Path

The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.
The one who walks alone, is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been..

Best Car

The best car in the world will not take you to the right place if you do not know where you want to go.

MNC vs SME

You have just secured a job offer from a Fortune 500 company which is an industry leader with multinational operations. This could be one of the greatest moment of your life. Having gone through several rounds of fierce competition, you have finally beaten other competent contestants and won the offer. You cannot stop but keep visualizing the bright future ahead – stepping in your office with sea view in grade A commercial building in prime business district, hosting meetings and presenting your business proposals to 100+ audience, winning applause from board of directors, attending interviews by media for your business success. How rewarding the career path is to work for a MNC.

Have you ever imagined the scene above? Most of us do. Does this really happen on us? Most of us are not lucky enough. Is there a definite association between your own career success and your employer’s business success?

Firstly, we have to acknowledge the difference between the business environment of MNC with sizable operation versus SME or start up.

No denial that most MNCs are successful businesses which they have well-established business operation mechanism. Usually their brand names are well known in market. Having established for years, they would have better financial stability and more financial resources. Given the maturity of the business, they would offer a more structured career path to its staff.

Maturity in MNC can somehow be a downside for your career development. Since the business operation is already mature, every staff’s job scope is well-defined and limited to specific duties with less variety. Given every procedure is standardized, staffs would easily become products of the system and it is not easy to shine. Under a mature system there would be less new openings which limit the promotion opportunity. Competition for promotion would also be fierce. In addition, when staff become more replaceable, as a business there would be less resources allocated to staff retention, higher workload and less salary increment are often the result. 

Starting a career in a SME/start up is another story. When your brand is not known by market and not trusted by your clients, business partners and vendors, it takes extra effort for you to achieve your role’s business objectives and it often come with more frustration. You have to tighten your belt and struggle for resources. Most importantly, you have to bet your career’s stability on the firm’s unproven financial stability.

Why would there be a growing trend that bright talents are giving up stable career in MNC and bet on start up (some of them are even taking huge pay cut)? The excitement and satisfaction working for a rapidly-expanding start up can hardly be found in MNC with mature operation. When you work for business with smaller scale, usually you will work on multi tasks with more diverse responsibility. With less hierarchy your ideas can be communicated with decision maker more easily and often with prompt response. When the business is growing fast, there will be more newly created openings within the firm and this means more vacant positions for promotion. You will encounter less competition for promotion with external candidates as management in start up usually prefers to grow the firm organically and promote internal staff who share the same belief with the business. Compared to sizeable firm with mature operation, you will climb up your career ladder more easily. It takes less years for you to get to the level where you are involved in the formulation of business strategy which is an exciting task compared to execution.

In short, career exposure offered by MNC and SME/start up are completely different. MNCs are usually good business but do not confuse the firm’s business success with your own career development. Career potential in start up can be explosive although it often comes with higher risks. Regardless of which path that you have chosen to take, being visionary is critical to making the right move.

Nokia

Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”.

During the press conference to announce NOKIA being acquired by Microsoft, Nokia CEO ended his speech saying this “we didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow, we lost”. Upon saying that, all his management team, himself included, teared sadly.

Nokia has been a respectable company. They didn’t do anything wrong in their business, however, the world changed too fast. Their opponents were too powerful.

They missed out on learning, they missed out on changing, and thus they lost the opportunity at hand to make it big. Not only did they miss the opportunity to earn big money, they lost their chance of survival.

The message of this story is, if you don’t change, you shall be removed from the competition.

It’s not wrong if you don’t want to learn new things. However, if your thoughts and mindset cannot catch up with time, you will be eliminated.

Conclusion:
1. The advantage you have yesterday, will be replaced by the trends of tomorrow. You don’t have to do anything wrong, as long as your competitors catch the wave and do it RIGHT, you can lose out and fail.

To change and improve yourself is giving yourself a second chance. To be forced by others to change, is like being discarded.
Those who refuse to learn & improve, will definitely one day become redundant & not relevant to the industry. They will learn the lesson in a hard & expensive way.

如果你没瞎

最近网上特流行一段话“你永远不知道在别人嘴中的你会有多少版本，也不会知道别人为了维护自己而说过什么去诋毁你，更无法阻止那些不切实际的闲话。而你能做的就是置之不理，更没必要去解释澄清，懂你的人永远相信你。”我最喜欢的一句话：如果你没瞎，就别从别人嘴里认识我！——致自己

秘密

当你把秘密告诉朋友，就别指望对方不跟第三个人说，也别在秘密传开之后责怪朋友。真正的秘密只属于你一个人，你自己都守不住告诉第二个人，又怎能要求别人嘴不紧。

给我压力，我还你奇迹

“日落西山你不陪，东山再起你是谁？同甘共苦你不在，荣华富贵你不配！ 真正的强者是，夜深人静了就把心掏出来自己缝缝补补，完事了再塞回去，睡一觉醒来又是信心百倍。 活着就该逢山开路，遇水架桥。 生活，你给我压力，我还你奇迹！

Quotes

成功

你若成功了，
放屁都有道理，
你若失败了，
再有道理都是放屁，

一件事情你说了，
如果你做到了就是牛人，
做不到就是吹牛逼…………
这就是所谓人言可畏！

不要随便的把自己心里的伤口给别人看，
因为这个社会上你根本就分不清，

哪些人给你撒的是药，
哪些人给你撒的是盐。

狼若回头，必有缘由，
不是报恩，就是报仇。
事不三思终有败，
人能百忍则无忧。

越牛逼的人越谦虚，
越没本事的人越装逼。
拼你想要的，争你没有的。

记住，可以哭，可以恨，
但是不可以不坚强，
你必须非常努力，
因为后面有一群人在等着看你的笑话。
即便是躺着中枪，也要姿势漂亮!

誓言

誓言是世界上最靠不住的东西，只有你对别人还有用的时候，别人才会遵守誓言。

孤独让你强大

脾气好，是因为没有人肯迁就你；想法深刻，是因为没有人陪你玩，所以，你有时间思考很多问题；喝醉后总能安全回到家，你以为那是你的超能力，其实，只是因为你知道不会有人照顾你。世界的真相就是这样，孤独让你强大，让你成为一个更了不起的人

Rule

Starbucks Costa

故事

我有故事, 你有酒嗎

Poor People

"The worst people to serve are the poor people. Give them free, they think it's a trap. Tell them it's a small investment, they'll say can't earn much. Tell them to come in big, they'll say no money. Tell them try new things, they'll say no experience. Tell them it's traditional business, they'll say hard to do. Tell them it's a new business model, they'll say it's MLM. Tell them to run a shop, they'll say no freedom. Tell them run new business, they'll say no expertise."