Compounding Wisdom
The Three Core Inputs That Shape Your Self
What Shapes the Self?
Our soul is not reflected through our body without deep intention. Let your soul be master of your body and do not let your body be your master.
Dr. Kevin Ham
The road to self-confidence, self-actualization and self-transcendence, the Fruits of Self, come from three Self Inputs, the Roots of Self.
Every self is shaped by three foundational inputs. I lacked these three self inputs and only saw myself through the lenses of others’ and my environment. I was the second shortest in my grade, a minority, feeble-minded although bright, and didn’t have any dreams or purpose in my life. That started to change when I started asking myself important questions about life and my role in it. It changed even more when I made my misfortunes take on meaning and purpose. When I was bedridden in the hospital with an autoimmune disease, I decided that I was going to be a doctor of medicine to help other unfortunate people like myself.
These three Self Inputs started to reveal the deep core of my soul and spirit in my diseased and weak body.
Self-Perception
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
Joseph Campbell
Self-perception is how you view yourself. It is the story you believe about yourself and it dictates how high you dream, how deeply you love and how boldly you live.
Where Negative Self-Perception Comes From:
Most of your negative self-perception comes from:
Childhood labels, experiences, especially traumatizing ones and early conditioning. These play in repeating patterns both silently and actively with dependency, neediness, blaming, complaining, excusing, compromising with situations and peoples.
Unresolved failures mistaken as identity. Failures do not equal who you are. They are a byproduct or process on the way to learning and figuring you out. With every failure a seed of growth can be planted and redemption and wisdom gained. Edison said he failed 10,000 times before he could find the way to invent the light bulb.
You should ask yourself some important questions about your Self-Perception and understand the deep fundamental truths about yourself.
Do I align with my potential or with my past? In other words, do I constrain myself because of my past or can I have limitless possibilities because of my future?
What truth about myself do I believe? What lie about myself can I live with?
Practices:
Clarify who you are and who you wish to become. Write a “Who I Am Becoming” vision statement.
Reframe your past, good and bad, including the hardest failures, as preparation, learning rather than disqualification and unworthiness. Be honest with yourself.
Self-Talk
Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.
Viktor Frankl
Your self-talk is the words you speak about yourself and believe. What you say, you reinforce. These repeated words then become your self-identity, which dictates how you think, speak and behave. This is then reflected into your outer world.
Negative self-talk comes from unclosed loops and perceived gaps between your present critical self and your future aspired self as well as what others tell you about these seemingly large gaps.
The criticisms from your esteemed ones, authority figures or peers echoing in your head like a perpetual pinball machine.
Subconscious repetition of old emotional scripts and trauma that has not healed.
You should ask yourself:
What stories am I repeating and living that no longer serve me?
How would I speak to myself if I truly believed I was becoming who I was meant to be?
The purpose of questions is to explore, to provide clarity and hopefully define you, your true deeper self more fully.
Practices:
Begin each day with a truth-based affirmation about yourself. All things are relative and there are only levels in every direction.
Interrupt internal criticism with compassion, clarity and curiosity. Explore its deep roots and see if you transform or transplant them into healthy soil for purpose or meaning or learning.
Self-Environment
We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
Your environment is not neutral. It either nurtures your self-actualization to become who you are or normalizes your excuses and binds you to your past, preventing your future.
Your negative self-environment comes from staying in environments out of habit, familiarity rather than alignment to your purpose. It is the city or country you grew up in, your friend groups, your families, your language, your customs. It is also bound by your cultural, familial, religious and social systems that resist non-conformity, that do not let your soul stand out as unique.
You should ask yourself:
Who consistently reinforces my highest identity?
What do I need to step away from in order to be freely me?
Practices:
Deeply curate your content, community and commitments. This is 80% elimination and 20% addition.
Design your mental, physical and relational space to support your future self.
Roots to Fruits
You alone determine and establish your roots. And your roots determine the fruits you share with the world.
Dr. Kevin Ham
When your three Self Inputs (Roots) align:
Clear Self-Perception
Consistent and authentic Self-Talk
Supportive Self-Environment
The three Self Outputs become your Fruits:
Self-Confidence
Self-Actualization
Self-Transcendence
One Life-Changing Question
In the final analysis, the question is not what we expect from life, but what life expects from us.
Viktor Frankl
What does the future You expect you to allow in today?
Final Thought
We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey
Dr. Kevin Ham
You don’t just shape your habits. You shape your Self and your Self will shape the world you touch. Shine and Smile.
Choose your three Self Inputs with deep intention.
Next week: The 7-Self Framework: the Transformational Journey of Self
From Self-Perception to Self-Transcendence
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Mirror of Transcendence: How Serving Others Awakens You
From Self-Actualization to Self-Transcendence
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Viktor Frankl
Last week, we explored the top of Maslow’s pyramid to Self-Actualization — becoming your highest self. But later in life, Maslow realized that there was a level even higher, broader and deeper to your soul and that is Self-Transcendence.
You don’t become your highest and best self on this earth until you give your self-actualized self away to others.
It’s not the next step or level after success, but it is the purpose for your success and self-actualization. It’s not the mountaintop. It’s the mirror.
That’s why so many people who climb the summit of success to self-actualization only have a brief glimpse of victory and celebration before they feel empty, down and alone on this summit as the celebration fades.
The mirror of transcendence reflects who you are — not when you look into it, but when others are changed by what they see in you.
Self-actualization is your calling. Self-transcendence is your contribution, your gift to the world.
Begin with the End in Mind
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Albert Einstein
Everyone sets personal goals, but wisdom says to begin with legacy. Ask not “What do I want?” but “Who do I want to become for the sake of others?”
When you begin with who you want to serve, everything you do and build is sacred and purposeful.
Self-transcendence doesn’t diminish you or your dreams. It highly amplifies them. It gives your growth and success meaning beyond just you and your name.
The Three Lenses of Self-Transcendence
Maslow: The Final Step Most Miss
Transcenders are consciously motivated by values which transcend their own self.
Abraham Maslow
Maslow describes the highest level of self as Self-Transcendence: “the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature and to the cosmos.”
This is when we:
Seek truth, beauty, and righteousness not for status or personal gain, but because they are fundamental values
Serve without recognition
Align with something larger than ourselves
It’s about giving and serving on your way down from the summit of success.
Frankl: Meaning Through Others
Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself.
Viktor Frankl “Man’s Search for Meaning”
In the holocaust camps of WWII, Frankl found that survival often depended not on strength, but on purpose.
People transcended this personal suffering and hell by living for:
The person they loved
A mission they needed to complete
A vision that outlived pain and perhaps incorporated this pain into the marrow of their souls to give it meaning and purpose
You transcend by offering your pain, not but hiding or running away from it.
Campbell: The Hero Returns to Give Wisdom
The hero’s journey ends when the hero returns to serve.
The Hero’s 12 Step Journey ends when he returns to the Ordinary World from which he came, transformed by an insight in the New World and offers this wisdom to his Ordinary World. He returns not to claim victory or to take, but to share. Not to shine, but to reflect and uplift.
You become the medicine you needed and offer it freely to all those who need it.
My Moments of Transcendence
It only takes a moment of insight into yourself to transform you.
Dr. Kevin Ham
The Hill For Elliott
As my good friend Elliott lay dying from sarcoma at age 28, I decided to do a charity ride to conquer cancer, a two-day ride with each day 100 km. That was in 2008. I was very afraid of the hills on that ride and I had this insight that this fear paled in comparison to the hill that Elliott had to climb due to his cancer. So each pedal up that hill was symbolic of the fight each cancer victim had to take where the summit was likely death. Now I embrace each hill climb in honour and in memory of Elliott, my mother and everyone who has and is fighting this fight to conquer cancer. I am helping my good friend Dr. Azra Raza with her life mission of preventing, detecting and eradicating this vicious self-immortalized cell we call cancer.
Practices to Awaken Transcendence
Begin every day and meeting with Gratitude
My team meetings start this way. It opens the heart.
Give Without Credit
True giving leaves no mark
Ask Who, not What
Who can I serve today?
Let Pain Become Your Path
Embrace it and transform it with meaning
Build What Will Outlast You
Principles, wisdom, systems, people. Seed the future now.
Life Questions:
Answer these questions and write them down.
Am I living to be seen- or to serve?
What pain in my story could become someone else’s hope?
What would it look like to live as a mirror and not as a monument?
Final Thought
“Self-Actualization says to become your best self. Self-Transcendence say to give your best self to others.”
Dr. Kevin Ham
Your light was not meant to be buried deep in you. It was meant to shine through you to others.
The mirror of transcendence is clearest when someone else sees themselves more clearly because of how you lived.
Next week: The Three Core Inputs That Shape Your Self — Self-perception, self-talk and self-environment.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Secret to Realizing Your Full Potential: Self-Actualization
The Paradox of the Pyramid
Begin with the end in mind.
Stephen Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
To Begin with the End in Mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.
Begin with the End in Mind" is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to all things.
At the top of Abraham Maslow’s Pyramid of the Hierarchy of Needs sits Self-Actualization, the end point we all strive for.
We often think that self-actualization is the world’s image of success, whether that world be your family, your friends, your peers, your workplace, your community or the media. Those are self-imposed expectations based on other’s conformed ideas of success.
Do we really strive to self-actualize and burst out of the seeds planted in our hearts, nurtured by plowing of the heart through the valleys of hardship, sorrow, and despair polarized by the heights of joy, recognition and pleasure?
But if you begin with self-actualization as the end in mind, you start on your journey to self-reflection, self-discovery and self-awareness.
This is what I started to realize in my 20s and became ever so aware in my 30s. All my years of darkness, hardships, sufferings, trials and tribulations were the cocoon that fostered the seeds deep in my heart to sprout and bear fruit in this world.
The End starts when you have a dream, a vision of what you want to do with your life, no matter how unseemly grand or small your vision may be. You can become that self-actualized person now as you need to first create the mental image of yourself and then the physical creation of yourself will come in due time.
I saw a grand vision, mission, values for myself that were somewhat clear but also somewhat vague. It was hazy but I started to take a step in that general direction. I have a much clearer vision and mission of my life now as I reflect on my many foolish missteps and mistakes.
The 3 Models of Self-Actualization
I realized I only have a relatively short time on this earth. How could I live and fulfill my dreams? So I asked, I searched, I knocked diligently upon this question for decades. I have read and been inspired by these three powerful models and contemplated how I could apply them in my heart and in my actions.
Maslow: Self-Actualization Through Growth
What a man can be, he must be.
Abraham Maslow
At the bottom of the pyramid, Maslow postulated that you need to fulfill your basic needs in succession, like food, safety, love and belonging, esteem before self-actualization. But later, Maslow revised his model when he realized that self-actualizing people often grow before their lower needs are fully met. Why is this?
How many stories have you heard of those without such basic needs rise up and grow up despite those deficiencies to do things that seemed unlikely or even impossible?
They saw a vision or a mission of who they could become in that moment they stepped forward into that void between lack and fullness. A purpose beyond just themselves. A vision of how they could transform themselves, like the caterpillar embracing its own cocoon to later emerge as the butterfly.
Your Hero’s Journey: Self-Actualization Through Trials
The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Joseph Campbell
In his book, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” written in 1949, Joseph Campbell inspired George Lucas to write the trilogy Star Wars. Campbell saw that the principles of life in religion, myths and legends all had a common journey for the Hero.
He outlined 12 Stages of a Hero’s Journey, which can further be simplified to 3 broader Stages. He saw these as the transformation of the ordinary person into that extraordinary hero.
The Call - an invitation in your ordinary world calling you on a journey
The Trial - crossing the threshold into a new world of uncertainty, loss and fear
The Return - wisdom brought to others as you have a transformation from the inside out
Self-actualization does not happen in your ordinary life. It’s when you hear the calling in your heart to cross the threshold into the unknown, into the deep, into that dark cave you fear. Remember Luke Skywalker as he accepts his call to join the Rebels, as he faces Darth Vader in Yoda’s World first in a dream and then battles him losing his arm? He had to lose himself spiritually then physically in order to be reborn, resurrected, transformed.
This is the wilderness journey of Moses by himself for 40 years and later with his 600,000+ people from Egypt to Israel together.
This is Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the wilderness and being tempted three times by the devil in private and then carrying his cross and being crucified to it in public.
Note: You are that hero. Go find your journey.
Viktor Frankl: Self-Actualization Through Meaning
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
Viktor Frankl
If you have not yet read Frankl’s book, “A Man’s Search For Meaning,” make it one of your top books to read this summer. Frankl details his life in the Holocaust camp and what he saw. He was a psychiatrist, but on his arrival to Auschwitz, he was stripped bare of all that he was, all that he and instead of Dr. Frankl, was given a number for his name.
“I can see beyond the misery of the situation to the potential for discovering a meaning behind it, and thus to turn an apparently meaningless suffering into a genuine human achievement. I am convinced that, in the final analysis, there is no situation that does not contain within it the seed of meaning. To a great extent, this conviction is the basis of Logotherapy.”
Frankl saw that those who had meaning despite the torture, depravity and horror of the concentration camps, increased the chances of one’s survival. So he saw who he would become because of his experience and gave and encouraged others with what little he had in the camp. One morsel of bread daily.
Meaning gave him strength and hope. He believed that each person is the only one who could decide about the meaning of their life and that he has to take responsibility for creating and deciding his own personal unique meaning. S/he can also decide the meaning of a situation individual is the only one to decide about the meaning of their life and that the individual has to take responsibility for creating and deciding its unique meaning. The ability to decide the meaning of a situation has the power to create a positive outcome from the worst of situations. The worse the situation, the more profound the meaning and personal transformation.
How to Start Self-Actualizing Now
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Aspire Your Full Potential now
Write out your Self-actualization Identity Statement:
I am a person who is _________ (write out at least 3 or more things you aspire to be and do).Tape it to your bathroom mirror or by your bedside to read each morning and evening. Memorize it.
Align With Your Full Identity
Think and Act from this identity today
Don’t wait until you are ready or confident.
Start with one thought and action that reflects who you are actualizing.
Actualize
Notice in the word actualize is the word act.
Thoughts become actions. Actions become words. These become your character.
Life Questions:
Answer these questions and write them down.
What identity do I want to start self-actualizing now?
What is preventing me or constraining me from starting now?
Solve that obstacle or constraint
Final Thought
Start today with who you wish to become. Embrace hardship, failures, obstacles, fear and make them the fallowed ground to plant the seeds of your heart.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Next week: Back to How to be Self-Transcendent: How Serving Others Transforms You to Your Highest Self
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
To Live or to Die? That is my question.
My Heart Is Clogged 77%! And You?
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
King Solomon Proverbs 4:23
A Korean War study examined the coronary arteries of American soldiers who had died in their 20s and found that 70% of them had atherosclerosis, with 5% having up to 90% narrowing of the arteries.
The Law of 70s
<70% obstruction doesn't give symptoms of chest pain (angina), shortness of breath or fatigue. Most likely will have a negative stress test with <70% obstruction.
70% of heart attacks happen to those with normal LDL cholesterol levels.
70% of heart attacks are caused by early smaller soft plaques in the coronary arteries rather than the older morecalcified obstructive plaques.
My friend Rob Thompson had died suddenly of a heart attack at just 58 years old on February 10, 2025. He was fit, strong and great. His arteries were later found to be clogged 90% in the Left Anterior Descending (LAD) coronary artery, also known as the 'widow maker', and 80% in the Right Coronary Artery (RCA), a >70% chance of sudden death. At his memorial, his wife Anita, an internal medicine physician, advised everyone to get a calcium heart scan. So I did. My calcium score in my heart vessels was 500, extremely high. Only 10% of people my age have a higher score.
A few weeks ago, I went to San Francisco to get a CT Angiogram that shows the types of plaques (soft, mixed or calcified) and degree of obstructions in my coronary vessels.
I have triple vessel disease in all the main highways of the heart.
77% blockage in D1, the first diagonal branch of the LAD
48% blockage in the RCA
55% blockage in RI, branch off the Left Circumflex Artery
I've likely had these plaques progress over 30 years, with much slower progression as I improved my lifestyle over the past 20 years, and especially over the past 5 years. But the danger of a heart attack is likely not from these blockages.
70% of heart attacks occur from plaques that are more newly formed, that are not calcified. These can rupture, like a pimple, and their content can lead to a blood clot that suddenly fully obstructs the heart vessel. In these cases, a stent is life-saving as it allows blood to flow. In stable obstructions, with adequate coronary blood flow, a stent may not be as useful long term as stents have side effects.
I've been doing extensive research on how to arrest and reverse the plaques. It is possible. Many studies show not only arrest but reversal. A new drug, a PCSK9 inhibitor that reduces LDL to very low levels, has shown the reversal of plaques. I think I will be an expert on the heart over the next few years. Although I am a n=1, meaning one test subject who plans to conduct numerous experiments and data collection via blood and imaging studies, my goal is to stabilize and reverse as much as possible any and all blockages.
I believe I have developed a lot of collateral vessels below the obstruction that have allowed me to bike without any symptoms. The human body adapting to disease is amazing.
Five Principles of Healing
This solidifies more than ever for me the five principles for healing.
Prevent the cause(s)
Remove the cause(s)
Add the cure(s)
Be clear and stay clear
Understand and educate the mechanisms to others after results are clear
A New Life Mission
Reverse Heart Disease
When I was 14, I lay in the hospital bed, unable to move, unable to eat, hooked up to an IV for weeks with severe joint pain. I remember wondering if I would live and what was happening to me. I asked the universe these questions. I didn't believe in God at that time. I decided if I were to live, I would become a medical doctor. I recovered from my autoimmune disease, but while my mission to become a medical doctor remained, my lifestyle habits did not change and were very unhealthy, full of junk food and 4-6 hour sleep days.
Now, as I reflect, turning 55, I am very grateful for these past 54+ years. I am grateful for each day. I am grateful to Rob Thompson, my dear friend, without whom I would not have gotten a calcium heart scan and would not have known about my own severe heart obstructions. I am grateful to God for a new life mission to live a better and healthier lifestyle that can arrest and reverse heart disease. I am grateful to all the scientists and doctors who have spent their lives in this endeavour and shown what is possible.
I've narrowed my list down to what is actionable for me. I want to document my heart journey once each month, not only for my own records, but also in the hope that it might help save someone's life now and in the future. Heart disease, along with cancer, is the #1 killer in North America. Heart disease claimed 680,981 people in 2023, and cancer, 613,352 in the US. I'm working with Dr. Azra Raza, a good friend and an even better oncologist and cancer researcher who has found the first cell that leads to cancer. She's found a likely cure.
Most of my doctors are highly suggesting I go on a high-dose statin and baby aspirin. I am considering foods that can achieve the same effect to reduce LDL from 162 to 70 within six months. I started on the Esselstyn diet a month ago. I'll monitor my blood work monthly. I have high iron and giving blood helps reduce iron levels which are oxidative. I'll have a carotid intima-media thickness test (CIMT) every 3 months to measure plaque in my carotid arteries, where I already have documented plaques of 1.6mm and 1.9mm (<1.5mm ok) in July 2024. I'll repeat my CT calcium score and CT angiogram in a year.
My Ham Diet for Heart Disease Reversal:
My eye diet has allowed me to forego my monthly paid for $4000 Eyelea shot in each eye for wet macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness, for two years. My ophthalmologist was very concerned about even stopping them monthly initially, but I had stabilized my eyes through diet and exercise over the past five years since I first had my right eye distorted vision in May 2020, and now it seems stable and clear. I believe this eye diet of removing all seed oils, heated oils (no fried foods), refined sugars (baked goods and desserts but now also removing white flour and white rice and added natural sugars like maple syrup but allowing a teaspoon of honey with a meal), and almost all processed foods from my diet has also helped my heart these past five years.
I have reread Dr. Esselstyn's book, Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease. I am very motivated to do my best to follow his diet prescription while stacking other proven methods for lowering oxidized LDL and reversing coronary plaque. I've uncovered dozens, but I am starting with the top ten I can follow. I also plan to continue my high-intensity interval training, but reduce the intensity to Zone 3 (FTP) and some Zone 4 (VO2max) and stay out of Zone 5 (anaerobic). I will also do 24-hour fasts weekly and a 72-hour fast monthly to reset my metabolism and enhance autophagy (the process of removing toxins, weak cells, and cancer cells).
I'll update my heart journey in a month!
If you are over 40, please get a baseline calcium heart scan and carotid CIMT to rule out severe heart disease—less than $200 USD in the US and $700 in Canada.
May you live long and prosper and be in good health.
Life Question:
How healthy is your heart?
Lifespan is how long you live.
Healthspan is how long you are healthy.
Make your healthspan as long as your lifespan.
Despite my max heart rate being able to reach 195 and I am able to be in zone 4 heart rate (172 bpm) for over 2.5 hours, my arteries are clogged. My resting heart rate is 40 bpm as I am very fit. My VO2Max is over 50. Yet I am at high risk for a heart attack. I look very fit on the outside. I have started doing weights to reduce the decline in my muscles and bones, as the rate of decline accelerates after age 55.
What I desire in addition to being fit and strong is to be clear in body, mind and spirit now. I'm focused on my three biggest constraints: my heart, then my eyes, then my sleep.
See you next week! Back to business.
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
How to Know Your True Worth
What are you really worth?
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent
Eleanor Roosevelt
I used to think I was worthless and on the verge of committing suicide as a teenager. Then I asked myself, what would my mother think and feel if I were to do so? That gave me a realization that although my mother was very hard on me, she loved me and would feel devastated. I would ruin her life and most likely shock all of my younger brothers and family. I couldn't do that to them, so I decided to continue living and striving for them.
But I thought to myself, is life worth it?
What determines the worth of a thing and, better yet, a person?
If your self-confidence is derived from your sense of belief in yourself, your self-worth is derived from your feeling of Love for yourself.
What determines worth and value?
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I spent seven years buying, selling, and leasing premium domains. We spent millions and millions of dollars. Yet some of them are priceless, even though we acquired them at a considerable financial expense.
When I thought about the value of a person, I wondered, what is an eye worth? A kidney? A heart? A brain? The value of each part but also the value of the mind, the spirit as well as the body?
For things, we determine value by one of the following:
Market value - what others will pay
Replacement value - irreplaceable uniqueness gives more value. Eg. a Davinci Mona Lisa painting.
Sentimental value - what meaning, purpose and feeling it gives you
Utility value - what it does for you
Sacrificial value - what you are willing to sacrifice for it, especially used in the Bible to show the value of a person's life. Eg. sacrificial lamb or scapegoat.
In the past, people bought and sold enslaved people based on their utility value. Now, we pay people for their time and the value they provide. People have come to determine their self-worth by how much they earn, their net worth, and the possessions they have acquired.
But is value externally driven like that of goods, or should value be determined by what's inside?
My mentor's daughter, Heather Harnett, had mentioned to me that the company she was working for was worth over 3 billion dollars. I told her she was worth much more than that. I then asked an audience, how much would you sell your child for? A million, a billion? How much are they worth? Sometimes, we forget just how rich we really are when we take a survey of who we are and who we have around us, warts and all.
The 3 Factors That Determine Self-Esteem
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
Rumi
1. Temporal Self-worth
Past self: How you view your history, failures, achievements, and growth
Present self: Current self-acceptance, authenticity and living your values today
Future self: Your hope, confidence in your ability to grow and believing you deserve honour, Love and grace
2. Source of Validation
Internal Foundation: Your character, values, integrity and growth
External Foundation: Marked by your possessions, status, achievements, and others' opinions
3. Transcendent Purpose
With a higher being who has unconditional divine Love, eternal worth and a personal relationship for a purpose greater than oneself that is full of Love, abundance and generosity
Without transcendence: relegated to an ego-driven life, scarcity mindset and self-preservation mode
The 10 Commandments can be summarized into two principles:
Love your God with all your heart, soul, and might
Love your neighbour as yourself
Here, the standard is how much you love yourself, which then dictates how much you can love God and the people around you.
Jesus issued a new commandment, "Love one another as I have loved you." The new standard Jesus set was in how much He loved you. He was willing to leave His heavenly kingdom to come as a man on this earth and sacrifice Himself for you in order to make all your sins disappear through His forgiveness. His Love was expressed as Him sacrificing His life and fully forgiving despite no work on our part. That standard of Love He set as how we should love one another. It's an almost impossible standard. We might love like this for our loved ones, our children, but everyone?
So, how is our self-esteem rooted in Love? What kind of Love?
Loves That Determine Self-Esteem
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
Self-esteem is rooted in the different types of Love you have experienced and internalized within your heart.
I realized the great sacrifices my parents made for my siblings and me were their expressions of Love. When I realized the great sacrifice Jesus made for me in order to liberate me from my sins while yet holding me to a greater divine standard, I felt an overwhelming love and sense of worth because the Creator loved me unconditionally. When I received Love from my wife, family and children, I experienced a love that was personal, deep and unconditional.
Divine Love: Unconditional Love that is boundless, eternal and glorious.
Parental Love: First experience of sacrificial Love despite many imperfections.
Family Love: Love with rivalry for place, attention and validation.
Teacher & Mentors: The Love and belief they have in you and your potential.
Friends: Love that is accepting, making you feel a sense of belonging and mutual support.
Enemies: The opportunity to practice unconditional Love and forgiveness while also honouring yourself.
The Revelations of Self-Esteem
Self-esteem becomes unshakeable when it is rooted in divine Love and human Love instead of performance, possessions or praise.
Scarcity transforms into abundance when your comparison to others doesn't undermine your worth, their successes and well-being.
Love flows freely and generously when you are rich in Love.
Life Question:
What are you really worth?
You are not your possessions. You are not your body. You are not externalities. You are not others' opinion.
Reflect on who you truly are and who you want to be
Reflect on your dreams
Reflect on how much you love yourself or not and see if you can truly love yourself
Reflect upon a higher being and a higher purpose than what you imagine and dream for yourself
When I conduct this audit of myself, I feel I cannot put a huge number on it because even among my possessions, there are some that I would not sell at any price. Why would I then sell myself short? The laws of need sometimes elevator us down rapidly to a lack of self-worth and desperation out of a need for food, essential goods, shelter and Love.
Next week:
Self-actualizing Who You Really Are
See you next Thursday!
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How to Build Unshakeable Self-Confidence
Do you have what it takes to live your dreams?
Self-Confidence is so fundamental to you flourishing, yet it is the most misunderstood aspect of personal growth.
Dr. Kevin Ham
When I was young, I lacked a great deal of self-confidence. When teams were being picked, I was often the last one selected. I was short. I was quiet. Deep inside, I hoped that I would get picked early and be recognized as someone worthy of being part of their team. As I grew older, I decided to strive harder than anyone to develop the skills necessary to be a valuable team member. My mother invoked her dreams of playing the piano on me, but for me, such a solitary endeavour was not my dream. Instead, my dream was to make one of the high school sports teams. I tried out for the volleyball team. Despite being one of the shortest, I was pretty good, but I got cut. I didn't even try out for the basketball team.
In my final year of high school, I decided I would try out for the soccer team. During the summer, I would practice doing 100 kick-ups every day, ensuring that the ball never hit the ground with each foot. Then, I would practice hitting each corner of the goalpost ten times. I got very good at kickups and shooting. I gave it my all. Guess what? I made the cut! Even though I was mainly a benchwarmer, that was the beginning of my understanding of what it took to be self-confident.
Over these five decades, as I have developed myself, I have grown from nothing to 'me'. Weak in mind to strong. Physically weak to very fit. I have observed the inputs that lead to the Seven Pillars of Self and the Three Self Outputsthat have shaped who I am today. I want to write about these in the hopes that they help you develop yourself into the person you dream and aspire to be.
Self-Confidence is not Pride or Arrogance
Pride goes before destruction and a fall before a haughty spirit.
King Solomon
A fall from a great height hits hard. The higher you go in life, the greater the fall. True self-confidence is founded on humility and wisdom.
Humility is knowing who you are and in a spirit of serving and honouring others while still honouring yourself. God loves a humble and contrite heart.
Wisdom is discerning good and evil and knowing what to think, say and act, to who, when and where and understanding the depths and breadths of the circumstances and people.
Pride and arrogance stem from a heightened sense of self at the expense of others, characterized by self-interest and a lack of empathy for others, leading one to believe they are superior to others. It is self-serving, built upon the desire for power, status, control and recognition. It seeks gain rather than to give and serve.
Your 3 Self Outputs
You only reap what you put in and process with time, thought and action.
Dr. Kevin Ham
As you develop the Seven Pillars of Self, you will experience Three Self Outputs.
Self-Confidence
Self-Esteem
Self-Actualization
As I contemplated what I wanted to do in life, I also considered who I wanted to be. At the age of 14, I knew I wanted to be a medical doctor. At age 21 I knew and believed I would be a part of the Internet revolution. I dreamed of making some epic movies in my 50s to 70s. But these are things I wanted to do. Who did I want to be? I wanted to be a man of God. I wanted to be a good father, a good son, a good husband, a good friend, a good entrepreneur, a good doctor, a good philanthropist. I wanted to be an inspirational visionary, giving much more than I received. I wanted to have a wise and understanding heart, one that praises and glorifies God. And if I dared and God granted me such blessings to be not only good but also great as a human being and also in each endeavour I dreamt of doing. This has been my prayer. I have failed often, but each time I reflected and have been humbled by my shortcomings and looked to God and wisdom to lift me upagain.
I realized that self-confidence came from just a few things. But first, I realized what came before self-confidence.
3 Impostors of Self
Being untrue to your heart makes living a shadow of darkness.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Your life is a constant ping-pong match of self-doubt, self-lack, and self-criticism between your present being and the ideal being in your heart.
Self-Doubt
Until you have a good sense of who you are, you will have self-doubt. Everyone around is telling you who you should be, how you should be and what you should be doing. This can be internalized as criticism that confuses your heart about who you truly are and who you should blossom into. Thus, the great oracle wisely asks you to "Know Thyself." Until you are comfortable knowing who you are, warts and all, in spirit, mind and body, you will have varying degrees of self-doubt. Who are you? And you are not just your body. You are in your body.
Self-Lack
You came into this world empty-handed. You will leave empty-handed. What you lack does not define you, but most of the time, we view ourselves from the point of lack, of scarcity rather than as possessing all that we need. It is hard to believe in yourself if you view yourself as lacking in what you require. I knew I was going to be a doctor. If I had viewedthis from a point of lack, I surely would have given up easily. I failed the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) twice. I failed to get into medical school right after I finished university. Eventually, during my medical interviews, my dreams and confidence in being a great doctor shone through. Where did this come from? I believed I was going to be a great doctor. The energy that emanated was palpable, and I was finally admitted into medical school.
You are not lacking. You may lack the resources, the money, the skills, the network, but you can gain those things in due time. King David said, "The Lord is my Shepherd; I have no lack." (Psalm 23:1.) See yourself with all the gifts and abundance within you, just waiting to be actualized. One day, it will be… if you believe you do not lack.
Self-Criticism
Who are you to do that which you dream of? You don't have what it takes. You are not good enough. This self-talk, this self-criticism, where does it come from? Impostor syndrome. The inauthenticity of being leads to self-criticism. When you see a seed, do you see the tree? When you see a caterpillar, do you see the butterfly? Imagine doubting the two.
Imagine criticizing the seed and telling it that it will never become a tree. Imagine criticizing the caterpillar and telling it that it will never become a butterfly. When you compare your current being to that which you dream and aspire to become, what does the process look like? What does that transformation look like? What does that cocoon look like? And when you tell others your dreams of becoming your dream self, what do they say? Do they criticize, in the same vein, comparing your present state (that of a caterpillar) to your dream state (that of a butterfly.) It may be logical, but logic does not actualize dreams. Belief and being do.
Acknowledge who you are now. Accept yourself. But strive to be the being in your heart and your spirit. Develop the discipline and belief to become that person who you aspire to be. Every thought, word, and action tips the scale in favour of the present and future self. Each day is a new day to start again. We do go around life in circles.
While we might deeply care about what others think, both praise and criticism, it is often best to take it in, reflect upon and discard that which is not edifying or useful to you. I often discard 80% of the feedback from others after deeply reflecting upon them and examining my heart. If valid, I take it to heart.
3 Step Self-Confidence Builder
There are many systems proposed to build your self-confidence, like the great Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill, King Solomon, and Marcus Aurelius' Stoic principles.
Dale Carnegie
Do the thing which you fear.
Shift focus from self to being interested in others.
Over-practice and over-prepare
Smile, use people's names, and practice being present.
Turn criticism into fuel, not fire.
Live with gratitude and enthusiasm.
Napoleon Hill
"I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my definite purpose in life. Therefore, I demand of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment..."
Definite chief aim (Desire)
Belief in yourself and your outcome (Faith)
Autosuggestion (Repetition of Belief). Speak your goal aloud daily.
Specialized knowledge (Skill building by practicing)
Persistence
Mastermind Alliance with like-minded people
Marcus Aurelius
Control what you can. Release what you can't.
Align your actions with your virtues.
Ignore praise and criticism. Follow your heart.
I focus on just three practices. This has been my self-confidence practice since Grade 10 when I had a deathly fear of speaking to girls. My first step was to look them in the eyes and say 'Hi,' then listen to them. I was so surprised when most looked away. This was a big realization that self-confidence is adding drops of water to a bucket and it will soon fill to the brim and overflow if I do the three practices below. The most important is #3, then #2, and then #1. Spirit, then mind, then body.
Self-Confidence Trinity
Make eye contact, smile and listen. (body)
See if you can maintain eye contact longer than the other person. In due time, you will be able to. Don't forget to smile. If someone is smiling, you cannot help but smile. Smiling is contagious. Since I have such a big mouth, my smile stretches wide. Then my heart starts to smile. I recall a time when I was having a bad day, and a stranger simply smiled at me; it had a profound impact on me. I felt like my burden just melted away.
Think and practice. (mind)
Think deeper, with your heart. Dream. Practice more. Rehearse and act until it is you. I practised my medical interview for years in my head and in front of a mirror. The more you practice, the shorter and more impactful your delivery becomes. Lincoln's Gettysburg address. It's just two minutes long. Wow.
Do your best to serve. (spirit)
Your best is all you can do. Give it your all. All your thoughts, all your energy, all your actions. What more can you ask of yourself? And each time, you will get better. It is the law of growth.
Life Question:
How self-confident are you on a scale of 1-10?
How self-confident do you aspire to be in 3 months, 6 months, one year, and two years?
Write a score down and evaluate yourself every 3 months.
Next week:
Self-esteem: Why do icons feel empty when they reach the pinnacle of success?
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Things Determining the Size of Your Wealth
How much do you really want?
How much do you really want?
Every order of magnitude of wealth starts with an order of magnitude of thinking, planning and praying.
In a world of 8 billion people, how many billionaires are there?
The US leads with 902 billionaires, followed by China with 516, India with 205, Germany with 171, Russia with 141, and Canada with 76 billionaires. The top 6 countries accounted for 66% of the 3,028 billionaires worldwide in 2011.
15 billionaires have 100B+ (0.5%)
257 billionaires have 10B+ (8.5%)
2756 billionaires 1B+ (90%)
—-----------------------------------------------------------
Total 3028 billionaires of 8 billion (0.00004%)
29,350 centimillionaires 100M+ (0.0004%)
Based on the above pattern, how many people worth $10M+ are there in the world?
If you guessed 300,000, that would be an excellent guess--add a zero.
The estimated number of high net worth individuals (HNWI) above $10M+ is 2.3 million (0.03%.)
And the number of millionaires is around 60 million people worldwide (0.75%)
613 million adults hold a net worth between $100,000 and $1 million. (7.7%)
So, less than 1% of the world's population are millionaires, and less than 0.03% are decamillionaires, centimillionaires, and billionaires.
This data suggests that it is incredibly challenging to become extremely wealthy. And it's unconventional, as 99% of the world will not become millionaires and beyond. And as wealth increases, it becomes more and more challenging to add that order of magnitude (another 0) to your wealth.
But How Do You Become Wealthy?
Wealth is mostly in your heart, then your head, then in your wallet and then given to others.
Dr. Kevin Ham
As I review the billionaire list, I don't see many people who have achieved this status by winning the lottery. Most of them either inherited wealth (10%), are self-made (61%) or a combination of both. Many deca and centi billionaires are tech moguls. They excelled in one or a few areas and scaled their success globally. Tesla, Facebook (Meta), Amazon, Oracle, LVMH, Berkshire Hathaway, Google, Zara, Microsoft, Walmart, and Bloomberg are examples of how thecentibillionaires made their fortunes.
They rode on a wave of a revolution that scaled. They were leaders and typically pioneers. Google was the 21st search engine, but they did it better than anyone else before them. Then, they compounded their lead by controlling the mobile OS (acquiring Android in 2005), becoming the dominant browser via Chrome, and striking a deal with Apple to power their search (they pay Apple $20 billion each year to be Apple's default mobile search engine).
If you keep going down the list of billionaires, you can see that they were focused on typically one area and built an ecosystem or supply chain around it.
What do Walmart or Costco create? The products they sell are those of other manufacturers, but they have developed a supply chain and logistical system that is accessible and offers volume-priced discounts, leveraging economies of scale. Walmart started in middle America, in small towns, and then expanded into the big cities. Amazon started with a long tail of books and an unlimited, searchable inventory, which made it the world's largest bookstore. It then replicated this model across every other category and leveraged its cloud computing business to build a logistical infrastructure that served its stores and customers.
All of this is fractal, meaning the patterns at the highest level are mirrored at the lower levels, but just on a smaller scale and also at the higher levels at a larger scale.
It's easy to predict who will 10x to the trillionaire level.
I believe that each of these individuals had a handful of things in common:
They thought, dreamed, planned and executed BIG. John Doerr of Sequoia Capital, a Venture capitalist, asked the Google founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, how big they thought they would be when they were interviewing them. Page responded, "10 Billion." John thought they meant market value, but when they said $10B in annual revenue, John nearly fell out of his seat.
They were bold and contrarian. They knew that the current way of things was limited and that there was a much better way to do it. Most will not agree with them initially. Everyone thought AirBNB was a stupid idea that would fail. Why would anyone want to rent out their room or house to a stranger?
They had an insight based on little data but could intuit and see the future. The Kodak moment when phones would replace digital cameras gave rise to Instagram.
They saw the revolution that would displace the current lifestyle. Ford saw that the automobile was not just something for the elite but could be democratized for all people within a decade. Bill Gates envisioned a future where every house would have a computer, and software would power them all.
They had self-confidence, self-belief in themselves and their mission. Many of them believed they would impact the world or had a greater mission and ambition, such as Elon Musk's desire to go to Mars. Jeff Bezos started Amazon because he wanted to go to outer space as well.
They believed in the long-term viability of what they were doing. Rockefeller bought the shares of those who thought each crisis they faced would be the demise of Standard Oil. Rockefeller believed he would become the wealthiest man in the world and that there was always a way to prevail and serve the world.
They served a large number of people and enterprises with their mission, products, and services. In return, they were rewarded with more than they gave or contributed.
They leveraged network effects by creating relationship networks, customer networks, business networks, logistics networks, and technology networks, among others.
How to Add a Zero or More to Your Net Worth
The dollar figures are the output. The input is how many people you dream of helping in a way that is better, cheaper and/or faster than what exists today.
Dr. Kevin Ham
If you dream of making $100,000 a year, you'll likely make that +/- 20%.
If you dream of making $1 million a year, you'll likely make that +/- 50%.
If you dream of making $10 million a year, you'll likely make that +/- 80%.
If you dream of making $100 million a year, you'll likely make that +/- 90%.
If you dream of making $1 billion a year, you'll likely make that +/- 95%.
When Brin and Page first started Google (initially named BackRub), it was the 21st search engine, and they envisioned $10 billion in annual revenues. Why? How did they come up with that number? They created the website PageRank, which ranked websites based on the number of sites linking to them (Backlinks) and then prioritized them further based on their authority, as determined by these backlinks. They didn't develop a revenue model for five years. Still, they improved the pay-per-click model that Yahoo had by considering how best to benefit advertisers, searchers, and themselves in a model that improved relevance for searchers and lowered costs for advertisers. What if they had only thought small and envisioned themselves making $1 million a year? Would they think of a model that scaled? Perhaps. Would they have raised as much money?
BTW, Google is the misspelling of 'googol', which refers to the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. This was the amount of information they wanted to rank and give search results for users. They thought big even when they were little. They conceptualized a server model, a ranking model and business model that scaled from small to large.
I believe Ford, Bezos, Disney, Jobs, Musk, and Zuckerberg all thought in the billions, what tech calls a unicorn company, when they started when it was just an idea, or there was a moment when they thought "BIG."
Your ceiling is the limit you place on your ideas, your dreams, your work, and your habits. You are that in being and what you are in being then has the potential to be realized in the physical world. The spiritual and mental world manifest into the physical world.
So, ask yourself, at what level do you dream of earning? 50k, 100k, 1m, 10m, 100m, 1b, 10b, 100b? And whatever level it is, you need to think, plan and execute at that level. To reach each of those levels, you need to be in sync with the same frequency of being, thinking, planning and executing.
As a reference, 22% of Canadians and 13% of Americans earn $ 100,000 or more. Approximately 1% of Americans earn $1 million or more per year.
People who earn a million dollars or more annually typically do so from high-paying professions, such as investment banking, law, insurance, engineering, business entrepreneurship, and investments, including stocks, real estate, and accredited investing.
The AI Revolution
The dollar figures are the output. The input is how many people you dream of helping in a way that is better, cheaper and/or faster than what exists today.
Dr. Kevin Ham
We've had the computer revolution, the Internet revolution, the social media revolution, the mobile revolution, blockchain (Bitcoin et al), and now entering the AI revolution. Soon to follow will be the quantum computing revolution, the robotic revolution, the cyborg revolution, the space revolution, the virtual and augmented reality revolution etc.
The speed at which AI is growing is exponential across all three axes of speed, quality, and cost decrease. Compute power is expected to 4x each year which computes to 1000x in five years.
To put that into perspective, if AI's speed is currently at 0.1, then in five years, its speed will be at 100. Today's AI is super slow to what will come. AI's costs will decrease by at least 99% every year. Imagine how cheap it will be in five years. Its quality will increase more than its speed as it is a neural network, like our brain. The network effects of all the connections will be profound, just like human intelligence, except AI will get faster, cheaper, better 24/7 as long as we have the servers. Still, ultimately this reasoning and memory can stand alone in a phone or connected to our brains. We plug into the 'matrix' for tapping into the big neural networks that become specialized for different functions.
The value will be both at the systems level but also at the application level. Companies will be worth $10 trillion, $20 trillion, and $30 trillion, which is 10 times the current value of Microsoft and NVIDIA. That means a $10B company, with a multiple of 10x, earning a billion dollars a year, would be only 0.03% of a $ 30T company. These huge companies will be disrupting and acquiring 1T plus companies and ignoring the $10B companies, as they would be too small to matter to them. So, what applications can you build in the AI era where you can build a 'moat' of specialized, differentiated features for that industry or group of users?
This would be fractal in theory and application to $100B, $10B, $1B, $100M, $10M, and $1M applications.
I believe that in the future, those who can develop the skillset to conceptualize and build products and applications leveraging AI will be the new entrepreneurs of the future. There are yet companies and applications to build that endure, just like the web, mobile and blockchain applications we have seen.
That also creates investment opportunities. Who invested in Bitcoin or the Top 10 cryptos like Ethereum, Cardano, Ripple, and Solana when they were pennies, dimes, dollars, or $100? Who invested in AI before ChatGPT debuted?
I've observed the rise of email, the Internet, and these revolutions, as well as the dot com crash, and I feel that the AI revolution is the biggest opportunity of our lifetime. I have been blessed with foresight and intuition by acquiring virtual real estate on the Internet and premium domain names that I can now leverage with AI. I've also invested in cryptocurrency, NVIDIA in 2018, and AI last year. I started investing in AI in 2007 and 2016. I was too early, but I recognized it was coming in 2018. In 2023, I was trying to find my sweet spot, and in 2024, I decided to plunge in and start conceptualizing and building applications with my teams.
If you are young, start learning how to build AI agents and applications. If you are older, consider how to leverage AI for investments, your own business, and your job to become more productive and efficient. But at the same time, figure out how to embrace your human nature and not lose your intelligence and heart.
Life Question:
What do you aspire to do in the next year and next ten years for your financial health?
The more focused you are, the more likely you are to execute that dream.
The more networked your ideas, the more powerful it becomes.
The more detailed your plans, the better you can execute on them.
The faster you execute and get feedback, the faster you learn and iterate on your plans and products/services.
Next week:
How You Can Develop Your Self-Confidence to Succeed
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Things That Determine Your Wealth
What does your wealth consist of?
What does your wealth consist of?
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?
Book of Matthew
Who ever desired poverty? How many people desire wealth? Why do I desire wealth? How much is enough? These are fundamental questions concerning wealth.
There is the wealth of a person. I believe it resides in their heart. You can immediately sense the energy of a wealthy person. Most wealthy people did not start with money or may not have much money when you meet them. You just feel their inner being radiate energy, ambition, dreams and focus.
Even when a person is born into wealth, if they don’t have this wealthy heart and mindset, they will have a hard time retaining that wealth.
Where does this source of wealth come from?
Desire comes from a deep seated lack
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not lack.
King David
King David suffered a lot, a fugitive of his own country, with his own king seeking to kill him, fearful of the power David had. Eventually David became King, but then his child Absalom tried to kill him for the throne. Can you imagine? Yet, he said he did not lack. What would life be like if you had and felt no lack?
If you lack the basic necessities of life- oxygen, water, food, clothing, shelter, money, you will greatly desire them. It is the primal motivation for survival.
Once you have enough of these necessities, your thirst and appetite for them is quenched, all except possibly the desire for more money. Do you desire more oxygen, water, food, clothing or shelter than you need? Ask yourself why?
Money is the currency that allows you to exchange it for other things you may desire. In the past, this was livestock that represented wealth, then metal coins, then paper coins and now digital currency such as bitcoin and ethereum.
So the desire for money stems from its ability to acquire other things. The question is how many things do you need?
Wealth comes from a deep rooted mission
Your why is your north star.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Things just represent something for you. It’s not the thing you want, but what that thing means to you. Every time you desire something, ask yourself why and what it means to you.
There is a powerful driving force inside a person who sets out to be wealthy. A self-belief in both their desire to become wealthy and them becoming wealthy. It typically isn’t a question of if but a question of when and how.
But what is the purpose of becoming wealthy? It stems from a dream or mission to do something bigger than yourself. Perhaps its roots sprang from being scorned as a poor person like Rockefeller was when he was asked to leave his classroom, when the group photo was being taken or not seeing one’s own family not having enough to eat or seeing their church always being in need of money to do its missions. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos built their companies so that they could be stepping stones to venture into space in their lifetimes. Mine is to build a health and wellness centre, make some movies and do health and missions philanthropically.
What’s your life mission? If you don’t have one, you do have one but just haven’t discovered it yet.
Things May Matter but People Matter More
Without money, the currency of the world, it is hard to live. We need money to buy things like food, clothing, shelter, cars, plane tickets, hotel rooms etc.
But what if you were the only person left in the world? What would your life be like? What would your wish be?
There is a deep seated desire to matter to people, especially to the people closest to us. It may be your parents, your spouse, your family, your friends, your peers, or your nation. At the heart of this need is the desire to love and be loved. This transcends all things. Transcendence is to matter much to those around us and giving more than taking.
A person who is surrounded by love has the greatest wealth.
You Matter Much
There is a finality to life. We know our end, just not how, when, where, and why. As we live, we become very unique individuals. No other person in the world or in history can ever compare to you. You are unique. And with this uniqueness, you are part of the fabric of society and history. You’ve made good and poor impressions on people and the world as you observe and interact with it. But the question I’d like to ask of you is, “What is your full potential, and how can you realize more or all of it?
Life Question:
What is your life mission and values?
Write down three of your life values
Write down your life mission
Post these on your bathroom mirror and read it morning and evening
Next week:
Things Determining The Size of Your Wealth
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Things That Prevent Your Wealth
Is your relationship with money healthy?
Every person should be wealthy, but only a small percentage are truly wealthy.
I wondered why, as I read about billionaires in Fortune magazine, there are so few truly wealthy people. In 2000, there were 6 billion people in the world, yet only 587 billionaires. Today, there are over five times that number (3028 billionaires), though the population has only grown to a little over 8 billion people.
I predicted in 2000 that many of the wealthiest people would be tech entrepreneurs. There will also be a time when there will be more billionaires from China than the US in the next 50 years. Soon, there will be the world's first trillionaire, most likely Elon Musk, in the 2030s. And there will be companies worth tens of trillions as AI is leveraged for exponential growth, quality, and cost reduction.
I believe that the bifurcation of wealth will become even more pronounced as technology continues to disrupt the world at ever-increasing rates. Even existing tech companies will get disrupted by new technologies and networks.
How do you measure wealth?
Wealth is supplied by attitude but the world measures wealth in dollars. Attitude is the input and dollars are just the output.
Dr. Kevin Ham
People tend to value things very differently. I refer to this as the standards of value. Many people inherit wealth. However, great wealth often comes from startup entrepreneurs who grow something of great value from nothing. 0 to 1. Alchemy. Startups.
John D. Rockefeller was thrilled to be included in his school class photo. He imagined how he would smile, his posture, and the pure joy of later showing his class photo to his parents. Then the photographer asked the teacher to remove him from the group, as his clothes were too shabby.
John was fuming inside but quietly left his class and watched as the photographer proceeded to take the class photo. Right then, he made it his life promise to become the wealthiest man in the world. He did not blame his poor family or even the photographer for this circumstance. This grave insult was the spark that burnt the deep-seated desire to acquire great wealth more than anyone in the world.
As I read this, tears fell from my eyes for this poor little John, who had his heart pierced by the knife of the photographer's request to eliminate John from the class photo. That photo was a reminder for John never to let others take his dignity or identity away from him ever again. He cherished that photo into his old age, falling short by just two years of his goal to live to 100.
He valued himself greatly from that moment, seeing himself of such great wealth and great worth, even though he was still poor in other's eyes.
I had a similar moment as I was trying to grow my business in 2000; I wanted to partner with a local computer company to help me obtain domain names. The CEO of a large tech company was interested in helping me, but he had his own ideas about which domain names to acquire. I wanted generic keywords. He wanted brand names like redhat.com, pinkhat.com. He yelled profanities (F#**) that if he didn't make millions of dollars, he'd..! I decided I would never work with anyone like that and chose to go my own way.
I prayed to God, saying that since I didn't know anything about business if He would grant me wisdom in business, I would glorify Him because it would be all His doing.
If you don't value yourself greatly, how can you dream great dreams, and how can you believe you can accomplish them greatly?
Money is the root of all evils
Most people run away from opportunities for wealth even though they may desire wealth because they do not recognize wealth comes disguised as great hardship
Dr. Kevin Ham
There is a verse in the Bible that says that money is the root of all evils. Many people are content to be poor or struggle in life, believing that this is a more noble pursuit than accumulating wealth and contributing it to society and others.
But many people gloss over the words, the love of money and see the word money. It is the love of money that is the root of all evils. When money becomes your idol, it violates the Creator. And in business, who is the Creator but you? When you worship money, you become a servant of money, and it masters you. Money must be your servant and not your master.
I told a university student that if he understood this one principle and made money as your servant so that it would serve you, you can't help but be wealthy.
Money must be circulated
He who scatters gathers all the more. He who waters will himself be watered.
There is another vital principle in life: The life of the flesh is in the blood. In the life of the business, what is like blood? Blood must flow for life. What must flow for a business? Money. That's why it's called Cash flows. Money must come in, go through the business and go out. We pay taxes to the government, we pay for our daily living, and we pay tithes and donations to non-profits. This circulates money beyond yourself to your family, community, country and globally.
Money must have a definite goal
Money without a goal is like shooting blindly at no target.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Making money for the sake of money will either result in it being stored and rotten or spent recklessly for pleasure and luxury without good measure. People who win lotteries typically lose all their winnings. People who gain money quickly often struggle to preserve or grow it. People who acquire money immorally or illegally will ultimately face dire consequences. The scales of justice eventually balance.
When you have a definite goal for money, it aligns with your life force. When you have a goal for money, money naturally also becomes your servant, as the goal is its master. The money circulates to fulfill your goal. You fulfill the previous principles by giving money its master goal. The greatest goal for money is to serve others rather than yourself. The greater that goal, the more powerful money can be made or raised.
Life Question:
How much money do you need to serve your goals?
I’ve made more than I bargained for so I must donate it for great purposes in saving lives.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I have yet to meet many people who lived and practised the wealth principles above concerning money.
Next week:
What level of wealth do you want?
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Is Your Heart filled with Gold or Is It Clogged?
This could save your life, or your parents or a loved one.
This could save your life, or your parents or a loved one.
Is Heart Disease Stalking You?
Your heart needs to be open, for from it comes the source of life, your blood.
Just a few weeks ago, I completed my weekly 75 km ride with a hard 23-minute effort in a three-hour ride. I felt strong and fit. 200-watt average, and I thought that at my age of soon-to-be-55 years, I was in the best cardio fitness of my life.
My goal is to increase my VO2Max because it's one of the best predictors of longevity. Then, keep it up until my 80s with 30-minute high-intensity interval bike rides three times a week.
My dearly departed friend Rob Thompson died of a sudden heart attack at age 58 on Feb 10, 2025. His wife, Anita, a physician, implored their 1000s of friends at his celebration of life to get a calcium heart scan. So I got one a couple of weeks ago. My friend Jesse said he was 100% sure I would get a great result. I wasn't so sure, as I ate junk food and fried foods for decades until my mid-30s.
A score of 0 is excellent. My wife delightfully got that 0 score. Me? I was expecting a score of around 200-300--moderate atherosclerosis. I was somewhat shocked to see a score of 500, which signals possible severe atherosclerosis. This score places me in the top 90% percentile for my age group, requiring further investigation to see how much my coronary arteries are clogged.
Your Arteries Start Developing Plaque in Your 20s
The flow of life is impeded by processed foods, stress and lack of sleep.
Dr. Kevin Ham
A Korean War study examined the coronary arteries of 300 American soldiers who had died in their 20s and found that 77% had visible signs of coronary atherosclerosis (plaque buildup in arteries) and 45% had moderate to severe narrowing (≥50% luminal stenosis) in at least one major coronary artery. The soldiers were, young (early 20s), lean, physically fit and had no known symptoms of heart disease. I had a hunch from this study that the sins of my dietary past would be hard to erase. Last year, my neck arteries and carotids showed mild atherosclerosis, so I expected the same in my heart.
When I saw my score of 500, I thought the worst-case scenario was my arteries being clogged by 80%+. But logically, this made little sense to me as I had no chest pain or shortness of breath, even when riding with the fastest bike riders in the city or with pro riders. Could my arteries be that blocked? Did my atherosclerotic plaques calcify because they were older?
Here’s what I learned.
Hard calcified plaques don't cause heart attacks, even though they may narrow arteries.
Soft uncalcified plaques, which aren't detected on calcium heart scans, can cause heart attacks as they rupture into the blood stream, blocking blood flow.
A rate of calcification and soft plaque formation greater than 15% signals a high risk of a cardiac event in the next five years.
A calcium heart scan has the radiation equivalent of a year's worth of background radiation.
Women have less atherosclerosis and lag behind men by 7 to 10 years due to the protective effects of estrogen and menstruation.
Women need to be careful after 50 or when they are post-menopause because estrogen declines significantly, and they lose the protective effects.
Due to my eye condition (wet macular degeneration), which is also likely caused by the same atherosclerotic process, I've cut out almost all processed foods, heated oils, fried foods and most refined sugars. But my diet is high fat, up to 40% fat, as I drink kefir, lattes, butter, liver, fish eggs, meats, eggs, etc. My LDL is slightly elevated ("bad") but my HDL is high ("good"). My blood results are good in all other areas except that I have slightly elevated iron, which I can lower simply by donating blood.
How Much Am I Clogged? And You?
We’re all clogged somewhere because of our past. Why don’t we fix that?
Source: Kauvery Hospital
While my calcium score is pretty high, logically, with my VO2Max being high, I'd be very surprised if my coronary arteries were clogged more than 30%. However, this follows the theory of constraint—where is the most constricted area? If only one area is clogged heavily, I need to modify my lifestyle even more drastically.
I keep thinking of Rob. If only he had a calcium heart scan earlier, he would have found out his LAD was 90% clogged and his RCA 80%, giving him a risk of >70% sudden death. His gift to me may reveal issues with my coronary arteries..
I was riding my bike with my daughter, and for the first time in years, I put on my heart rate monitor. As we rode up the hill, I asked how high her heart rate was. 130. Mine was 100. At 12% grade and a harder effort, hers was 180 and mine 130. I then did my own hard max effort for a minute to see how high my heart rate would go. 220 minus your age is a standard max heart rate. My heart rate climbed slowly and steadily to 171. I pushed it harder, and it hovered there. I relaxed and then, after 30 seconds, went hard again to see … 170.
I think my arteries are under 50% clogged, but I will take it easy until I get a CT angiogram, which will disclose the degree of blockage.
Just like Rob's wife, I ask that you get a baseline calcium heart scan if you are older than 40. You can get one for as little as $100-$200 in the US. I had to pay $700 CAD for mine. I plan to buy a CT scanner one day and offer it for $100 CAD, and I hope to save or prolong many lives in Canada on behalf of Rob's legacy.
How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease
Not too many doctors will advise you about diet. Doctors aren’t taught food and nutrition, only diagnosis and medical treatments.
Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease. Figure 1. Coronary angiograms of the distal left anterior descending artery before (left image) and after (right image) 32 months of a plant-based diet without cholesterol-lowering medication showed profound improvement.
In 2012, I was praying to God to reveal to me how to cure heart disease. I often liked to hang out at Regent Bible College bookstore, and as I was browsing the Specials Table, I saw a cover call to me, "Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease." What was a health book doing at a Bible bookstore, I wondered.
As I flipped through it, I looked at before and after CT angiograms of a clogged coronary artery having complete reversal in an unstentable area of the LAD. I was shocked. I never heard of clogged arteries being reversed.
The author was Dr. Caldwelll Esselstyn, who was head of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the top medical clinics in America. He was a cardiac surgeon who studied a group of 24 patients with advanced coronary artery disease. These patients could barely walk to his office without stopping for a rest.
He devised a strict low-fat (only 10%), whole food and plant-based diet based on medical studies that would keep LDL cholesterol lower than 70 (1.4 in CAD measurements). He believed that at these low levels, atherosclerosis could not take place. He followed these patients for over 12 years. At the end of the study, none of the 18 patients who followed the diet had further cardiac events (no heart attacks, strokes or deaths). The six patients who did not adhere to the diet had a combined total of 13 cardiac events among them.
When I saw my score of 500, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to measure my own progress over the next year based on diet. I decided I would follow this essentially vegan diet, minus meat, fish, dairy, eggs, nuts, avocados, and all oils for a 10% fat diet. It will be tough for me, but I only have one body and have always wanted to test this because I had assumed I had blockage myself. I will do annual calcium scans and CT Angiograms.
The other diet I want to test is Dr. William Davis's diet, which is a gluten-free, whole food diet that removes processed foods. You can eat meat, eggs, fish, vegetables, and fruits. A low-carb diet. He is a cardiologist but was getting metabolic syndrome (prediabetes, high blood pressure, 'wheat' belly). His thesis is that modern wheat and refined wheat (white bread) causes the formation of many small-sized LDLs, which readily oxidize and form foam cells when the inner lining of the blood vessels are injured by heated oils and refined sugars (processed foods and fried foods).
You can read his book Wheat Belly. He suggest that ancient grains and sourdough fermented breads are likely fine. He's prevented the progression of heart disease in 80% of his patients. He claims to have solved the 20% who were refractory by helping restore their gut microbiome and getting rid of SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), ensuring the thyroid is normal and no problems with gums or teeth. Ensure good levels of your Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Iodine, Magnesium, and omega 3s (EPA/DHA). Take a high-quality multivitamin.
Caveat Emptor
We ask patients who have chest pain what their last meal was. If it was KFC or fast food, the odds of it being a heart attack were quite high. My friend had a 'silent' heart attack with some mild symptoms. She had to have four stents in four of her coronary vessels. Early 50s. I asked her what she had before her heart attack. Five Guys.
China has 11,600 KFCs, increasing by 1350 per year, while the US has 4200. I predict the incidence of heart disease and cancer will rise rapidly in urban China and surpass the US.
If you are addicted to smoking or the Western Diet or have metabolic disease, the solution is simple, but doing it is hard because your dietary and exercise lifestyle have become a habit.
For this, I recommend two books, Atomic Habits and The Compound Effect. A third, if you really like habit-transforming books, is The Slight Edge. Start with Atomic Habits by creating a system and the tiniest version of the habit you would like to do.
Make hard decisions and lifestyle changes now so your life is healthier and easier later. Or, adopt an easy lifestyle now, and it will be hard physically and mentally later.
I pray and hope that this is helpful to you or someone in your circle. Share it with your family and friends and perhaps you too can save a life.
May you live long and prosper.
Life Question:
How long do you want to live and what can you do to make that possible?
I asked a crowd ‘Who wants to live to 100 years?’ and hardly anyone raised their hands. I then asked, how about a healthy 100 years and almost everyone raised their hands.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I do wish to live to 108. Robert Marchand, who set all the world records on the bike for 90 years and older, passed away recently at 109. He's my 'physical' role model.
When I saw my score of 500, I thought maybe I should be content with living an average age of 78. But now I'm determined to help many others because of my own health scare, and I pray that God blesses me with a long life so that I can do more good in the world.
Each day is a bonus day for me since I never expected to live past 40 years when I was younger.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you, family. Thank you, everyone, for making life interesting and worthwhile.
Next week:
Another health newsletter or a Wealth Series?
Health on the heart or preventing cancer risk
Investing for the long term or
How I think the world will change because of AI and how it might disrupt you and how you might leverage it in your life and at work.
Please let me know.
I really enjoy receiving feedback. I will do my best to reply.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Why Most People Never Finish Like the Tortoise
Settling for average or good prevents your Magnum Opus, your great work.
Settling for average or good prevents your Magnum Opus, your great work.
What have you started in the past year, and what have you finished? I buy so many books. I scan the table of contents, read the first few pages, then the last few pages, and then decide if I want to read the middle. Most of the time, my books sit in my library unread.
I'm a great starter, but I am primarily motivated to finish what I start when I begin with the end in mind--one of Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Do you have a GPS destination when you start something, or is it an adventure with an unknown destination?
Your New Year’s Resolution
Only 8% complete their New Year’s resolutions.
23% quit in the first week.
43% quit by the first month.
80% quit by the end of February.
But why such a low completion rate?
Top 7 Reasons People Fail to Complete their Goals
Vague Goals. "I want to lose weight." But it's not specific enough, and no plan has been developed or contemplated. No timeline, success metrics, fail safes, or accountability if not adhered to. Eg. I want to lose 15 pounds by the end of the year. 1 pound per month by changing my eating habits (specific plan) and exercising (specific plan with goals). I will recruit a buddy or join a club to help me achieve my goals. If I don't, I will …
No Identity Shift. Instead of "I will run a marathon," shift your identity to "I'm a runner who never misses my runs." I used to be scared to ride my bike up mountains, but I shifted my thoughts to being a person who will attack the mountains and be a hill climber in ten years.
Too Much Too Quickly. The weekend warrior mentality results in burnout. Slow and steady wins the race. Start small and increase slowly over time. I tried to do 80 pullups a day. My shoulder got injured, and I had to take a break for three months. Now, I just increase one pullup every month, up to 15/day. My end goal is 10/day at 100 years old so I can hold my grandchildren.
Lack of a system. Willpower and motivation will wane over time. To measure my fitness, I set up a key event, like a Gran Fondo every September. I also set monthly and weekly goals.
An all-or-nothing Mentality. Rather than calling it quits if I miss a workout or a week, I give myself some guidelines, like not missing two in a row. Progress is more important than perfection.
No Accountability. Who do you have a social contract with to complete your goal?
No Purpose. No Why. Instead of losing 15 pounds, I want to live long enough to lift each of my grandchildren.
Lack of Drive to the Finish
If you don't know the finish line or your purpose for your project, your business, or your life, how will you know where you are in that journey?
Aesop tells the fable of the tortoise who wins the race by plodding along slowly but consistently to the finish while the hare sprints ahead but then takes a nap before the finish. I've adopted the tortoise as my model. Tortoises live long, up to almost 200 years, but walk ever so slowly. They are able to traverse both land and water. They have a protective shield. The hare breeds rapidly but lives a short life of under a decade. The hare is naturally fast, but in this fable, it is not disciplined. The adage, slow and steady wins the race.
Most people settle for average or good enough to fit in, to conform and belong. The outliers seek to change their world for the better, to make a dent in their world. We all grew up with this dream of happily ever after, to be someone worthy of ourselves, our parents, and our peers, but years of being told to fit in have educated us to conform and be just like everyone else.
Do you have a dream?
Having a dream is big. Starting that dream is even bigger. Completing that dream is a dream.
Dr. Kevin Ham
The ant is another creature from which I learn lessons. The wise King Solomon asked us to look at the ant, consider its ways, and be wise. The ant has no commander, overseer, or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. Otherwise, poverty will come upon you like a thief.
Ants also work individually but in unison. It's a marvel to see how well and hard they work collectively.
But life is more than food or finances. What is the dream in your heart that you will diligently work for like the ant? Are you actively thinking, praying, planning, living your dream?
Life Question:
What big dream have you yet to start and yet to finish?
Finish the dream you have yet to start or did in part.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Life is precious. Each day is a gift, an opportunity to start once again on the dreams in your heart.
Next week:
I had planned to start a series on wealth but I just had a calcium heart scan, and the result came back very high (which is not good) so now I'm contemplating doing a health series instead.
With my eye, the risk was just blindness. With my heart, it could be early death.
Please let me know if you prefer a health series or a wealth series.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
How to Master Anything in Life
To master anything, find the master who can teach you. Don’t chase shortcuts.
We are all apprentices, but with focus and intention, we can become masters of any domain.
Some people are highly gifted, but that gift will lay dormant without focus and intention.
A teenager, newly landed in Philadelphia, joined the summer basketball league and finished the season with zero points. His father, Joe, had played in the NBA. He was distraught and disappointed, thinking he let his father down. His father told him that he was proud of whether he scored 60 points or zero. But this teenager aimed to score 60 points one day. So, he started planning and practicing every aspect of his game--from footwork to foul shots, dribbling to jump shots.
The next season, he scored some, and by the second year, he climbed to the upper ranks of the league. He practiced daily and multiple times a day to improve and excel. In a few short years, he was one of the best-ranked basketball players in the country. He was the youngest to be drafted to the NBA at 18. Chappeau (hats off) to you, Kobe, as they say in the biking world.
THE EXCUSES:
But that’s Kobe. He was special. Not me.
Any two individuals’ DNA is 99.9% identical. What separates the great is the intentional focused actions to activate our genes.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Epigenetics is the physical manifestation of the DNA in our genes. While our DNA does not change, our mindset and actions can activate or deactivate genes into proteins, which changes our physical, mental, and, I believe, spiritual being.
There are also neural pathways and blood pathways that are built with all three parts of our being. In the mind, we call this neuroplasticity. In computer science, we call these neural networks.
What if Kobe didn’t practice every day? What if he practiced a few times a week like everyone else? He wouldn’t have activated his genes and his neuroplasticity.
Before any actions, our world is a world of thoughts.
Positive vs. negative, certainty vs. uncertainty, confidence vs. doubt, faith vs. fear.
What kind of mindset do you think Kobe had? Positive or negative, confidence or doubt? It is unlikely Kobe would have made it to the NBA if his thought world was not positive and hopeful.
It’s too hard: So start with just one a day.
I started doing pull-ups daily and biking daily for a ‘season,’ sometimes years, and I quickly realized that if I did one thing daily, I would become top 10% of the world, top 10% in my community, top 10% of my age group or top 10% of my potential. I can do 15 pull-ups daily right now. I can do 50-diamond pushups with ease. I can ride 100 km a day for a week. How? Because I started with one pull-up and one ride a day and did it consistently over time.
But consistency is not enough. There must be an intention to improve and fulfill your potential.
I’ve been driving for 40 years, but I don’t feel like I am a great driver because I drive without the intention of getting any better, whereas a race car driver is very focused on driving better and faster.
But I am too old or too weak
The greatest reason to exercise is when you are weak, so you can be strong. But most people use weakness or age as an excuse to not exercise at all.
Dr. Kevin Ham
My father had a major stroke in 2014, at age 78, that left the right side of his body paralyzed for a month. I had lost hope. He had lost hope. I gave him pure extract green tea tablets and a capsule of omega 3s daily. He was admitted to a rehab centre. He started moving his right knee so slightly that it was hard to notice. By three months, he was limping. By five months he was walking 80%. His rehab doctor said it was a miracle.
But during COVID, he lay in bed all day and lost a lot of muscle (Sarcopenia) and mobility. This year, on his 89th birthday, he could barely walk. He was so unsteady on his feet that he had fallen twice on the way to my car. So I showed him the muscle graph.
The rate of muscle decline increases after menopause and andropause in one’s early 50s and then further at 75. To combat that, he had to exercise daily, every hour. He started by squeezing one of those hand grips for a few months and noticed his right grip strength became stronger.
I then asked him to do 20 squats each hour five times a day for a total of 100 squats a day. He was soon doing 200 squats a day and then 300. Then, he started to kneel on the ground and move his body up and down from the floor 100, then 200 times a day. Why? He had a day where he had fallen and couldn’t get up for four hours and was ‘rescued’ when my sister came home. He was determined to be able to get up if he fell again. Now, he can go from lying on the floor to getting on his knees and getting up. He is motivated by the law of muscles I showed him below. Muscles can’t help but get stronger with resistance. I told him astronauts couldn’t walk when they came back to Earth because they had no gravity (or resistance) in space.
You can be as fit at 80 as when you were 55 if you actively exercise!
10 Levels of Mastery
In Judo, there are 7 levels one must pass to go from a white belt to a black belt. But did you know there are 10 degrees of black belts? Getting a black belt is like a medical doctor getting his medical degree. It is just the beginning, and to be a master, you must go through nine more degrees of mastery.
Define the ten levels of mastery you want in anything you really wish to do. I became a master of domains, but I stopped at level 5 after 7 years. Imagine if I continued for another 18 years until now. I started biking again in 2008 and have kept it up and increased my intensity and consistency. As a result, I’m definitely in the top 10%, probably the top 1% for my age group.
MrBEAST’s Mastery of Youtube: 340 million subscribers
Mr Beast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, started posting YouTube videos in 2010 at the age of 11 to show the unboxing of his Christmas gifts to his grandparents. Just look at his yearly subscribers and growth. Wow.
2012: 22 subscribers
2013: 612 subscribers
2014: 1,604 subscribers
2015: 15,429 subscribers
2016: 460,551 subscribers
2017: 2,009,414 subscribers
2018: 13,322,625 subscribers
2019: 28,417,290 subscribers
2020: 49,540,718 subscribers
2021: 87,033,676 subscribers
2022: 125,377,344 subscribers
2023: 224,698,814 subscribers
2024: 340,691,570 subscribers
MrBeast has repeatedly shared three major principles that helped him grow into the biggest YouTube creator in the world:
Obsess Over Mastery
MrBeast treated YouTube like a science, studying thumbnails and titles and watching time for hours daily with a mastermind group. His growth came from relentlessly analyzing what worked and constantly improving every detail over a decade.
Reinvest Back In
He reinvested nearly all his earnings back into his videos, making each one bigger, more viral, and more valuable.
Make the First 30 Seconds Irresistible
MrBeast optimized every opening to immediately hook viewers with suspense, surprise, or a massive prize.
When you look at the curve above, you start to take a long, consistent view of mastery. You start to think in years, five years, and decades.
Life Question:
What do you want to master?
It starts with an idea. Then a decision. Then a commitment. Then an action plan. Then repeated action. Then intensified action. With persistence and focus.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Simple in theory. Hard in practice.
Practice, practice, practice daily.
Next week:
Why Most People Never Finish Like the Tortoise
Settling for average or good prevents your Magnum Opus, your great work.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Resilience is the last step to the gates to success
Failures and breakdowns are inevitable before success appears.
For every startup, each New Year's resolution starts with a vision of hope, promise and goodwill. Yet the journey is fraught with unexpected obstacles, resistance, problems and setbacks. Many times, these truly set us back. Most never start, but of those who do, many give up and set sail for an easier, more fail-safe path.
Fail 7 Times. Proud of 10,000 Failures.
“Fall down seven times. Get back up eight times.” is an apt proverb for life from Japan.
We fall, we get back up. The question is how many times will it take for the purpose we endeavour to realize?
When Edison said on his quest to invent the light bulb, "I have not failed 10,000 times. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." I found this incredible. How many people throughout history could say this in any endeavour? Only those who were determined enough, had enough grit, and a WHY big enough to persevere through that many failures.
I ask myself when have I ever failed 100 times, 1000 times, 10,000 times? When have you?
It does not matter how many times you fall or fail; what matters more is how many times you get back up and figure out how not to fall the same way again, as Edison did.
Through each failure, he learned what didn't work and then tested another way that might lead to the solution. Eventually, he found it. Along the way, he learned the properties of every filament and metal that could later be used for his other inventions. He tested 6,000 plant fibres in his Menlo Park Labs.
How To Be Resilient in the Face of Many Adversities
If life can go on after the death of a loved one, everything else can be overcome.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Seligman’s Explanatory Style: Optimism vs Pessimism
A model for how we explain setbacks and challenges
The most challenging adversity to deal with is the death of a loved one: A parent, a child, a relative, a friend, a mentor, a leader, a coworker. We do not know where, how, why or when this will happen, so we are left with many unanswered questions and unresolved issues to settle with our dearly departed.
When Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, lost her husband, she leaned on Seligman's 3 Ps to be more resilient: Personalized, Pervasive and Permanence to deal with her husband's death.
Personalized: It wasn't her fault. Though she internalized her husband's death and blamed herself, it really wasn't her fault.
Pervasive: It won't ruin all areas of life. Other parts of life were affected but still separate, as she still had joy through her work.
Permanence: It isn't permanent, and things will improve. She thought she would always feel so empty and things would be difficult, but as time passed, she learned how to live with her new reality.
What is the definition of resilience?
"The ability to bounce back from adversity, frustration, and misfortune."
10,000 Kicks to Mastery
On the other side of this coin of resilience is the mindset of mastery (next week's topic).
Bruce Lee, one of the greatest philosophical minds (he was a philosopher) and the greatest martial artist, said, "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." Once you find the thing you wish to master, keep practicing and improving every day. Over time, you will become a master of that one thing. Then, add another thing that complements and compounds that one thing. Another kick. Another punch. Then, that combination of kicks and punches becomes unstoppable.
My friend, Kim Mijung, now head coach of South Korea's national judo team, won a gold medal in Judo at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. She had her moves, but the combination of moves that she perfected was almost impossible to defend, even though you knew it was coming. She trained us for two years, but my form wasn't pristine, and my old ways were hard to 'undo.'
Kim Mijung at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
What's your one move? Your combination of moves?
I was looking to register a domain for a new idea, and I recognized the company behind the registered domain name. I was astonished at not the domain's price but how many domains this company (aptly named HUGE DOMAINS) had. 4 million domain names for sale. I had known the Reberry brothers when they had just under 10,000 domains. I had once held 300,000 domain names. However, since 2006, they have continued acquiring, refining, and simplifying their business model of selling domain names. To renew a domain name is ~$10 per year. So, with 4 million domain names, that is $40 million in annual renewal costs. They get 4 million visitors per month. Just imagine how many domain names they must sell to cover the renewal costs. Rough math is 40,000 domains (1%) at $3,000 average price = $120 million dollars.
I stopped acquiring domain names in 2007. What would have happened if I had kept at it? But I lost interest in domain names. Instead, I decided to move on to develop domain names into businesses, which is what I am genuinely passionate about: creating businesses that scale.
A Solid Foundation for Life
Life is Built on Dealing and Solving Adversity and Problems.
Dr. Kevin Ham
When you build a house or building, the foundation must be strong. Like the story of the Three Little Pigs, who each built a house of straw, wood, and brick--even the brick house had to have a solid foundation.
But what is the foundation of life?
It's how we overcome each adversity and problem. Pay particular attention to repeating problems in your life. These are the ones to focus on and solve. As you do, they then become the foundation upon which the rest of your life stands. Create solutions and then simplify the philosophical principles underlying those solutions. Then, apply these principles to other areas of your life.
What has been a repeating problem in your life?
I have so many that they pile up. For instance, I love to create but I don't wrap things up tidily. I live in the future, trying to bring it into the present and therefore I'm not always present for my loved ones.
My Weakness Becomes My Foundation
We are weak but you are strong.
Hymn: Jesus Loves Me This I Know
The art of Judo leverages your opponent's strength to make them off balance. If they push, you pull. If they pull, you push. So, a smaller, weaker person can 'throw' a bigger, stronger person using their strengths against them.
In the same way, I often ponder how I can leverage my weaknesses into strengths on my own or with others. My biggest weakness or constraint is my physical body. My hearing isn't excellent, but particularly my right eye is problematic as it has wet macular degeneration. So, I optimize my diet and exercises to target this constraint and prevent my eyesight from being lost. If I lose my eyesight, then what happens to the rest of my life?
I temper my heart by considering a future when I go blind. I draw inspiration from John Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost in his blindness, how Fanny Crosby served the Lord in her blindness, and how Helen Keller lived an amazing life while blind and deaf. I may see better through the "eyes of my heart" without my ocular eyesight. And I wonder what life is telling me when I have the problem of sight and hearing.
Life Question:
What Repeating Problem Must I Solve?
Life teaches you by continually giving you the same problem in different ways through different people.
Dr. Kevin Ham
What is the repeating problem in your closest relationship?
What is the repeating problem in your job or business?
What is the repeating problem in your physical or mental health?
Next week:
How to Master Anything in Life
To master anything, find the master who can teach you. Don’t chase shortcuts.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
You have the will but lack the discipline (to accomplish your dreams).
Our brains are wired for short term gratification while dreaming of happily ever after without effort.
There is a dream in your heart, a goal you desire. You might pray for it, wish for it, and plan for it. But the effort to actually make it real seems intimidating. The bigger the dream or goal, the more daunting. So, you start shrinking your dreams and goals until they feel comfortable. You decrease the gap between expectation and reality until they are no longer inspiring dreams or goals. They are just another task to check off.
The Will vs the Spirit
Where there is a will, there is a way.
George Herbert
Deep down, you feel your will is enough to make things real despite any lack, limitations or obstacles. When you believe in it strongly enough, you think you will do anything and everything to find a way to bring your dreams into being.
The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
George Herbert
As Jesus prayed the night before he was to be crucified, he spoke to his disciples who were falling asleep. Even though his disciples all believed that they would also do whatever it took to protect and fight for their leader, they fell asleep, as their bodies were too tired to follow the will of their spirit.
This is tantamount when it comes to effort. One common form of effort that translates will into reality is exercise. How do you define exercise?
Exercise is a planned, structured, and repetitive subset of physical activity. The objective is to improve or maintain physical fitness.
To exercise your will is to plan, structure, and repetitively act to produce a result of that will. Now, apply this not only to physical exercise but also other areas of your life, such as mental exercise, spiritual exercise, relationship exercise, or financial exercise.
Once you apply it in one area of your life, you can then apply it in other areas of your life.
How can I climb higher?
You just have to do the climb.
Michael Woods, pro cyclist
I asked many of my pro cyclist friends how to ride my bike up mountains faster. They answered, "I hate to tell you this, but the best way is to climb bigger mountains and do it as much as possible." I was able to ride alongside four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome and Hugo Houle, the winner of stage 16 at the 2024 Tour de France, during their training mountain climbs. They were to go up the mountain, increasing power each minute and decreasing rest periods. Eg. 50 seconds regular, then 10 seconds at 500 watts for ten minutes and then increase this to 20 seconds at 500 Watts, then 30 seconds at 500 Watts. I tried this and, after 15 minutes, didn't have the mental strength to continue doing it. I realized that the practice rides were intense, and they had to often do blocks of training that were harder than the stage races of the Tour de France, where they rode in a peloton, drafting behind others to conserve energy.
Only by actually doing the 'work' will you see your limits, constraints, current level, and potential. I started to schedule mountain climbs on my bike, even doing the same mountain two or three times in one ride. I became very fit and much better at climbing mountains, although it was a power hour of mental endurance as much as it was physical.
Can you imagine your heart beating 170 beats per minute for an hour? My heart became so efficient, that my resting heart rate is now 43. In medicine, we were told that the normal heart rate is between 60 to 100 beats per minute (bpm). I asked Froome what his resting heart rate was-- 32 bpm. Wow. Lance Armstrong's? 28. This is why their hearts are able toendure the tremendous rigours of climbing the European Alps and mountains for 3,400 km and 50,000m of elevation over 21 days. That's an average of 160 km and 2300m climbing every day.
The Hill Principle
The climb is your friend who is always right before you.
Dr. Kevin Ham
When I used to peer up the face of a mountain from the base on my bicycle, I would experience a lot of anxiety about how hard and painful it would feel to ride up. Then, one day, I realized that although the mountain would always remain the same and I would suffer, I would also become stronger, fitter, and healthier.
My mindset changed from one of anxiety and suffering to one of taking on a challenge to gain great physical and mental benefits. From that moment, I started riding up the hills and mountains with resolve and discipline to become the fittest person I could be. It was my version of 80/20 cardio, where I would climb each climb with intensity and then rest on the downhills and flats—like HIIT, High-Intensity Interval Training.
Best Longevity Predictor: VO2Max
Why do I want to live forever when I know my body will not?
Dr. Kevin Ham
My friend Paulo, who is the Performance Director for the pro cycling team Israel Premier Tech and a coach to Olympic Athletes, taught me this longevity hack: If you exercise HIIT for 30 minutes three times a week, your VO2Max will only decline 6% from age 60 to 80. I realized that my VO2Max could be the same at 80 as it was at 50 (my VO2Max was 51 at age 49 and ~60 at age 52).
So, mountain climbing became my will for physical and mental fitness with the purpose of longevity.
Schedule it in your calendar
Time is just moments scheduled, serendipitous, or passed away.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Your will is like the clouds. When you repetitively schedule your will into your plans and your calendar, it becomes like the weather forecast for your life--but you determine the weather forecast by your schedule. You determine the actual weather by doing what you put in your calendar.
It's that simple yet hard to do. First, you need to schedule your 'will' and then follow it with consistency and intention.
That's when your dreams manifest over time into reality. It's simple yet hard to do. If you start doing this, you will naturally rise to the top 10% or top 1% of whatever you set your will, mind, and body to.
Life Question:
What do you will to do this year, this month, this week, today?
Just do it.
Nike
Many things are out of your control. Find the things you can control, focus on them and then act on them. You will find your way to your dream by walking that path that appears before you.
Next week:
Resilience is the last step to the gates to success
Failures and breakdowns are inevitable before success appears.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Why Multitasking Makes You Ordinary. Instead Be Extraordinary with the F word.
Even an hour of deep, focused work a day can produce extraordinary results.
Kevin Ham
The world encourages you to multitask and get lots of things done. This results in 'shallow' work over sustained, focused, 'deep' work that can give rise to something extraordinary.
Einstein focused for over a decade on trying to solve the problem of time and energy. Isaac Newton invested years obsessively focused on a few key problems, writing Principia Mathematica in the 1680s, which delivered the three laws of motion. Most people never dedicate themselves fully to one pursuit.
The most powerful F word most people think of is a four letter word. But there is a more powerful F word with five letters. It also has the letters U and C, but no K. A lack of it makes the day blurry, caused by constant distractions, newsfeeds, notifications, and busy work. It prevents us from dedicated, focused, deep work towards a single vision. Even an hour of deep work each day over a period of time can produce remarkable results over years, decades and your lifetime.
During the COVID pandemic, I decided to ride my bike every day for 30 days--either 30 km or 300m of elevation (a small mountain climb). It was about an hour a day. After a month, I was tired but was super fit, having ridden almost 1000 km in a month. I kept that up but with rest days and rode an average distance of 7,700 km and elevation of 100,000m every year for three years. In 2022, I was in the best shape of my life. I could ride 110 km in four hours on one bottle of water and one energy bar. Now, I maintain my fitness by riding more focused at 3500 km a year. My 100-year-old goal is to ride 100 km like Robert Marchand. He lived to be 109 years old and is the world record holder for fastest 100 km ride and distance cycled in one hour, for the 100–104 and over 105 age categories. He likely had very little competition at that age :).
But Multitasking Allows You to Accomplish Multiple Things at Once.
Ordinary is average. Extraordinary is special. Just takes an ounce of thought and a pound of application.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I used to think multitasking allowed me to accomplish much, but Dr. Alan Barnard had us do an exercise. Write down the numbers 1-10 then the letters A-J in order and time yourself. Next, write 1A, 2B, 3C, 4D, 5E to 10J and time yourself.
Writing 1-10 took me less than 2 seconds, and A-J took me 2 seconds. The total time was 3.55 seconds, but counting 1A-10J took me 10 seconds, which is 2.5 times longer.
When I memorize one chapter of Proverbs, it feels good and flows. When I try to memorize two chapters at once, I feel stressed. I get confused between the chapters, and it takes me longer, and I forget easier.
What's your experience?
Try the number/letter test. Next, expand that 1-26, A-Z. Then, add a circle, triangle, square as a third task. Then, add a fourth task—the time it takes compounds as more tasks are woven in.
Yes, you can talk and drive. But texting and driving? Forget it. Don't do it because you need to focus on your driving.
If you just set aside a dedicated time to filter out all the distractions, notifications, and thoughts and focus on doing deep work for one thing, it is incredible what you can accomplish.
Think … Just Think.
Of all the beautiful gifts we have, the ability to think is the greatest, next to love and to forgive.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Think and Grow Rich is one of the perennial best-sellers written by Napoleon Hill. The key word here is "Think". I almost think the title should be "Think, then you will grow ____ (fill in your word of choice here … rich, smart, fit, wise).
One of my mentors, Bob Proctor, told a pro golf player that if he wanted to improve, he needed to focus his attention on being able to focus. He asked the golfer to put a dot on the wall and stare at it for five minutes without losing focus on the dot. He said most people cannot stare even five minutes without their mind wandering. Then, increase the time each day. He would be successful when he could focus an hour on the dot. Then, he was told to apply that skill to each aspect of his golf game.
90% of my time, I like to think, then write my thoughts down, and then plan a path for my thoughts to come alive. Most are stillborn. Some are born. Few make it to adulthood. Very few reproduce offspring. Earl Nightingale, the father of personal growth, said that 95% of people do not think, 5% think they think but only 2% of people really think. I did not understand this because I thought I thought, but the question is, what are you really thinking about? The more I thought about my thoughts, the deeper my thinking became.
The problems that arise in life, like the waves and the stormy weather, not only give rise to emotions but also allow you to think. "Necessity is the mother of invention."
So think about your thinking, for you become what you think about.
Life Question:
What is your most important focus in life?
Focus is like a magnifying glass that makes sunlight start a fire.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Most people don't really know the answer to this question. Find one thing you'd like to focus on for the next month.
Put 10 minutes to one hour a day devoted without distractions on your most important focus for the next 30 days and see. Then persist and continue for the rest of the year and see. Then let me know the results in 30 days and each month.
Schedule this like an appointment in your calendar. Then tell your family and network that you have focused time for this period you blocked out, and then keep that appointment.
Guaranteed to be life-changing.
Next week:
You have the will but lack the discipline to accomplish your dreams. Why?
Our brains are wired for short-term gratification while dreaming of happily ever after without effort.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Why your external drive is not enough. What’s inside of you?
Most people get depressed when they reach their goal because there is nothing more to obtain and hope dies.
Kevin Ham
Michael Phelps set the record for most gold medals in an Olympic game with eight golds. His dreams were more than realized. Then depression hit hard. He had worked all his life for this moment: 23 golds, 28 total medals. After the 2004 Olympic golds, he felt the post-Olympic blues and often felt suicidal, and this became more pronounced the more medals he won. Why?
Dopamine momentarily surges to new heights after we achieve a goal and then after the joy and excitement fades, it drops… It drops below the baseline. Mood plummets. This is the science behind postpartum depression and after other goals and dreams are realized.
While there is a goal and a drive to obtain that goal, what happens after the goal is accomplished?
Is More Better and Does More Make You Happy?
The day you discover less is more is the day you start living.
Dr. Kevin Ham
What is the goal? More... Success? Money? Fame? Power? Status? Happiness? Health? Joy? Peace?
Simon Sinek's famous three circles point out the obvious. Most people focus on the What, then the How, and perhaps the Why. Instead, we should focus deep within and focus on the Why, then the How, and then the What.
Simon Sinek’s Three Circles
Our focus on the Whats drive us to seek after more and more--even after getting one big What. What is your purpose? What is your Why? The reason to be? Whether personal or professional.
I've often pondered my drive for more, even after much success. What is driving me. Why do I feel so alive when I am starting something new, something big and all the while, I know just how much time and energy it will take in the remaining time I have left?
Harper Lee published one novel, which became a hit, winning the Pulitzer Prize: To Kill a Mockingbird. She never published another book, opting to stay out of the spotlight. She told the story of moral courage amid racial injustice. She told her story and the stories of so many throughout history, as she saw growing up in Alabama.
The same goes for Margaret Mitchell and Gone with the Wind. Neither of these authors felt the need to win another Pulitzer Prize or write best-sellers to define themselves. Their why had been accomplished, and it was enough.
These days, in my mid-50s, I am driven much more by purpose and meaning than the Whats. In 2007, I was on the cover of a business magazine I adored and on the front pages of many international newspapers. I had tasted great success, but I let it melt, not speaking with any reporters or venture capitalists, even as they clamoured all around me.
Everyone is Remembered By a Sentence
The man who freed the slaves and held America together during its darkest hour.
The man who wore simple clothes, walked in silence, and brought down an empire by starving, without lifting a sword.
Do you recognize each person above by what they did? Can you tell who they are by what they did? Can you tell why they did what they did?
Abraham Lincoln saw an enslaved person in chains when he was young and thought that if he ever had the power to free such enslaved people, he would. Born into poverty and raised with little formal education, he rose through perseverance, self-study, and deep moral conviction. As a lawyer, debater, and eventually the 16th President of the United States, he fought for liberty, for a nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
Gandhi was a lawyer educated in the UK, but when he travelled to South Africa, he was thrown off the train for being Indian, even though he had a first-class ticket. That injustice shaped his life. His life mission was to "Awaken the soul of a nation and lead by example--with humility, truth and love," He didn't wish for power. He wanted people to realize their own power--the power of truth, moral courage and peace. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
What is your one sentence?
Life Question:
Who am I?
I am a spiritual being living in a human body, not a human body with a spirit.
Bob Proctor
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Gandhi
You are not your body. You are in your body.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Next week:
Why Multitasking Makes You Ordinary
Even an hour of deep, focused work a day can produce extraordinary results.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Seven Great Lacks that Limit Your Greatness
What you lack is faith and hope, not lack of anything at all.
The biggest thing we lack is vision. Even though blind, Helen Keller saw and heard from her heart. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost while he was blind. Beethoven wrote his last great symphonies deaf.
We came into this physical world with nothing but the warm embrace and bosom of our mothers. With our first breath, we declared our entry. And ever since, we have not lacked breath, water or food to the point of despair. These are the essential matters of life.
But when it comes to our souls, we discover that we lack much as we see others who are older, more skilled, more experienced, or more gifted. We start to compare ourselves to others rather than to ourselves. With the media, this gap between others and ourselves becomes like grand canyons, as the world celebrates the accomplishments of the few who dedicate their lives to doing what no other person has ever done before.
Where does this drive, this motivation to be great, the best, to stand out come from?
Wealth Starts Within You
The engines of wealth reside deep within us. The deeper we go, the more powerful the engines.
Dr. Kevin Ham
As I watched my immigrant parents, who came to Canada from South Korea in the late 1960s, struggle to make ends meet, I decided that I would use my intellectual wealth to do something worthy for Canadians. This thought propelled me to think beyond my incapabilities and lack of experience and instead seek to learn.
I realized that wealth starts from within me and will one day, perhaps, express itself outside of me. I have developed my intellectual wealth and my spiritual wealth, and the outcome has been external wealth in terms of money and things.
We have survived, but most people want to thrive. While we want our bodies to survive and thrive, our souls have a deeper thirst and hunger for intellectual and spiritual growth. When our soul dies, our drive for life dies, and we merely exist.
When we attend a loved one's funeral, we are reminded of just how precious life is, each day and each second we are alive. But we have a voice inside we wish to express, an idea we want to birth into the world, a talent to be shown, a poem, a thought, a book, a movie, a business, a craft.
But amid so many others who have crafted their desires and talents over time, throughout history, around you, you wonder how you can even have a second of the spotlight. And do I really matter?
This has been my question since I was young: What can I do that matters to me and perhaps to some others? How can I make my mother and father proud? How can I be a good example to my younger siblings?
I felt extremely unworthy. I had very low self-esteem and self-worth and, therefore, no self-confidence. I was one of the shortest in my grade (second shortest), I was a minority, and I was extremely shy. But I was very bright, excelled at math and science, and was pretty good at art and music. Instead of only seeing the negative side of life, I clung to the little things that brought me joy, light, or some ray of hope.
What is your vision?
Are you a Historian, a Carpe diemer, or a Futurist?
Separate your past, romance your present and marry your future.
Dr. Kevin Ham
You are either living in the past, the present or the future. Where do you spend most of your thinking? A pessimist remembers their hard past and projects it into the present and future. An optimist remembers the good. A realist remembers the present.
Which quadrant do you spend most of your thoughts in?
I am an optimist and a futurist, climbing the peaks of many mountains, but I anchor myself in the harness of the dangers and risks of the past so I can take my next step more safely as I ascend the mountain.
Once I had a vision of something bigger than my fears and my lacks, I had something to strive for. Then, when I got very ill, I envisioned being a doctor, a medical missionary, an entrepreneur, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in three entirely different businesses, and a philanthropist.
My vision of my future self has kept me driven to make my dreams a reality for decades.
What vision or visions do you have?
Life Question:
What is the deep vision in your heart for yourself?
The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.
Proverbs 20:5
If your vision is unclear, it resides deep within you, like gold in a mine deep underground. As you grow your awareness, seek it out, and mine it out, it needs to be refined to be pure gold.
Write your vision or many visions, even if they are still faint. Reflect and add a sentence describing it, a time you wish for it to become real, and a plan of the next five steps you can take to move towards your vision.
Next week:
Why your external drive is not enough. What’s inside of you?
Most people get depressed when they reach their goal because there is nothing more to obtain and hope dies.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Are you willing to pay the price to get what you want?
Every great accomplishment in life requires a sacrifice.
This is a great question to ask yourself every time you want something. The greater the goal or desire, the more you'll likely have to sacrifice. We want to obtain, but we don't want to give up what is precious to us: our relationships, our time, our money, our thinking power and our energy.
Give, then take. Plant, then harvest. Invest, then sell. Pain, then gain. Learn, then grow.
But what is your definition of Sacrifice?
Without sacrifice neither gain nor fulfillment will suffice.
Dr. Kevin Ham
My mentor Bob Proctor defined sacrifice as giving up something of lesser value now for something of greater value later. That really struck me. I would also add something for the greater good. We should think not only about the physical and financial world but also about matters of the soul and spirit.
The greater the value or good that you desire to create, the greater the sacrifice you must be willing to make.
For what would you sell all that you have? For what would you sacrifice your life? More importantly, for who? For country, for family, for love, for money? And, I stress, for health.
We often forget the important stuff in our busy lives and exchange them for tangible things. We focus on what rather than who, on money rather than meaning. It's hard to discern the sacrifices in life where we trade time for money. As we get older and time seems to be more limited, like the remaining sands in an hourglass, we start to focus on purpose, meaning, and people.
For what would you sell all that you have?
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matthew 13:44
Just imagine all your possessions. For what or who would you sell all that you have? Oskar Schlinder anguished over why he didn't sell his car and his ring to save more people during the Holocaust. A gold ring was gifted to him by the Jewish people he saved in his factory. They inscribed, "Whoever saves one life saves the entire world."
We often hear of entrepreneurs who put everything they have into their businesses. We forget that we do this quite often for our families. We make big sacrifices for our faith. We pay 30-50% of our income to our country. We have soldiers who dedicate their lives to our country.
The fear of loss is greater than the joy of gain
We fear loss so much because we define ourselves by what we have and not by who we are.
Dr. Kevin Ham
We focus on our fears and our losses instead of having faith in that which we hold dear and seek. This stems from our desire to survive and not lose our lives. We define our lives by the things we obtain, and such loss feels like we are losing a bit of ourselves. This gives rise to the endowment effect, a cognitive bias that makes us value things we own much higher than what others would value them at.
We accumulate and dream of acquiring so much that it will not matter how much we lose because we have so much. This has been my philosophy since I was young--make much more than I will ever lose.
But there are only 3000 billionaires in the world. They have as many problems as you do. They may have physical luxuries, but those only soothe the body and not the soul or the spirit.
Even if you accumulated all the world's riches to your heart's desire, you would conclude, as King Solomon did in his writings in the book of Ecclesiastes, that all is vanity and striving after the wind. He is touted to have been the richest king in history. Have a read of it? Pure wisdom.
I ask myself, "Why am I so ambitious?" It stems from my fear of poverty since I grew up poor, the church's constant need for money for missions and my desire to make my father proud, as he always strove to live the Canadian dream.
I hope that I can say like Job, "Naked I came into this world and naked I shall go. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away."
Live your life and trade things for those of lasting value. Live in the hearts of people. If you trade your time for money, use your time in the service of people to light them up and put a smile in their hearts. Though they may not remember your name, they will remember you.
If you wish to find and live your Magnum Opus, walk the path set before you. You know which fork in the road to take deep in your heart.
Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.
Leo Tolstoy
Life Question:
For what or who would you sell all that you have?
We often forget what and who is truly important as life flies by.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Write the Top 5 Most Important Whats and the Who's down in priority.
Send them a written note, email or text expressing how important they are to you.
Do something that shows it, though things can never truly express the love in your heart.
Next week:
The Seven Great Lacks that Limit Your Greatness
What you lack is faith and hope, not lack of anything at all.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Do you value your own thoughts and opinions enough?
Don’t let fear of criticism prevent you from doing what is in your heart
Don’t let fear of criticism prevent you from doing what is in your heart
What do you think?
Honour your own thoughts and heart first.
Dr. Kevin Ham
This may be one of the oft-asked questions you ask your friends, family and coworkers. A more critical question is to ask yourself, "What do I think?"
"Cogito, ergo sum." "I think therefore I am." declared Rene Descartes in the early 1600s as he pondered how he existed. Such doubt gave rise to thought, and this thinking declared his existence.
When we have a thought, an idea, an opinion, or a philosophy, why do we tend to doubt its veracity? As we develop our intuition, insight, and inspiration--all that comes from our heart or spirit--we need a logical way of expressing these in words and stories to bypass the logical guards in others' minds before making their way into their creative hearts.
We grow up with wonder and creativity, but over time, we are hammered into thinking mostly logically and scientifically. Without signs or proof of an intangible, an invisible insight or idea does not have merit until it is proven or if we can show it another's vision. This is why so many contrarian ideas seem foolish in foresight but obvious and genius in hindsight.
We become afraid to express those thoughts and ideas that spring up from our hearts--the ones that inspire us--because they are so quickly and easily discarded as being foolish by others. The filter on most people's minds is that of logic, proof, fitting in and conformity. So much so that unless one conforms or fits into the norm or the regulations, they are also quickly discarded as crazy and their idea as pie in the sky.
If I liked to wear bright turquoise or pink pants, many would consider me eccentric. I have been called crazy for so much of my life because many of my thoughts and ideas are contrary to what is the norm. I question why things are the way they are and how they can be reinvented or improved upon. For instance, why does the traditional school system focus on teaching children information rather than empowering them to question things and learn from first principles? Why don't we praise failures when experiments are conducted to find truths and gather insights instead of solely praising good grades? Almost all great discoveries, innovations, businesses and growth have resulted from a series of failed experiments that guided us to a version of the truth.
I think therefore I am. Your thoughts may be foolish, but with continued thinking about your thoughts, words, and actions, your thoughts can one day become wise. We are learning, growing, and loving beings. The moment we cease to do these three things, we diminish as human beings.
As You Think So You Are
Each of us is literally what we think, our character being the complete sum of all our thoughts.
James Allen
Deep in our hearts, we may feel and believe one thing, but outwardly express something that is superficial or contrary to our hearts. We call such a person 'calculating'. This proverb was written by one of the wisest kings in history, King Solomon, who demonstrated his wisdom when two harlots claimed a baby as their own. He ordered the baby to be cut in half and one half given to each mother. The real mother asked out that the baby be given to the other. The false mother asked that it be done, as she had accidentally smothered her baby to death while sleeping and did not want the other mother to have a child. The Hebrew word in this proverb, translated as 'thinketh' can also be translated as 'inwardly calculating'.
James Allen pondered this Proverbs 23:7 and wrote 7 chapters on it in a book entitled by the proverb, "As a Man Thinketh" in 1902. In it he expresses, "Each of us is literally what we think, our character being the complete sum of all our thoughts. Action is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruit. We are the masters of thought, the moulders of character and the makers and shapers of condition, environment and destiny."
If our thoughts shape our character, condition, environment, and destiny, we should really think about our thinking. The thoughts and opinions of others about our thoughts and ideas should be like mirrors to us, but what is truly important is our deep understanding of our own thoughts. This is presaged by the age-old wise oracle to "Know thyself."
Criticism is but a Different Perspective
Since everyone is unique, each will have their own perspective. This difference is what we perceive to be criticism.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Even the most popular book has its lovers and its haters. If you don't have any thoughts or opinions, there is nothing to love or hate. If you express no thoughts, what is your existence? The moment you have an idea you want to express, consider to whom you are expressing it. If you express it to experts, you may gain a valuable perspective and insight. If it's to people without any expertise or experience in the matter, what they have to offer is likely a mere matter of opinion.So then the question is how deeply have you thought about what you have just expressed?
I've started many businesses. I've failed many times, but I've succeeded many times too. The great home run hitters were also the ones who struck out the most. I go for home runs in my ventures. I value customers' perspectives, but as Henry Ford said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." As in the scientific method, I should have a hypothesis that I believe to be true, craft out my assumption that I must disprove, gather the relevant data and conclude if my hypothesis has merit. We call this agile experimentation. I believe this works in almost every field, not just science and business. What we assume to believe, we need to experiment first through thought experiments as Einstein did, then through real experiments as quickly as we can. This is a skill and secret of life.
I've come to a personal conclusion for myself regarding criticism. Take it all in, and consider it deeply. Discard what is not useful, adopt what is helpful, and give yourself space between the criticism and the response with a statement like, "That's interesting. Let me ponder that a bit. Thanks." When people tell me how I should name or run my business, I consider if they've built a startup and how seriously I should take their criticism of the name or idea of my business. If they are a customer who would pay money, I will listen more carefully.
1000 True Fans and 1 True Friend
I only really cherish a small number of people. My heart can only hold so many.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Credit: Emmanuel Lafont
I heard that if you sell 10,000 books, you would be in the top 1% of all authors for all time. 90% of books sell less than 1000 copies. I've contemplated why this is. Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist proposed that a person has 150 meaningful relationships. This consists of just five loved ones, followed by 15 good friends, 50 friends, 150 meaningful contacts, 500 acquaintances and 1500 people you can recognize. So if all your friends and acquaintances bought your book, it's still hard to sell 1000 copies. When I started my Linkedin following, it was hard for me to get 1000 followers from my existing real-life relationships. I now have 45,000 followers, but most of them I do not have a bidirectional meaningful relationship with.
I hope to publish books in my sixties and sell over 10,000 copies :). When it comes to business, your goal should be to get 1000 true fans. This implies the quality of the relationship is more important than the quantity. It allows you to find your target niche and those whom you service and how. When it comes to life, your goal should be to have five true friends. Lifelong friends. There are friends for a reason, friends for a season. But lifelong through all the ups and downs is special.
Why is this important? With true fans and true friends, you can express yourself and your ideas and have believers give you true feedback that you would not be defensive about because you have built such a strong foundation of trust. Criticism by those who aren't within your inner circles of trust then needs the circle of expertise.
Upon this foundation, you can figure out product-market fit for business and character-life fit for personal.
I gave the opportunity for 100 friends and family to invest in my new AI startup. 80% invested, saying they believed in me and that I would figure it out. They knew it was high risk and could lose their investment but were betting on me to hit it out of the park. This is more valuable to me than all the money they have invested, close to $10 million USD. It fuels me and inspires me while giving me deep accountability.
Life Question:
Do you really think about your thinking?
What are your five most important thoughts?
Write them down now.
Think about them deeply, three to five layers deep
Next week:
Are you willing to pay the price to get what you want?
Every great accomplishment in life requires a sacrifice.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Did you squeeze your lemon to the last drop?
Are you truly living your life?
Are you truly living your life?
Every man dies, not every man really lives.
William Wallace (Braveheart)
These words echoed in the heart of Cha, as she eulogized her late great father, Rob Thompson.
As Cha graduated high school, Rob asked her, "Did you squeeze your lemon?" Cha replied, "What do you mean by that?" "Each experience is a lemon. Did you squeeze your lemon to the last drop?"
Every experience is a lemon. Rob had these one-line euphemisms and proverbs. Since he had so many wealthy clients, I asked him a lot about his philosophy on life, wealth, and passing on financial and intellectual wealth to our next generation.
"Dishwashers work hard. You should work smart."
"People may think you're an idiot if you are silent, but if you speak, they'll know you're an idiot."
"All wealthy people want their kids to turn out well, but unfortunately, most don't."
"Never give them so much that they self-destruct or don't have to work. By 35, their character and values are established, so give them enough to have optionality."
"Money gives you optionality, but it doesn't solve the essential issues of life."
"I am part of all who I've met." — from the poem 'Ulysses' by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." He was a great storyteller.
"If not me, then who? If not now, then when?" — His take on a quote from Hillel the Elder, a 1st-century Jewish scholar.
"I married up." When I met Rob's wife, Anita, yesterday, I understood what he meant.
I was so excited to have lunch with Rob on Monday, Feb 10. 12:15 pm, to be exact. I showed up at noon, deciding to wait for him for once, as I always run late. At 12:18pm, I texted him, "Hi Rob, at lunch at Oshi Nori. Do you want me to order a sushi set for you? Everything ok?" He was never late. Every time the door opened, I expected to see his smiling face. By 12:45, I ate by myself, wondering what was wrong. At 3:24, "Dear Rob… I hope you are ok. Let me know for peace of mind or anything I can do to help if you are in Vancouver."
Rob had climbed the Matterhorn just 18 months prior. He was so physically fit. He regularly ran 10 miles up mountains. He was training for his next mountain summit that Monday morning. A sudden heart attack while on his elliptical ended his beautiful life before he could hop on the plane from San Francisco to Vancouver and embrace our intellects and hearts in our latest venture together. Ten days earlier, he and his family had invested a large sum in my new startup, How.com. "Really excited about joining you in this opportunity. Look forward to our journey on this together."
His beautiful wife, Anita, in Rob's celebration of life just this past Sunday in San Fran, said, that catharsis is a greek word, a concept to express our hearts together, so that the emotions of grief and loss can be shared and have an outlet. Most people can maintain up to 150 close relationships. She said that Rob had 10 times that number of deep relationships. Rob was a mighty man, one of my great friends.
We met in 2012 as he wanted to introduce his prestigious investment bank, Goldman Sachs, to me. We became instant friends at that first meeting. Later that Summer, when I returned from Paris, I shared with him that I wanted to make epic movies in 10-20 years. He said he had just met Harald Ludwig, the Chairman of Lionsgate Entertainment. "Really? Can you introduce him to me?" He laughed and said that Harald wanted to meet me. I was confused. "How does he know about me?" I asked. "I told him about you." Harald and I have also become good friends. Every time Rob visited Vancouver, we would all have a meal together. We were so engaged in our deep conversations that I realize now that while it is customary for me to take lots of photos when I am with people, I had no photos with Rob—just the image of his smiling face, full of wit and wisdom, inscribed in my heart.
I could never have imagined Rob dying of a heart attack. I thought I had decades more with him. I implore everyone in their 40s and up to get a calcium heart scan and carotid ultrasound now. Just that Monday night, I visited my friend Yen in the hospital; who had a heart attack on Saturday, had two emergency stents put in and two days later, an additional two coronary stents (quadruple heart vessel disease).
Rob lived a full life at the highest level in both his professional and personal life. For you Rob, I dedicate How.com and our journey together will live on in my heart. But how I wished for two things. First, I wish I had talked to you much more about health; second, I wish I had shared the gospel with you. I will be bolder yet humble, with both going forward. I love you, buddy. May God have mercy and grace on your soul and give strength and peace to your dear family.
This week, I wanted to write about my friend Rob and also share a health and life message. I wonder why God allowed Rob to leave so early. I am still grieving him. I wish this would not happen to anyone without warning.
If you wish to read my three health principles, read on. I pray that they will give you a decade or two more of a vibrant, healthy, wholesome life.
My 3 Health Principles:
Seek God, then love, then wisdom, then health, then wealth, in this order.
Dr. Kevin Ham
My first love was to become a medical doctor since age 14. I became a beloved physician at 30. Now I do health as philanthropy. I have three principles of health that I try to abide by.
Health Principle #1: Prevention is the key to health
While we all combat disease throughout our lives, and one day, our lives will end, the truly great health leaps in longevity have not only been treatments but more so with basic preventative health measures: clean water, clear air, good nutrition, good sewage, good hygiene, immunizations, good fitness, and good relationships with people and nature.
Heart disease is a metabolic disease, triggered mainly by diet but also lifestyle. It is caused by the oxidation of fats in the blood, such as oxidized LDL. What causes this oxidation? Chronic stress, inflammation, heated vegetable oils, and the glycation (sugar) of these fats and proteins, forming advanced glycation end-products (AGEs).
The first vegetable oil was introduced in 1911 by Proctor and Gamble, a candle and soap company. As electricity and high costs threatened the candle business, they hired a chemist to make synthetic fats from seeds to reduce the costs of buying animal fats that were used to make the soaps and candles. They used cotton seed and turned it into oil, which they branded as Crisco (crystallized cotton seed oil). They touted it as a healthier alternative to animal fats and introduced it into the food system. Then came a slew of replacements for beef tallow, lard and ghee (animal fats). Margarine replaced butter. Canola, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed oils replaced olive oil (which is more stable but not as stable as coconut oil). If you must eat fried foods, please consider the use of animal fats, which are the most stable.
The first documented heart attack in the US was in 1912. Dr. William Osler, a Canadian physician in Toronto, co-founder of the prestigious Johns Hopkins Hospital in the US, and also having practiced in Oxford, England, had never seen a heart attack in these three major cities, even until his death in 1919. Heart attacks were very rare. My mentor, who is now in his early 80s, was a doctor in the biggest hospital in Seoul, Korea and only saw a few heart attacks a year in 1975. American fast foods only entered South Korea in the early 1970s.
Removing these vegetable oils, refined sugars, and modern wheat would eliminate heart disease. If you look at the ingredient labels of any packaged foods, you will see sunflower oil, safflower oil, and canola oil in almost all of them. These are processed in factories that look like oil refineries. Inside these oils are trans fats and many oxidative compounds that, when heated again, increase and then oxidize the fats in your bloodstream, leading to inflammation and thickening of the arteries.
From age 55, your muscle mass and bone strength start diminishing faster. At age 75, it takes a drastic turn. You must increase your weight bearing and strength to decrease this loss. I have my 89-year-old father do 100 squats a day (20 squats every hour, five times a day). He can barely walk now as he lay in bed for three years during the Covid years and lost a lot of muscle mass. I will start doing some weights to increase my muscle mass so that if I live to 100, I have enough to be mobile and independent, God willing.
Keep fit, strong, and safe. The Venn of these three things is health:
Health Principle #2: Do no harm
This is part of the Hippocratic oath. Non nocere. We live in an era where money trumps health. Everyone now knows that smoking causes cancer and heart disease. The cigarette packaging warns this, yet we still allow its sale. Meanwhile, selling raw milk in Canada and half of the US is illegal.
Another example of this is fried food — French fries, fried chicken — or foods laden with highly refined sugars. These are recipes for the current heart disease epidemics and cancers.
Herbicides and pesticides like Roundup (glyphosate) have metabolic and hormonal effects on the body. Choosing organic foods is a simple principle to eliminate these from your diet. But organic does not necessarily mean healthy. Foods should be regarded as nutrition and the building blocks for the cells and systems of your body. Monocrop agriculture leads to mineral-deficient soils and, therefore, foods. Many people are deficient in magnesium, selenium, and copper. Magnesium and copper are essential for healthy mitochondrial function, which produces ATP, your body's energy source.
Just like a cast prevents further harm to a fractured bone, what "cast" can you put around your mouth and body that won't allow further damage and toxicity? And let the natural healing ability of your immune system to work. The first cast is health education, which is knowing the difference between real food and fake food (what we call junk food).
The marketing machines of the food industry lead you to believe that this fake food is real and tasty and cheap and convenient, infiltrating your body. This leads to inevitable disease, much earlier onset and severity. Most civilized countries have succumbed to the laws of economics rather than the laws of health.
Health Principle #3: Empower your body to heal
When illness strikes, let your body fight and heal. Just as a fracture heals as part of your remarkable body's repair and rejuvenation system, your body needs the nutrition or micro and macro nutrients to do so. Most people are nutritionally deficient. Medicine doesn't give too much heed and emphasis to these measures. Most lack the fat-soluble vitamins and minerals: Vitamin A, D, E and K2. Typically, these vitamins are found in animal fats. We don't need a lot. Magnesium, zinc, and iron are better absorbed with healthy fats and proteins. When your body has all the necessary nutrition, as well as sunlight, proper rest and good relationships (you only really need one or two really good ones), your body will heal itself.
I liken illness or disease to a fire on the stove. If it is caught early, it can be extinguished with a bit of water, but if left to burn, it will turn into a wildfire that requires waterbombers to put it out. Prevent forest fires by putting them out when they are small — your body can do this. But when it is left to rage, it starts to affect multiple systems; then, it becomes very difficult to manage as it cascades. This is the same for cancer. An early detected cancer is curable. It's easier to kill 1 billion localized cancer cells (typically 0.5 cm in size) than 100 billion cancer cells that have spread to other parts of the body.
Life Questions:
Embrace each day of life full of gratitude and opportunistic eyes
Dr. Kevin Ham
How long do you want to live? (quantity)
The average is ~ 78 to 80 years.
Do you want to be above average?
If so, what will you do daily for Health Principles #1, 2 and 3?
Start small and let your good habits compound over time. You will be amazed at what changes you see in three months, six months, one year, three years, five years, and a decade.
I pray for 100 years of life. I want to do a handful of things in my remaining time. I am turning 55 this year. Rob lived for 58 years.
How do you want to live your life? (quality)
Will you squeeze each lemon you are given fully?
What lemons do you want to squeeze?
Next week:
Don’t let fear of criticism prevent you from doing what is in your heart
Honour your own thoughts and heart first.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.