Since I started blogging, I’ve been sharing on investment strategy, financial planning, market/company updates etc. There is one other thing that I talked about frequently in my blog – positive mindset. Today, I will share with you living testimonies.
My career, since the day I quited the Army has been rough and bumpy. Although I am not a scholar or scorer in my grades, my career development at this age has been less than satisfactory. I used to say that it was the fault of the economy, the timing, god and many more. But about five years ago, I was fortunate to meet this man in my job. He was the one who changed my perception, introduced to me a new approach to life and success, altered the way I look at things and helped me to overcome many difficulties. I think it’s about time I give full credit to him and give good account of what he had done for himself.
A Living Testimony
Now, if you are my colleague and are reading this article, please keep it to yourself. Having said that, I will try to be diplomatic and political in my words.
Cayden Chang, an extraordinary man with a passion for success, a man of action, highly focus and highly motivated. Most importantly, he always expects result and nothing less. You must be thinking that naturally everybody wants to be successful. If that’s what you are thinking now, you missed the whole point. Everybody wants to be successful; you can hear that especially when people start talking about it. But when comes to action, most people (probably including myself) are not determined. In other words, to many people success is not a MUST, it’s just a WANT, i.e. success is optional. You must be thinking that I am talking shit. Let me illustrate:
About two years ago, I had a chat with one of my ex-colleagues who was unhappy with his work and pay, as usual. He wanted more; he wanted to be successful. We were having a coffee break, just two of us. So I tried to be “kaypoh” and shared with him that our greatest obstacle is not chance, it’s our mindset or determination. He replied that he is very determined. So I told him that I have friend who is a very successful property agent. He is my secondary school classmate and only has GCE “O-Level” but he is doing very well in property line. So I offer this ex-colleague a chance to be trained by this successful agent. He replied that he also heard of successful property agent earning more than $10k per month. However, he doesn’t really like to be a property agent (see what I mean?). I just return with a smile.
My First Encounter
I came to know Cayden when he was posted to my office as my Manager (Executive rank). We worked for a listed company. I was also new in the office then, joining the company for less than four months. So I had the chance to learn from him from scratch. I remember that Cayden reviewed all our work and procedures and was shocked to know that everything wasn’t done properly before. He then personally trained us and put everything in order again. It was already a tough job just to put the foundation right again.
After working with him for few months, I started to understand his style and felt the pressure. In short, he spend lots of time training us up, making sure we are fully competence and then he went on to take up projects at highly level. He always volunteered for challenging task at higher management when many will keep their head low. He was not scheming, in case you are thinking on the negative side. The price - we worked together for long hour daily and I was always back to office during weekends. To most employees, and perhaps including yourself as you are reading, this must be a typical “suck up” superior. But this is how Cayden convinced me: “
James, how you want me to fight for your promotion and highest bonus? By telling management that you work hard, reported to office on time, completed your job diligently? But who aren’t? Or by telling management that you can run the whole office yourself without my supervision and completed additional task that everybody shunned away? Your peers, there are so many of them but only a few will move up. And as a new staff, you already loss out compare to the rest. If you want to excel, you must achieve positive result in black and white. Do you want to be successful?”
Recently there is a movie (Singapore Production) – Kallang Roar. I didn’t watch it but I remember a part of the script which says something like “
if you are not a winner, you are nothing”.
Anyway, that was the first time someone say this kind of things to me. No
ne of my ex-highly-paid-officer has ever says this to me. And honestly, although I understood Cayden’s teaching, but it wasn’t easy to absorb initially. He took his time to continue to change my mindset. He reviewed our work frequently, goes through with us on how to achieve the target he set for us and explained to us why he has done that. Together we groomed and motivated subordinates and “chopped off” the incorrigible one. It was hugely difficult when comes to managing people. And believe or not, our office’s KPI for that year shot up from bottom to top three! Come to think of it now, it was a little bit like Romance of Three Kingdoms, when Liu Bei led small troops against enemy in huge numbers.
Before I move on, let me clarify that the above is a summary of the things he told me, not exactly word-for-word but something along the lines. Moving on, Cayden was promoted that year to Senior Executive. Unfortunately, before I get the chance to harvest my fruit, I resigned to pursue higher studies. Cayden persuaded me to stay but I have different plan. Knowing that he couldn’t change my mind, he bought a book for me. Initially I thought it was another book on Management and so I put it on my bookshelf. We still keep in touch after I left. About half a year later, something happened.
Another Living TestimonyHalf year later, I came to know a man (a Warrant Officer) in the Army during my in-camp training (ICT). This man had achieved so much in many areas (career, studies, physical fitness etc) although he is just a specialist. The most amazing thing is that at age of 40 plus, he continues to maintain below 9min record for 2.4km run and had been training young officers and specialists for marathon. I couldn’t run below 9min at the age of 22 as a Guardsman (vocation just below Commando). On the last day of our ICT, many of us met at the Mess for a drink. And when he shared with us on his “secret to success”, he gave all credit to “changing mindset”. He specially recommended a book titled “Master Your Mind, Design Your Destiny”. None of my Army friends heard of this book but I got one right on my bookshelf, a gift from Cayden! Back home, I immedia
tely picked up the book to read and also wrote an email to Cayden to express my most sincere appreciation.
Few months later, I rejoined Cayden’s company again but in different department. By now, I had been equipped with different mindset and Cayden was already a Manager by corporate rank. And one year later, he was further promoted to Assistant Vice President. This is really amasing. He started low and humble, but he was simply “2 Fast, 2 Furious”.
Cayden didn’t stop pursuing for his happiness. He resigned and moved on to coach people on positive mindset. He set up his own training company known as
Mind Kinesis.
ConclusionCayden’s road to success didn’t come easy. He started from scratc
h but skyrocketed. In his pursue for happiness, he met more extraordinary leaders but also adversaries. I had heard of other colleagues criticising him as “market spoiler”. But in my heart, I can see clearly and objectively who is the real champion. So did you ever claim someone as spoiling market? If yes, then you are very guilty. And Cayden has also influenced many. By adopting his teaching, I am also earmarked as market spoiler by others now. I didn’t bother to explain but take it as a complement instead. And now that I had a new colleague, I used the same mindset while training her in her work. My only worry is that I am not sure if she is ready for this powerful teaching.
Lastly, about that Warrant Officer, he probably forgotten about me since we met two years ago. In fact, I also couldn’t even remember his name. We are just acquaintance. During recent ICT, I met him again along the corridor. I recognized him and called out for him:“Encik, thank you for your sharing on positive mindset two years ago”. He stunned for a second but immediately recalled the incident.
As for me, the story continues…….
