10) (931 BC)

"Honey, I don't know how to do this, but I believe it is a big door of opportunity that will close if I don't do it now. All I ask is for your support. I just need one person to support me." 

I knew I couldn't do it without my wife's support. We had a newborn daughter, Jessi, and we were moving back to Vancouver. This was an entirely unproven idea. I would have to put HostGlobal and DNSIndex on the back burner and potentially lose their income to pursue domain names. And that's what I did. I spent all my waking hours trying to figure out how these names dropped.

I knew domain names had to be registered for a year or two, and if the owner didn't renew the name before its expiry date, it would become available again for registration. I also knew that Verisign was the domain name registry that managed this. 

I started downloading the dot-com zone files containing all the dot-com domain names registered as of that day and then 'diffed' them to see which domain names were deleted from the zone files the following day. Then, I ran the deleted domain names through 'whois,' a tool that allowed me to look up their registration data, including ownership and expiration date. 

June passed. July passed. It was now August. I had looked at tens of millions of domain names but still couldn't figure it out. I joined all the domain name forums to get whatever hints I could. Then, on August 10, 2000, Some premium domain names on my list turned up! I ran the list through Whois to see who had registered them. There were a handful of names and companies. Noname (Yun Ye), Frank Schilling, Garry Chernoff, Scott Day… These were domain pros. It was a moment of great joy. Even though I had not registered a single domain yet, I finally cracked part of the code.

I found out that Verisign had not released any expired domain names from March until that day in August, which is likely why I was coming up empty-handed for all those months.

Through the domain name forums, I learned that the next drop would happen one day after my birthday, September 26, 2000. I also knew they would become available at 6:30 am EST, 3:30 am PST. This time, I would be ready. I was up with two computers, manually trying to register my list of 20 domains. Each one had a three to five-step registration process. I would only register five domain names on my list that day because the process was so slow. Goldmedals.com was the best one. It was likely that my five domains weren't on the domain pros' radars. I was like a domain scavenger eating the scraps left, deemed unworthy of immediate re-registration.

There Must Be a Better Way

"It's such a simple question that would make all things better. "Is there a better way? Can I be better today than I was yesterday? Can this generation be better than the previous?"

— Kevin Ham (1970- )

I had to figure out a better, faster way before the next drop. Could I program this and loop the registration process programmatically?

I researched whether this was possible. The Perl LWP Library could automatically sign in and go through forms. Wow! Incredible. I started studying how to program this and then found a registrar with a one-step registration process, OpenSRS (Tucows).

Next drop… I was able to register about 10% of a much bigger list. Now, I was competing with the domain pros.

How Can I Be Even Better?

What if I partnered with a registrar and offered to pay them more to register all the domains on my list? Go for volume. It was incredible how many domains Yun and Frank were registering each drop. Premium domains like performance.com were going to drop soon.

I spoke to Barry at Signature Domains. We did a phone deal. I sent him over my scripts and domain list and agreed to pay him $100 per premium domain and $10 for the rest of my top 100 domains.

He registered performance.com, potentially a million-dollar domain! I did it! I was so excited.

---

But when I spoke to him, he told me that he sold performance.com for $10,000. Someone had offered him that much. Guess who? Garry Chernoff. Hi Garry :) Smart move, good for you. Garry's a good friend. 

I had never done business before, so I didn't have a contract. I thought one's word was good enough. But as heartbroken as I was, I thought, it's hard to deny a $10,000 offer versus my $100 deal. I harboured no ill will. I figured I had to adapt. I needed to structure a deal with someone who would not sell-out to the highest bidder.

I emailed more domain registrars. IA Registry, a web hosting company, a newly minted registrar, was interested. This time, I would meet them in person. I flew to North Carolina and drove down to South Carolina to meet with the team. David Wascher was the manager. We hit it off. I said I would register thousands of domain names. I also asked that they honour our agreement. I would allow my domain competitors on as they had different 'tastes' in domains, but I would like to approve only five. Yun mostly went after two-word domains but would later get beijing.com from IA. Good for Yun. He was from China, and it was a great 'catch'. That was a million-dollar domain.

I shook hands with David. He was good with his word, and I am grateful to him. We would go on to register domains like BlackFriday.com for $8. When I became successful, I tried to 'pay him back', but he would not take a penny.

Still no legal agreement. Just a handshake, a look in the eye, and honour in one's word--this became my underlying principle in business. 

David, my heart goes out to you. I love you, wherever you are. I never fully returned the measure of grace and honour you gave me.

Life Questions

1. What are your gifts?  List them.

2. When can you go "All in"?  Set a date.

3. Is there an even better way?  Think, plan and execute.

4. What is your #1 goal?  Focus on it until you master it.

Life Advice Then

From my 29-year-old self:

"It is not the wealth or power that defines a man, but his character and the impact he leaves on the world."

— Alexander the Great (356 BC - 323 BC)

1. Trust your heart and connect the dots with your mind

   • If you are not a wholeheartedly YES, it's likely not for you. When your heart and your mind align, go all in. 

   • When it's either your heart or your mind, let it ferment until they align.

   • No regrets.

2. Ask others, but ask yourself if this is what you truly want

   • Ask yourself, your older self in 50 years and even your younger self if this is what you truly want.

   • Pray and think and sleep on it. This is my go-to process.

3. Know when it is time to go all in.

   •  Sometimes, you have to take the plunge to make it work.

4. Believe there is always a better way … every day

   • There always is.

Life Advice Now

From my 53-year-old self:

"If you want to take the island, burn the boats." 

— Julius Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC)

1. Timing is everything … most of the time.

   • It's not too early … not too late—just the right time. It's proclaimed to be the top factor for business success, and I think it applies to life, too.

   • Is it the right time? If so, go for it. If not, be patient until you feel and know it is.

2. One yes leads to 10 more things, which then spawns ten more. 

   • Can you pursue two ventures well at the same time? Unlikely. Something will give.

   • Great decision to go all in. It worked out well. 

   • Easy in hindsight, much more difficult in foresight. 

3. Determine the end destination.

   • The end is difficult to visualize clearly, but this is your vision--have one.

   • The clearer you can see and describe it, the easier it will be to get there.

   • Sometimes, the destination will reveal itself over time, but it takes time each day to practice seeing the vision clearly. Once it is clear, you will know what direction to take.

4. Honour the ones who helped you.

   • Life is full of ups and downs. When they are down, help them up. Stay connected. Don't let good and honour go unnoticed.

Next week: How do I make money?

The secret to a million dollars.

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

How to Find Opportunities Hidden in Plain Sight

Giving Birth to a Whole New World of Opportunities

Opportunities and success are not something you go after necessarily but something you attract by becoming an attractive person.

Jim Rohn

As sponsorship requests started to come in for HostGlobal, one person asked if he could put a link, 'Free Domain Registration,' at the top. I thought little of it since it was just a link and asked for $100 a month. Little did I know that these three little words would change my life for the next 25 years.

I had a call with him, and he was so pleased with the link's performance. He told me he was making $1500 with no work at all. I was curious. I clicked the link, and it went to a domain registration page. I estimated that he was making $3-$5 per domain registration in commission. That meant 300-500 domain registrations per month.

And just like that, I knew my next "Yellow Pages" category. Domain names! 

I did some research and decided to build a network of websites instead of just one. So, I registered the domain name DNSIndex.com and signed up as an affiliate partner of a domain name registrar called Domain Bank. I created my new site and promoted it via HostGlobal.

The Domain Kings

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

HostGlobal was doing well, and I wanted to replicate that success with DNSIndex. So, I started an Expired Domain List and created a paid newsletter at $49/year. In it, I sent out a list of expired domains and a link for people to register them via DNSIndex. 

Soon, a handful of people started registering everything on my Expired Domain List. Rick Schwartz, the Domain King; Slavik Viner, domain extraordinaire; Anthony Peppler, who would teach me a lot about domain names and the list of subscribers grew each week. The more names I added to the list, the more domain registrations I received. I would eventually make up to $10,000 USD a month. It was almost like printing money. 

Then, I wondered why these domainers were registering so many domain names. I only owned a few names that I used for my businesses. What were they doing with them?

So, I got on the phone again, this time with Anthony Peppler. I wanted to know why he was registering so many domains. He wanted to know how I found my list of expired domains. I didn't think I was doing anything revolutionary. I would simply go to whois.net and query their database of any domain name that used to be registered but was now available.

He revealed that he knew that domain names expire at a particular time and that there was a process for re-registering them as soon as they became available, but he didn't know how. The great names got picked up immediately by people who knew the secret process. Now, I was curious.

He had met a younger kid, Ross, who knew the process but didn't have the money to pay the registration fees for the hundreds of domains expiring every day. Ross liked three-letter domains. He got around paying the registration fees upfront by sending in email registrations and then he'd try to flip the names before he had to pay for them. The problem was that he had to keep trying to re-register them because he didn't have enough money. Anthony offered to partner with him and pay the registration fees, $70 for two years for each of them. 

I asked him to sell me one of their premium three-letter domains. ZEJ.com was my first three-letter domain. Thanks, Anthony! 

Front Page News

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

At that time, I was so excited about becoming the newly minted domain owner of what I thought was a premium domain, a coveted three-letter dot com.  

Why was I so excited?

The pieces were starting to come together.

I had a flashback to 1997 when I first thought about launching my Yellow Pages online idea, I was trying to name it.Yellow.com? Taken. Yellowpages.com? Taken. Every name I came up with seemed to be taken. 

I suddenly thought of the Rorschach inkblots as a metaphor for my idea, creative, seeing double entendres. Inkblot.com it was. Again, to my dismay, it, too, was taken! I kept thinking... Was there a creative take I could play on it? Incblot.com–a play on inc as in incorporations. Surely, that would be a unique version. Taken! 

I was so disappointed. I felt hopeless, so I decided to register inc-blot.com, my very first domain name. Oh, how hard it was back in 1997 to find a good domain name.

Fast-forward to late 1999, and hundreds of domainers were paying me for access to my Expired Domain List. They were registering domain names from my list that didn't even have the most premium names on it–like the coveted three-letter domains. It felt like a modern-day gold rush. 

Business.com had just sold for $7.5 million earlier in 1999. Marc Ostrovsky, the owner, had bought it for $150,000 in 1996–a 50x return in 3 years (in 2007, it would sell again for $350 million).

Armed with this new insight, I decided to get on the front page of our local newspaper, the London Free Press, and get press for my new website, DNSIndex.com. I called the newspaper and declared, "I'd like to be on the front page." 

---

She politely asked me what my story was. I relayed that I was the Chief Medical Resident at St Joseph's Hospital, who also offered a very valuable service for the city of London that would help get them on the ground floor of the Internet movement. She said, "You want to speak to Business", and patched me through. 

"I'd like to be on the front page of the business section", I repeated. He listened to my story and invited me to lunch the next day. The day after that, I was on the front page of the business section. The story's title was "What's in a Name?".

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

It was a few years into the dot-com boom, but the Internet and domain names were still relatively unknown to laypeople. My pitch was that domain names were digital real estate assets with no maintenance, very little 'property tax', and enormous potential. Anyone could buy or own virtual real estate assets, just like business.com. They could learn how at DNSIndex.com. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. Just one valuable domain name would be enough to make someone financially free.

But even with this understanding, I still wondered how would someone acquire a premium domain like Business.com? I didn't have 7.5 million dollars. I needed to figure out that secret process.

On January 10, 2000, the AOL-Time Warner merger was announced for $182 Billion. AOL/American Online, an Internet company, had just acquired Time Warner, one of the big prestigious media companies (HBO, CNN, Time, Warner Bros). The AOL-Time Warner merger was announced just after we “survived” Y2K. It was what would later be seen as the height of the Internet bubble. March 2000 signalled the beginning of the dot-com crash.

I sensed these expiring domains were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—possibly. Deep down I knew it, but there was no 'how-to' manual or data to prove my intuition. The bubble was bursting. HostGlobal and DNSIndex were bringing in $25,000-$30,000 USD per month (but for how much longer?) and I was just about to finish medical school and finally become a doctor.

What would you do?

Life Question

If I were to find a hidden opportunity that spoke to my heart but it didn't make sense and I didn't know how to do it—with so much uncertainty—what would I do?

Life Advice Then

From my 29-year-old self:

"We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. Be curious and ask questions, especially for life secrets and business insights.

   • This has served me well. Secrets or insights almost always give someone an advantage in doing something well. It might be information, a process, an idea, a connection, or a hack.

2. Meaningful opportunities Lie Hidden in Plain Sight.

   • Imagine all the missed opportunities because I walk by them, don't hear them, don't see them, don't ask for them, don't seek them or don't knock on the door of opportunity continually.

3. Ask your intuition what feels right. Your heart is directing you to something.

   • Your heart knows. Your mind assesses logic based on survival and reason. It becomes a no-brainer decision if you can validate your intuition with data. Many people need logic, reason, or data to validate. I typically go first with intuition but try as much as I can to validate with logic to derisk the unintended consequences.

4. You attract the energy you are in.

   • This is the Law of Attraction. Attraction happens by the frequency or vibration level you are in. High energy attracts high energy, and low energy attracts low energy. It's a fundamental law. To be on the same wavelength.

   • First, attune yourself to the Law of Vibration. What is the highest frequency at which you can spend your time?

Life Advice Now

From my 53-year-old self:

"I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty."

— John D. Rockefeller

1. Find the right experts or coaches.

   • Someone is likely in the know. I spent months trying to figure out how expired domain names dropped. Everyone was tight-lipped. If the experts and master coaches are too hard, there are someone steps ahead of you, maybe a year, maybe two, or someone much older who wants to give back and help the rookie.

2. Follow the Links. Connect the Dots.

   • In this age of almost unlimited access to information, it's much easier to do this. Just type in your questions into AI, search engines, YouTube, newsletters, podcasts, or, more traditionally, the book written by the expert (usually outdated by a year or more).

3. Be bold.

   • Like the CEO of Nvidia, now the third largest company in the world with a $2.5 trillion market cap, he would have never started the company if he had known how hard it would be. 

   • If you knew how difficult domain names would be, you likely would not have even started. This prevents the older self from starting, as you likely now know how hard it is to start things and succeed. A startup is typically a ten-year journey, maybe five now.

4. Work as Play

   • Enjoy every minute of it, even the hard things, for they make you stronger. View it as a sport. Those hardmoments build character. Be steadfast and strong, and most of all, enjoy being grateful, especially if you get to do something you love or find meaningful, which should be your highest priority.

5. Don't forget your loved ones.

   • Your success depends on it. Don't get lost in your work. Time passes on. Rather too quickly. You cannot get back this time. Children grow up quickly. You grow up quickly.

Next week: Mining the Internet Goldrush.

Opening my gifts: Domains from Heaven.

See you next Thursday!

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My Side Hustle: How I made $25,000 per month in less than 6 months

A Side Hustle to Start living My Dreams

It is in changing that things find purpose.

Heraclitus 535-475 BC

My goal was to make $10,000 USD, which would be $15,800 CAD a month. I would do it by starting a Yellow Pages-style online directory. I could only devote an hour or two a day at most and four hours on the weekends. I quickly determined that since I could not invest very much time and hardly any money, I had to scope my Yellow Pages idea down to one category. Back then we had big, physical Yellow Pages (businesses by categories) and White Pages (people) address and phone books. They may be antiques by now.

So what category would I select? What would the Internet be unique for that I would also enjoy learning about myself? I knew I would need to build a website and find a web host. I was struggling to find a low-cost and easy-to-use web hosting company to host my directory. I believed that eventually, every business would need a website and a web host, like me. In my own search, I was missing reviews and ratings on web hosting companies. Eureka! This is what I would create.

What will I name my directory?

Tigers die and leave their skins; people die and leave their names.

Japanese Proverb

What you name, you breathe life into. You conceive your new venture, idea or product with a name. This name has some meaning, or better yet, a story.

I believed the Internet would be global. So I found an available domain, HostGlobal.com. I would later need a formal company but I would incorporate it after I made some money. Naming would later become one of my great gifts.

My Entrepreneurial Blueprint

You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.

Zig Ziglar

Start date: Jan 1, 1999.

Name: HostGlobal.com (registered on Jan 10, 1999).

Financial target: $10,000 USD/month by Jun 30, 1999.

Idea: Create a Yahoo-like directory but for web-hosting companies

Plan:

1. Find software that allowed me to build a directory (1 week).

2. Add 20 Webhosting companies per day to my directory (daily).

3. Build and add a review and rating module to the software (4 weeks).

4. Offer the review module to users of the software in return for adding their web hosting company with a review and rating. This would:

   • Differentiate my web hosting review site from the handful of other ones (my secret edge).

   • Attract entrepreneurs and companies looking to find a web host for their Internet business.

5. Sell sponsorship packages to the web hosting companies (1-2 months). 300 companies at $30/mo = $9,000 USD/mo.

6. Incorporate in Nevada to have a U.S presence (2 months).

7. Adapt to users, web hosts and competition.

Ask, Tweak and Receive. 10x. 100x. 1000x

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

— Robert Burns

I learned the programming language PERL as that was what the directory software was written in. I had never taken a computer course before so I printed out some lessons on PERL from the Internet and studied them in my allotted side job time. I created the review module within a month and kept improving it daily until it worked well.

I then offered the hundreds of web hosting companies on hostglobal.com an unbelievably low-cost sponsorship opportunity of $30/month. I waited for the orders to come in. I waited … and waited for days. I wondered what was wrong.

A couple of other good web hosting directories were charging $1500 to $3000 per month. I thought that underpricing them would be a no-brainer. Was it too cheap? Maybe the perceived value was too low. 

So, I thought I would try $300/month for category sponsorship. In a month I had two sponsors. 10X! I had made my first real dollars. What a thrill. That first order! 

---

Then I had a brilliant idea. I thought I would try $3000 for sitewide sponsorship. 100X! I got one. A big fish.

Then I thought I would offer one $30,000 title sponsorship spot. 1000X! 

So, when Communitech, a Kansas City web hosting company, was interested, I asked them for $30,000 and they said No. Then I thought “OK, but what if I could get $20,000?”  Wow! $20,000/month!? I countered with $20,000 plus a dedicated web server so I could then move into dedicated server listings. They agreed and just like that I surpassed my goal in under 6 months!

Life Advice Now

To my 29-year-old self:

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.

— Abraham MAslow

1. I believe in you.

• You believed in yourself even when you didn’t have the ability or experience to do it. You impress me. You had a big drive to figure this out and you executed. Despite all the self-doubt. That drive and determination is almost unstoppable.

2. Continue to learn

• Evaluate whether that skill is something you want to continue for the rest of your life or only do for a season or a reason.

• I wish that I continued to program and learn new languages to this day.

3. Talk to your competitors and make them frenemies.

• You only looked at your competitors’ websites. You should have had meetings with them to see if there were any things you could collaborate on as there were only a few other big competitors.

• Some of my dear friends now were my fiercest competitors. Scott Day, the watermelon farmer and Frank Schilling, the wonder boy. Yun Ye, who sold his business to Marchex for $164 million.

4. Talk much more to your customers.

1. You were only scratching the surface. You could have uncovered the deep needs of web hosting companies and their customers. Think how that space has evolved to Shopify, Squarespace and Wordpress.

5. Continue to keep plans simple

• I have plans that are too complex, too dependent on too many people and outside factors. Focus on what you can do and control and then partner with people who can fulfill other parts of your plan.

Next week:
How to Find Hidden Opportunities in Plain Sight.

Giving birth to a whole new world of opportunities.

See you next Thursday!

Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.

Starting Something New: The Entrepreneurial Blueprint

A Side Hustle to Live My Dreams

It’s not too late to decide to change the trajectory of your life. You can course-correct your life as you go.

— Ham

I wrestled with what to do. Become a doctor? Start something new? I felt trapped, the momentum of my life decisions since age 14 driving me to a path that wasn't what I had envisioned.

I knew in my heart, that I wanted to transition and become an Internet entrepreneur.

Question 1: Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?

Getting started is the hardest thing because it requires force. From status quo to step 1 change. It’s “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” It’s the force described by Newton: An object at rest remains at rest unless acted on by a net external force. That force is your entrepreneurial spirit to make a decision, that influences your mind, which then influences your body to act. It’s embodied in Nike’s motto, “Just do it.” Carpe diem, to seize the day.

Should I drop out of medical residency? I already had my medical degree. I should finish what I started as I only had a year left. Logical.

I was excited but also very nervous about starting something totally new. But was it new or just buried deep in my heart? What were these fears that suddenly appeared with the thought of starting something new?

A fear of failure. A fear of letting people down. A fear of criticism. A fear of change. A fear of the unknown. A fear of uncertainty. A fear of loss of identity. A fear of loneliness. They seem to engulf the excitement and passion of starting something new. Each fear posed as mountains in my new path.

Making a Decision

In 1993, I heard my Sunday school teacher, Bill Pottenger, an assistant professor at the University of Champaign, proclaim that a student there, Marc Andreesen, had just invented this thing called Mosaic, the first Internet browser. He explained how this was a big shift, a revolution in the making, that would merge all current and future forms of media onto the Internet.

I decided then that I wanted to be part of this upcoming Internet Revolution. I knew instantly that it was going to be bigger than the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution of the steam engine and factories, the Transportation Revolution of trains, automobiles and planes, and greater than the Media Revolution of radio, TV and cinema… combined.

I had an idea in 1997 to start a Yellow Pages online, but medical school, church and marriage kept me too busy. I knew I needed to really scope down this idea of the Yellow Pages online to start with just one category, much like how Jeff started Amazon with just books.

I could realistically devote:

• Time: an hour a day and a few hours on the weekend

• Money: $100 a month

• Know How: very little

• Resources: none internally

• Faith: very little but lots of hope and passion

It was my final shift of the year, December 1998, at Pediatrics Emergency, I decided that I was going to start my Internet business in January 1999.

---

Once I made that decision, I knew it would be a ride of a lifetime.

And it has been a rollercoaster with lots of ups and downs. Just like life… With no coasting off into the sunset. We all know that this ride will eventually end. So make this ride full of what you enjoy and love and find meaning in.

Question 2: What do I need to do to make my side hustle into my life hustle?

1. Begin with the end in mind. 

2. First things first. 

These are two of the principles of Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

My first domino to knock down was to make as much income as my current job as a medical resident, only $45,000 per year. My second, bigger domino: make my upcoming income as a family doctor, $150,000 per year. I had 1.5 years until I finished my medical residency, but I set a goal to accomplish this within 6 months and build an automated business where I didn’t have to be “in the business”.

My large end domino was financial freedom. I pegged this at $1 million per year. This would eventually grow to $1 million per month and then $10 million per month and I would ask myself 'When will it be enough?' Later I would determine this to be billions, as my dreams would require this much.

I’ve been successful whenever I saw the end in mind and started with first things first. When the end was foggy, it took much longer and often ended in failure.

Hitchcock first visualized all of his movies, then wrote them and then made them. When Jordan Peele was asked how he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for ‘Get Out’ as a first-time Director, he said, “Every time I went to bed, I pictured the movie I wanted to watch and then I made it.” I have a movie (or three) I’ve visualized that I will make in 2030s. (I think in decades.) A movie is only two hours of visualizations. And you can edit it every night with no cost but to dream.

Every building is first seen in the mind, blueprinted by an architect and then built. This is what we call ‘Vision’.

Question 3: How can I blueprint my startup? My life? 

The how-to path may not be clear, but the start and end points should and can be seen.

Think through to the end. Then think backward to the start… Today.

Write the blueprint for your new startup, your new career, your new feature, a new you.

Then materialize it by experiments and course correct.

This is the way of the Entrepreneurial Spirit. The key word here being spirit, an invisible force of nature like the wind, able to move trees and if big enough, move the world. This is the spirit of creation, which resides in each of us. The great entrepreneurs are the ones who have freed this spirit from the confines of their minds and bodies.

This entrepreneurial blueprint should be executable by you. An executable blueprint. Write out your blueprint, digitize it, and print it out. Then start executing it into being.

Your Entrepreneurial Blueprint

Step 1: Make a Decision to start something new

• Name it! Like a new baby, a new company, a new product.

• Once you give it a name, it’s conceived. Congratulations!

Step 2: Envision your end goal (domino)

• Start a side business with the first goal to make as much as your current job.

• Have a target financial goal and timeline to accomplish it.

Step 3: Envision your first goal (domino)

• Decide a start date.

• How much time to devote daily.

• Like a regular job, but this is your side job.

• This can be 30 minutes, 1 hour or 4 hours a day.

Step 4: Scope down your idea

• So that you can accomplish it.

Step 5: Envision an EXECUTABLE Entrepreneurial Blueprint

• Keep it simple. Make it visible and read it daily. 

• Write down your blueprint plan, your logic, and the way you will make money to get to your target revenue over each month to your target date. 

• Print this out and put it by your bathroom mirror or bed to remind yourself at the start and end of each day.

Step 6: Get buy-in

• From your significant other(s).

• Getting them onboard allows you ‘to do’ and the best way is to ask for their support.

• From the customer(s) early on

Life Advice Now

To my 29-year-old self:

1. Write your thoughts and questions in a notebook 

• Write it with a pen. The traditional way of writing unlocks even deeper thoughts. 

• You can transcribe later to digital. Steve Jobs wanted to use the finger to write on tablets. Maybe he read about how the finger of God wrote the Ten Commandments on tablets of stone.

2. Believe in yourself more

• There is a lot of uncertainty when embarking on a new journey--excitement but a lot of questioning oneself about ability, skill, support, success, and failure.

• Remember that anything you learned or became good at started from inability, ignorance and inadequacies. You had to practice and repeat. Whether it was learning a language, or learning to ride a bike. The same goes for anything new.

3. Get a coach

• Find someone who has done something like this before and watch their videos, read their writings on how they approached it and the steps they took. Don’t look at their success but listen to their story when they started.

• Buy their book if they have one and read their ‘origin story.’

4. Write out your Entrepreneurial Blueprint on one page

• Write your GOAL. Your start date. Your target date. 

• Write your three biggest assumptions.

• Your plan in steps (I call them dominoes).

• And rewrite your plan as you experiment and learn new information.

5. Key: Find the Secret Insights for your Blueprint

• This is the secret edge you will have.

• The more you have the better.

• Try to find 3 secret insights.

6. Think and perform rapid experiments

• Conducted daily or weekly.

• Think of each experiment as a domino to be set up quickly and then knocked down.

• Conduct the experiments by thought in multiple iterations. Then design them to be implemented in the simplest way possible.

• It’s ok to fail. Failure is learning and having the mindset to continually get back up, adjust and experiment again.

• Edison conducted 10,000 experiments that failed to figure out the light bulb. 10,000! 

• Try to go for 10 experiments as simply and quickly as you can with no dependencies and resources.

• Expand experiments to 100 and learn and improve each one. By the 101st experiment, you will know what you are doing.

Next week: My Side Hustle Becomes My Main Hustle

How I grew to $25,000/month within 6 months.

See you next Thursday!

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