How To Start A New Business

I have heard this script before from retiring members of the working community: ‘I’ll probably start a business with the small amount of money I have.’ Is that a good idea? Could there be a better or best idea other than starting a new business – a high-risk proposition? When pursued further on which business they had thought of, the vague reply I get includes ‘I will probably go into the food business!’ or ‘Something similar to what I have been doing!’

There are also cases where a staff feels that they have had enough experience working with/for somebody that they decide to start a similar business with a team of partners. Some resourceful ones bank on their track record of competencies and leverage on it in their new venture. That sounds like a good start, yet is there more than meets the eye?

Is it clever or optimistic to start a business, when you have not had the experience? Can you harness the power of pure passion and channel it towards business? Doing business is also starting a new lifestyle on renewed focus, purpose, and sense of relevance.

Whatever your dreams and motivations are, here are some considerations before plunging into the deep waters of small business:

1)    What are your reasons for going into business?

2)    What is your passion?

3)    How ready are you to convert passion into a business? Your passion for a sport or hobby may cease to be that when you focus on the business side of things.

4)    Which are your core competencies related to business?

5)    How extensive is your network of connections in your business?

6)    How do you plan to leverage on the competencies and resourcefulness of your business partners?

7)    How savvy are you in sales, marketing and promotions?

8)    Who are your mentors in business, and how do you tap on their expertise?

9)    What are your entry and exit strategies?

10) How will manage the differing expectations of partners once you develop your business past its infancy?

11) How willing will you be to give this business up?

12) Which are your operating core values? How will you show fairness, integrity, trust, honesty and respect to customers, clients, contractors and colleagues?

These are questions that small and medium-sized business owners have to contend and grapple with, throughout their company’s existence. I wish you every success in your decision.

*****

Looking forward to my track session (at 6.15am) with 14-time Ironman winner, Belinda Granger and her husband-training partner, Justin. Then, it is off to attend a Train-The-Trainer workshop. In spite of the predictions and predilections of a sliding global economy, it will be business as usual. We have to keep moving on order to engage the gears of the economy.

Tomorrow: Book Review on Innovation.

Committed Consistency Is the Key to Performance

Keeping the good habit up is key to your personal success in sport, business and in your career. However, commitment is critical to sticking to a plan of action/activity, however the plan is based on activity rather than sightless, rigidity.

Yesterday, I rode for 90 minutes in the early morning and did an hour’s worth of swim drills. About 24 hours before that, I did a 5K cross-country time trial, so my body was in need of a recovery mode, and thus I slept in this morning instead of doing a 90K easy ride. Without much regret, I will swim and do a core strength workout this evening. The restful sleep did do my body some good, as I did not feel sore anymore. On my favourite riding circuit yesterday, Belinda Granger and Justin Granger greeted me – it was a pleasant surprise. The 14-time Ironman winner is in Singapore with her husband to conduct private training clinics before her assault on Ironman 70.3 Philippines. I first met the professional triathletes-couple when Belinda won Ironman China; I got the check-in staff to waive their excess baggage since she was the champion.

I spoke to my friend, David Chambers who is in town for a month. He did very well in Ironman New Zealand 2010, earning a sub-12 hour performance. He trains under Gordon Byrn, who is co-author of ‘Going Long’ – a book on training for ironman distance. Gordo’s advocates little high-intensity training, and focuses on consistent training (do something every day, even if it is stretching or core strength work) and sticking to a manageable pace. For instance, ride 120K (in sets) however at a similar heart-rate/intensity throughout each set. For strength training on the ride, push up the gear and stick to the same cadence. If you want to run fresher after the ride, you need to have strong riding abilities.

As I shared earlier this year, my running improved with my new approach of three runs per week: one 21K or a two-hour run, and at least two 10K run. All my runs are either at tempo, and may include off-road running. I monitor my sessions on my Garmin 310XT, and used my Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) and ‘feel’ to gauge my intensity. My new motto is: Run less and perform better!

Coach Jon Ackland said in his lecture in 2006 in Taupo: Swim, warm-up. Ride, warm-up. What you are preparing for is the marathon.’

Keep up the habit. A little goes a longer way.

Leadership is Your Business!

Are you a leader?

Of course you are! As long as you attempt to influence a colleague, customer, contractor or client, you are leading. As reiterated many times, our conversations are where the opportunities for influence lie.

What is your business as a leader?

Leaders test themselves at times. Sometimes, they have to make the tough decisions. Other times, they have to brave the elements. When you pull out of a race due to injury or poor health, it is a smart thing to do. There is no failure if you made the attempt. There’s always another time to achieve your goals. 38-year-old Chris ‘Macca’ McCormack dropped out (suspected hamstring injury) after the ride in yesterday’s ITU race in London, and comments on the social media platform have been hurled at him, including his lack of youth. This twice-Ironman World Champion is not denying himself a chance to represent his country in the Olympic Games after being unfairly chopped off 12 years ago. Why deter him? Was what Ironman World Champion, Faris Al-Sultan said of Macca (visibly absent) during the press conference of the 2011 edition of the Aviva Singapore Ironman 70.3 ‘professional’? (Video courtesy of BPM Sports, a triathlon coaching company based in Singapore).

When we see participants of various conditions and physical sizes run a marathon, have you ever wondered to yourself: ‘Are you serious?’ If you do, you were probably a pedestrian and not a runner. Isn’t a dream a target to be aimed at? Is a goal something important to be achieved? As leaders, our purpose and business is to effectively guide people towards this dream, aspiration or ambition? We do this through our intelligence, empathy, sensitivity, sensibility, abilities and talents. To not use them, is to lose and waste them.

Leadership Lessons: Live to lead another day. Leading is led. Influence others in the way you walk, talk and express your self. Lead with you head, heart and hands. Mind your business as a leader. 

*****

Congratulations, Tee Boon Tiong on garnering the white tee (no pun intended) at Norseman 2011. He completed the challenging task (with strained ribs and a fractured finger) in about 20 hours. Don decided to call it in after a long swim and longer ride. These two boys were brave for they braced the cold and choppy swim, and chilly ride. I hope that this teaches us not to make deprecating remarks about long-distance triathlon, like ‘which is an easier Ironman?’ The truth is: there is none. Which is the extreme one?

At the MR25 Time Trial yesterday evening, I moved from the last to 6^th out of about 22 runners. I was in a phlegm-like difficulty at the last two kilometres of the trail run, sucking in air and embracing the suck. I missed my new ranking narrowly (by one second) and came home in 22:00, an improvement over my first cross-country trial in February. Fast-paced training is intense and painful and it stresses the major muscles of our body. The overall winner, from Holland, won by almost a kilometre's breath in about 19 minutes. I believe that is he is an elite age-grouper who has done Kona. A couple of Masters category runners filled out the upper percentile of faster runners. Such was the strength of field at this small but hungry gathering. My joyful personal thought about all the runners there: respect. I also met MR25 committee member, Mika Kume who placed 2nd at a recent 21K run, and was top-five at the Sundown 100K Ultramarathon. She and her MR25 committee organised the run, and marshaled us on. Thank you, MR25!

Getting To The Top of the Hill

Getting a podium finish can be a deeply satisfying experience. Going onstage to receive your degree from your Dean of Faculty is also a richly rewarding experience. To complete a marathon and earn your medal and finisher-tee are also worth relishing. Getting to the top of the summit for Ironman Norseman – the extreme long distance triathlon – after the 37K mark of the marathon for a steep, rugged, climb up, may be just as memorable [at the time of writing, twice-Ironman World Champion, Tim DeBoom won the 2011 edition of Norseman. Full report on the Endurance Conspiracy website].

Education has always emphasised success through examination grades, as well as landing the best jobs. Plaudits and pundits have agreed that it is better to be at the top of the game and stay on top, instead of being at the rank bottom. Our language is peppered with altitude-raising language like ‘top-dog’, ‘top scorer’, ‘top student’, ‘head honcho’, ‘high-flyer’, ‘corporate ladder’, ‘top rung’, ‘topping your performance’ and ‘head of the class’. Even the alter-ego of television known as Reality TV flouts highly-important titles like ‘Top Chef’, ‘Top Model’, ‘Top-40 Hits’ and the like. Here are the top-50 leadership blogs for 2010.

We, at Leadership Lessons from Triathlons, are already into our third year of sharing our content. We hope to get onto one of these prestigious lists in the near future. We have earned a few badges of merit in the past two years like appearing on AllTop, The Entrepreneur Blog, and currently a top-100 ranking for a leadership blog.

Google recently ranked us as #2 on its encrypted version, and #9 on its standard version for ‘Leadership Lessons’. It is an honour to be ranked just below Time magazine. We are, currently, #86 for the top leadership blog on Invesp.com. We boast no authors, television celebrities and renowned experts – well, at least not yet, however we do have a panel of excellent featured guests, and stories on excellent people. Everyday People with Extraordinary talents, abilities and lives – these are what we are motivated by, and strive to bring to you.

All these numbers mean little unless we stay current, contemporary, and fresh in our content. Our success is measured by our scope and depth of collaboration with others, degree of connectivity with our readers, and feedback from our readers.

*****

All the best to participants of Ironman Regensberg in Germany: Matthew, Clifford, Mano, Conrad, Chris and Angeline. Have a splendid race! Congratulations to Don Ng and Tee Boon Tiong for completed the grueling, extreme long-distance triathlon, Norseman! We extend our long distance kudos to this Dynamic Duo for being the first Singaporean and Malaysian to complete this race within the cutoff. Enjoy your top-of-the-world feeling!

Moving From Defining To Refining

Defining means having a sense of clarity, scope and purpose. Refining refers to enhancements and subtleties once you have made this definition. Most people enjoy improvements when they are striving for positive change. Even the cliché, ‘change for the better’ expresses that notion with a clear outcome. Innovative practices include focusing on improvements, making refinements, simplifying processes, and making connections with solutions.

Improvements can be made with the appropriate strategies and effort. Even with talent, the difference that may make the real difference would be effort. Working hard is useful only if your energy is well spent. My friends in New York once wrote in their home on a placard: ‘Anger is love’s energy misspent.’

My list of improvement for the next six months includes:

1)    Expand the scale and scope of my professional work (my business funds my sports adventures).

2)    Focus on building my swim fitness and speed (strokes and flotation already much improved).

3)    Ride more and be race fit (my potential weakness is not being fast on the flats, and strong on the climbs).

4)    More brick training for my ride-to-run transition.

5)    More off-road races and time trials to build more dynamic strength and agility.

6)    To build my core stability and strength (with kettle-bells, barefoot running, and on unstable surfaces).

7)    To create more connectivity within my communities of practice.

Leadership Lessons: What have you done to improve yourself? What have you done to enhance your sense of purpose? How have you refined your sense of purpose, decisiveness and collaboration?

Power Outages & Out-Aged Power

‘Age before beauty!’ Rocky Balboa to Apollo Creed

Don’t you just hate it when you experience a power trip? I am referring to ones that hit you when you are busy writing on your keyboard, and then the lights go out. If the electrical surge was extreme, good luck to all unsaved data and a fried motherboard or disk-drive. When energy sources are unreliable, performance of your best digital hardware becomes reduced and unreliable.

Yesterday, thanks to fellow-blogger John Cooke I provided a link to Chucky V.’s blog, about the latter’s piece on being out-chicked by a female athlete. What could be more humbling than that? Being out-aged by a gracefully aging athlete.

These photographs of Masters’ class (over-60 years) athlete, Chan Chan Seng describes it all; I took them on Sunday at the OSIM Singapore International Triathlon. Sport defies age, and age defies sporting abilities. This triathlete showed all the enthusiasm and energy of any other triathlete completing an Olympic Distance triathlon.

A few months ago, I featured Mr Kor Hong Fatt who is Singapore’s oldest marathoner. He successfully completed his first Boston Marathon after qualifying for it last year. Having suffered a medical condition about eight years ago, he now runs regularly and competes in marathons annually. His pace/speed in a marathon can embarrass poorly prepared runners, yet he is an inspiration to many for his persistence, patience and perseverance.

Leadership Lessons: When has age been a problem for you at your workplace? How do you value tacit wisdom and experience? How have you added value to yourself and others with each passing financial year? How have you matured in the way you manage and lead others around you?

Photo-credits: Kor Hong Fatt at the Boston Marathon 2011(#21561)

Valuable Finds and Charitable Deeds

I found three $2 bills yesterday evening; they just lay there, unimportantly, like litter, however my curiosity confirmed that this was cold cash. With no body around, I picked the bills and decided to drop it off to charity today (with a minor ‘top-up’). Since they were not mine to keep, why not give it away? There was no loss for me, but a potential gain. Few people will know what I did.

When was the last time you gave something away? Must everything be for an abject gain? Sometimes we gain by giving things up. In negotiation, we are taught to consider what we are willing to trade, give up, and not give up. Compromise is about give and take – what will you give in order to take?

There are many things to be found at the Transition areas, T1 and T2 of a triathlon. In our haste to secure a shorter ‘changeover time’ (a term I gleaned from my days in manufacturing), we tend to chuck unimportant things aside. However, when we return to the area after area to collect our bikes, we may notice missing personal items such as the speedometer, goggles, sun-shades, excess gel packets, etc. That is why bags are provided during longer races such as the Ironman 70.3 and Ironman triathlons to reduce the chance of carelessness. Seasoned and educated athletes bring a small basket to contain all their personal items, so as to track them easily in one common place. That is why we use pigeon-holes like In-box and Sent-Box to distinguish our electronic mails.

What would possess a high-powered executive to give up a cushy job for a stint in charity? Perhaps, his personal values mattered more than his plentiful paycheck. An ex-colleague of mine did just that, and later found his dream job helping others indirectly. Sometimes, we lose in the short term so as to gain more in the long term. How do you compare personal achievement and satisfaction with financial success? Does continued economic gain buy you happiness, or is it overwhelmed by your sense of ambition or desire to prove yourself right? At the end of the day, how much does status really matter to you? When you get 'chicked' during a race or presentation, how do you respond? Chucky V writes a hilarious but poignant essay on this.

Leadership Lessons: How do you locate things and others? How connected are you to your ex-colleagues, former-clients, customers, consumers and contractors? How do you create value out of things and opportunities? How often do you return a favour? How do you discern between generosity and obligation?

Quest To Be Your Best

QUEST = Quietly Utilise Exquisite Skills and Talents. QUEST*: Jean Claude Van-Damme’s film, shot in Phuket and featured martial artists who worked long hours and could each wolf down one kilogramme of pasta (4,000 calories) at one dinner sitting!

This evening, our entourage sent off Barney Tee and Don Ng at Terminal 3, Changi Airport. They will be the first Malaysian and Singaporean to attempt the extreme Norseman Ironman within the stipulated hours. Two years ago, Don crashed during the dangerously fast descents, and had to, unfortunately, stop after painfully running a quarter of the tough marathon. They will attempt to earn both the white and black t-shirts. The black label, t-shirt is earned when you arrive at the 36K mark of the marathon within the cutoff time of 14.5 hours, whereby you gain permission to do the slippery, rocky climb, for the remainder of the marathon.

We also bumped into Ironman Regensberg incumbents, Chris Smith, Mano, and Conrad. The cliché ‘It’s a small world!’ was reinforced when I realised that Chris’s brother was my old friend in journalism, Colin. Once in print and broadcast media, he now manages his own media company. We promised to catch up shortly on the social media platform before meeting face-to-face. I used to write full-time and freelance for leisure magazines, trade journals and the newspapers in the early 1990’s – writing continues to be one of my passions in my life. Colin and I stretched ourselves to pursue our other interests later in our lives, so as to realize our potentials.

Endurance races can be an indulgence, yet it is a test of one’s leadership qualities and character. Can you withstand the discomfort and pain? As Macca alluded in his book: Can you embrace the suck? Can you continue when the going gets really bad?

The physical test of triathlon over any distance is a disquieting and demanding task. It is so easy to allow self-doubt, anxiety, apprehension and other distractions to shift your focus away. However, with occasional racing and the annual Big Dance of your choice, you can test your mettle, true grit, gumption, and other qualities of your character. My friend, James Middleditch who won in 40-44 years age group at the OSIM Singapore International Triathlon Sunday has completed Kona, and will be competing in the first Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Las Vegas in September.

Congratulations to the perennially fit, human dynamo Victor Chan for winning in his age group!

Be the best YOU, you can be!

* Inside scoop: By the way, JCVD was very particular about how his Thai glass noodles was prepared, that he rejected many versions in the resort he stayed. The resort manager had to request his wife to cook for the film star, eventually - that was resourceful!

Identifying With Your Group Branding

Our Monday evening’s swim squad has an official shirt to accompany our strong identity. This marks a weekly commitment by the core group for the sponsored, two-lane, swim at Buona Vista Swimming Pool. Any member of the branded Triathlon Family or friends of members can join us in these once-weekly session led by coach Dion, or any of our seasoned swimmers like Julius. On alternate Saturdays, we have our open-water swims at Sentosa Island (lead by our fearless leader, Matthew); which is, sometimes, followed by a short 4.5K run, when a biathlon is near.

This evening, after teaching class I proceeded home for an hour of swim drills comprising catch-up drills, fist swimming, bilateral breathing and kicking. Then, I was off for a management committee meeting; after that, I set off for the Changi International Airport, Terminal 1 to send Matthew Wong and Clifford Lee off. Both were travelling this evening to Germany for Ironman Regensberg. Both were decked in the t-shirt that Richard Leong designed, so they looked casually official. More friends like Conrad, Angeline, Chris and Mano will be flying off tomorrow. I arrived just in time to get a couple of snapshots with my two training buddies. This will be Matthew’s second Ironman triathlon, and Clifford’s twelfth; as of now, we both stand equal at 11 completions each. We will both be part of the Singapore contingent at Ironman New Zealand 2012.

Meanwhile, I have a few key races lined up before the Singapore Marathon: mainly varied distances from 5-21K, and an inaugural long-distance triathlon on 11 September. I look forward to Sunday’s 5K, trail-run time trial with the Macritchie Runners (MR25). I hope to run sub-22 minutes, and qualify for a higher individual ranking, which is based on a faster-running animal. My short-term case of plantar fasciitis has almost cleared after I laid off the long runs, and resuming running with Vibrams and doing my core stability work.

Photo-credits: Desmond Chow & Clifford Lee, 2012

Monday Is About Modifying Mindsets

The mindset for each discipline is unique. For those coming from their preferred sports, there is always a sense of deeper appreciation for it. Swimmers regale about many lost childhood time spent doing drills in the pool, or racing for their schools. Likewise, runners who spend time on the track, or on the trials while away their time making the distance.

If we spend too much time on one sport discipline, you may spend too little time on another. You can develop an aversion over a sport that you do not excel in.

What annoys me mildly are incumbent long-distance athletes who claim that certain Ironman races are easier. There is no easier race. Every race is hard. In Macca’s semi-biography, he wrote that the only mantra he leaves by is: ‘Embrace the suck!’ There will come a point in the race when it sucks big time, especially when you are fatigued, bonk real badly, hurt, or start doubting yourself.

All the best Team Ironman Regensberg, comprising Singaporeans Matthew Wong, Conrad Yeo, Clifford Lee, and Angeline.

All the best to the long-distance triathlon team Singapore headed for the highly challenging Norseman. To date, no Singaporean has, successfully, completed it in the allocated time. Perhaps, Don Ng and Tee Boon Teong will emerge victorious in their personal quests.

Leadership Lessons: How do you adjust to changes? How do make subtle shifts to your schedules when things pop up?