Ben Blogs

I completed my CrossFit foundation at Pushmore and did my first workout of the day (WOD) this morning.

For the uninitiated, CrossFit is a strength and conditioning program that is constantly varied and done with high intensity. Workouts  are typically short – 20 minutes or less and combine movements such as sprinting, rowing, weightlifting, kettle bells, and many body weight exercises.

I like that the workout changes everyday and scalable for beginners to advanced. That way, I won’t get bored of doing the same thing everyday.

Just as I was doing some research for my work, I came across this great article on how to implement the CrossFit approach to your marketing efforts.

The author lays out a weeks worth of actionable “workouts” that any marketer implement can right away.

We think this approach is transferable to marketing, too. Sure, if you want to be an MMA fighter — or, say, email marketing specialist — you would need some specialized training. But if you’re managing a marketing program, there are certain activities you can do every day to make sure you maintain a healthy program that delivers results.

CrossFit Meets Inbound: Your Regimen for Rock Hard Marketing Metrics

Good read!

A friend once told me:

“When you are successful, whatever you say turns into gold”

So since I am not there yet, here are some quotes from people who have.

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• As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do. Andrew Carnegie
• When you live for others’ opinions, you are dead. Carlos Slim Helu
  
• The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. Aristotle Onassis
  
• We’re all working together; that’s the secret. Sam Walton
  
• You become what you believe. You are where you are today in your life based on everything you have believed. Oprah Winfrey
  
• You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. Steve Jobs
  
• If you can count your money, you don’t have a billion dollars. J. Paul Getty
  
• Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1. Warren Buffett
  
• We’re going where no one has gone before. There’s no model to follow, nothing to copy. That is what makes this so exciting. Richard Branson
• Only those who are asleep make no mistakes. Ingvar Kamprad
  
• I just love it when people say I can’t do it, there’s nothing that makes me feel better because all my life, people have said that I wasn’t going to make it. Ted Turner

[via Business Insider]

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My favourite one is by Paul Getty. We should all spend less time counting money and start spending it. 

1. Keep Calm And Carry On

Ever since I went to Sheffield to study, I have been fascinated with all things British. Everything from movies, comedians, their history, royal wedding, beer and not to mention their food. Fish & chips and kebab anyone?

I love this iconic poster and the story attached to it. During WWII, it was used as a propaganda poster by the British government. In fact, they actually designed 3 posters but they never revealed the”Keep Calm And Carry On” poster. Not until 2000 was it re-discovered by a second hand bookshop, Barter Books. And the rest, as they say, is history. The simple yet effective message that still holds true 70 years from its creation. Here is a short video about it.

2. Here’s to the Crazy Ones

Those who know me long enough would know that I look up to Steve Jobs. It is such a tragedy that he left us at his peak of his career – inspiring all of us with his products and vision. The words for this poster was taken from Apple’s “Think Different” commercial. It features many of the greatest minds in our history. Albert Einstien, Muhammad Ali, Alfread Hitchcock, Bob Dylan, Richard Branson and many more. As I embark on my entrepreneurial career, I always turn to this video/poster for motivation. Because the people who are crazy enough to change the world, are the ones who do.

3. Candice Swanepoel

The obligatory hot chick poster. I don’t think there is anything much to say here. Sexy body. Ridiculously awesome name. Victoria Secret Angel. I could go on but its hard to type with one hand. OK I KID. Here is a video of Candice.

4. This is Anfield

I supported Liverpool since  high school. Frustrating times for the club as they just lost 6 out of 7 league games. Nonetheless I feel lucky to have had the chance to watch 2 live games at Anfield. It was truly and unforgettable experience. I remember waiting at the back of the stadium with other fans as the players got to their cars to head home after the match. They just lost to Charlton -_- so they weren’t exactly in the mood to entertain us. I still managed to get Dietmar Hamann signature though . So anyway, this poster or sign can be seen above the tunnel at Anfield leading to the pitch. It was installed by former manager Bill Shankly to instil fear into the opposition. Sorry Bill, but it ain’t working as intended. It should have read “If you win here, you will never walk out alive” That’s more like it.

So there you have it! What are your favourite posters?

Recently, I experienced numbness in my arms and some tingling sensation on my fingers.

My first reaction was  - Oh shit, carpal tunnel

I put it off for a few days hoping it would it just go away but it didn’t. I fueled my paranoia further by reading comments on Yahoo Answers.

There was one that said  - It could be stroke. (What a troll)

Needless to say, I had many sleepless nights after that. I thought that if I slept, I would die and not wake up the next day.

So I decided to go see and orthopedic to ease my mind.  Also, I didn’t want to die in such a lame way.

“Oh how did he die?”  Someone would ask.

“Excessive keyboard typing and chronic masturbation. Wrists are very fragile you know.”

It was a Saturday and I arrived 10mins before 9am. I called the night before and was told that they opened at 9am.

Bullshit. When I took my number there were at least 30 people ahead of me waiting.

But thankfully Tung Shin is quite efficient. Chaotic. But they get the job done. There were at least a dozen nurses behind the counter and all of them  fought among themselves to use 3 computers. They also used an old school numbering system where you had to take a physical number card as opposed to the digital numbers you see in banks.

Then I was asked the million dollar question of the day.

“Which doctor do you want? Doctor X has alot of patients today, you need to wait at least an hour plus. Doctor Y only a few”

I went with Doctor Y because I didn’t want wait.  95% of the patients there were for Doctor X.  I am sure both doctors are very capable at what they do. Furthermore it was just a check up.

But I couldn’t help wondering, what was so special about Doctor X? Why did everyone choose him? Was he handsome? Was he cheap? Was he expensive? Could he heal you with just a touch? I was very curious.

And that is when I recalled a book I read some time ago. Seth Godin – The Dip.

In short, it’s a book that teaches you when to quit and when to push through. And WHY being the best in the world is seriously underrated.

Every new project (or career or relationship) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a lot point-really hard, really not fun. At this point you might be in a Dip, which will get better if you keep pushing, or a Cul-De-Sac, which will never get better no matter how hard you try. The hard part is knowing the difference and acting on it.

Remember this saying? “Quitters never win and winners never quit.”

Well that is bad advice according to Seth Godin. In fact winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.

There is an example of the top 10 ice cream flavors.  The difference between people favoring vanilla the top ice cream flavor compared to just the second demanded flavor chocolate is almost 4 times the difference.

Time is money. People don’t want to spend a lot of time looking for answers to their needs or problems.  This is why people always look for the best choice. What’s more, they are willing to pay extra for the best.

If you are diagnosed with cancer, you are not going to mess around with alot of doctors. You head straight for the top guy. You ain’t going to screw around if you only get one chance.

Or when you head to a new town or city. You want to go to the best restaurant your concierge or friends can recommend.

There is a shortage of people striving to be the best in what the do. They settle at being mediocre and average. Staying put in their comfort zone. We’ve been taught that fitting in is far better than standing out, and that good enough is good enough.

Being the best has an enormous advantage though you don’t necessary have to be THE BEST IN THE WORLD.

“Best” as in “best for them, right now, based on what they believe and what they know and “in the world” as in “their world, the world they have access to.” 

But getting there is tough. You have to be willing to endure “The Dip”. Here is a better review of the book.

Coming back the Doctor X/Y scenario, it is clear why there one clear favourite. Doctor X must be the best god damn orthopedic out there or at least that is what other patients must be saying about him.

And with that I leave you with a quote by Muhammad Ali -

I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

Its been a full month since I last posted anything here. So much for trying to blog daily.

Anyway, you know how those career counselors try to understand your passions by asking you questions like

“What would you be doing, if money weren’t an issue?”

I could never  answer that. It’s usually something to do with music, but I can never be sure. I mean everyone loves to listen to music, right? That doesn’t necessarily mean that they should make a career out of it.

(Random: Going to iTunes to play an Eminem track now)

But there is another similar kind of question that I explore occasionally.

“What is your perfect day? A day that you could repeat everyday for the rest of your life?”

So here is whats perfect for me.

Comfortable sofa. Air conditioning. 50 inch HD TV. Surround speakers. Awesome movies. Girl/alcohol (optional)

And yes I’m pretty sure I could do this every day. I love watching movies. I notice that when I go to the cinemas, my palms will sweat with excitement. The anticipation of being disconnected form the world for 2 hours and exploring a story being told on screen.

Or do I love watching movies because I’m bored? Who knows. I’m not picky with the genre. I’m willing to watch anything. Anything except realistic gore like SAW. I hate it because unlike ghost stories, these kinda things might and can happen to you. Some physco might just decide to abduct me, hang me upside down, slit my heels to prevent me from running away and stick a torch blowtorch in my eye. Ugh.

But yes movies. I’ll go back and watch one today.

Picking domains for a new website has always been my least favorite part of the whole web building process.

Not that I don’t think its important. I think its VERY important.

That is why I am usually not satisfied until my gut tells me it is. I know my vocabulary ain’t that big and I am almost always certain that a better word could be used.

Some internet marketing website domains are easier because it could be keyword matched. Or if you aren’t relying on organic traffic then pretty much anything will do.

For the past few days I have been cracking my head, trying to think of a domain name. A brand which I want to build and grow. Unfortunately I am a big sucker for umbrella branding. I always wanted to be able to use the same name across multiple products or services. Just like Absolut,Tune, Virgin, Mac. Practically most of the big brands do this.

I guess once your brand reaches a certain level of quality, it makes sense to do.

So after being fed up and frustrated, I figured that by this day in age, there must be some service out there that can help me. At least something that won’t cost be an arm and a leg.

Lo and behold, I came across this

The service looks interesting. This is what they are offering.

Looking for a cool name, domain or slogan but can’t think of one yourself? You’ll love PickyDomains.com.

• Our service is 100% risk-free. That is, you pay only if you like our work.
• Unlike naming/branding agencies that charge up to $120.000, our price is $50 per domain/$75 per slogan.
• You’ll receive hundreds of great suggestions.
• We understand your confidentiality concerns, and your order can be set up in a way that there will be no mention that your domain, name or slogan has been authored by our contributors.

$50 to finally solve my headache?!

I think I’ll give it a shot. Will update to see if I got any gems!

To be honest I am not sure if it was meant as a joke but it certainly sounded legit at that time.

After futsal one day, a couple of us went out for dinner. We asked a friend to consider working out, gain some mass and muscle. He’s a good player, but it would be great if he could be physically stronger on the court.

“No man, too late for that already” he said.

I was like what?! How can anyone at the age of 27 say its too late to go to the gym to muscle up?

There is no need to have a body like this (though age is still not an issue)

There has got to be way better excuses than that right?

I might think that is crazy for someone to use age  as an excuse for gym but to him it could have been perfectly justified.

That statement made me reflect on certain limiting beliefs I impose on myself. For fun lets take a look at one.

“Its too late to learn programming”

I do think that if I start now, I would have a intermediate knowledge of it in 5 years. I would be 31 years old. Not young, not old.

My mind tells me that I’m probably not willing to put in the hard work. That’s why I’m stalling. Some of the backing excuses I give with regards to this is actually quite hilarious.

1. I don’t know where to start. Those self learn books look boring and texty.

2. I not sure if I can see myself staying up all night typing code.

3. I don’t see myself as being great at logic/problem solving.

4. Ooo this is a good one – I have no time to learn it.

Yup. I hear you. All lame excuses.

But this is good because now I understand what it looks like from a different point of view.

I think for now I’ll give myself a pat on the back for being aware of all my crap.

#winning

Oh My God.

I am actually in the midst of reading this book - Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. But after only 20 pages in, I had to blog about something I read.

What I found fascinating was this statement: “Self-control is an exhaustible resource.”  The authors go on to explain the research to support that finding.  In other words, we expend energy when we exert self-control.

You can read about the experiment they conducted here. (There is a video as well. Watch it!)

When I quit smoking 2 years ago, I always felt that because I concentrated so much on trying not to smoke, I was slacking in other areas of my life.  In fact I can actually remember telling someone “I’ve used up all my self control”. I had this nagging feeling it was true though I probably thought it was bullshit.

But now there are studies to prove it!

Here’s a paragaph from the book summarizing the experiment.

“So when you hear people say that change is hard because people are lazy or resistant, that’s just flat wrong. In fact, the opposite is true: Change is hard because people wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.”

Now, I am not writing this to justify anything. I haven’t even finished the book yet. I am just excited because this actually crossed my mind before and now I am reading it in a book!

Ok back to reading.

I had an interesting encounter with a taxi driver.

At first, I mistook him being irritated and rude. But it turns out, he was just getting things done with a sense of urgency.

Right of the bat, he offered to pick up another customers just as I got in.

“Ok, come in. It’s on the way (not really)”

Then, it was pedal mashing all the way.

Once, he misjudged the distance of the speed bump and couldn’t break in time.

“Sorry!” he exclaimed.

But from then on, he started chatting about how traffic sucked in the mornings, different types of customers, shortcuts, Sarawak politics, standard of living in PJ/KL, bad drivers, and shortcuts.

Yes shortcuts were his forte. He cut past multiple traffic bottlenecks leveraging his encyclopediac knowledge of small roads. It was amazing.

Initially I tried to study the roads he used so that I could use it in the future. But after awhile I realized that it was just futile. I’m was never really good with roads anyway.

When he dropped that lady off, she gleefully said

“Wow! I’m early for the first time. My colleagues are going to be so surprised. Plus it’s also 3 dollars cheaper than usual”

To which he muttered under his breath as she left

“Please, its all about time and money. You think I’m here to date you?”

He was very particular about time. He would honk cars in front of him what were driving slow. Once, he overtook a car that seemed to be crawling towards the green light.

” *Swear word* Why drive so slow! Stopping at the red light would cost you an additional 3 minutes. After 10am there won’t be as much customers to pick up. *swear word* ”

I wish I could converse in Cantonese proficiently. I think we would have had a great conversation. All I did was nod, agree and ask simple idiotic questions.

Nonetheless, here was a man lived by the expression - Time is Money

His world might be confined in the car but it did not let that stop him from pegging time as a valuable asset. I’d be first to admit that I waste a bucket load of time everyday.

We all wish we could do more in life. But are we really utilizing our time efficiently?

I am anxious. I fear that by 30 I’ve not accomplished anything worth mentioning.

So thank you Mr. Urgent-Taxi-Man for the wake up call.

Oh and before I forget.

Its worth noting that after dropping off an extra passenger and going slightly out of the way, he managed to get me to my destination with the same fare and time as if I were to take a direct route.

Now chew on that.

I take bus home from work everyday. Well almost.

I dread taking it. It is almost impossible to get a seat after 6pm. Not that mind standing. But for some reason, the conductor is willing to take as much people as the bus can fit. It can be quite uncomfortable standing next to someone with their armpits in my face.

But more people, more profit right.

The conductor probably doesn’t care. He is just doing his job. And his job is to collect the bus fare. Or perhaps the more he collects, the more commission he gets. Does he care whether your ride home is comfortable. No But could he?

Certainly.

Same goes to the driver. His job is to drive. It doesn’t matter how frequent hebrakes and accelerates even though people at the back might be swaying back and forth. Does he care whether you might fal? No. But could he?

Certainly.

Brands and companies can go on and on and preach about how much they care about YOU, the customer. But lets face it, the true challenge is making sure the employees of the company embrace it.

Because they are the ones out there creating real relationships with people. They are the ones actually come into contact with potential customers/clients.

I read somewhere that only 14% of people trust ads these days. That is a whopping 86% who don’t give a rats ass about what you print/say.

It’s important that all employees/staff understand and believe the message that the company is trying to portray. Become evangelists.

Thats far more powerful then spending money pushing unnecessary “values” into our head.

I had the opportunity of meeting Ian Mckee, CEO of Vocanic at the Digital Marketing conference I attended.

This is how they describe themselves:

Word of Mouth. Social Media. Influencers. Consumers in Control. It’s Our Expertise.We are the Social and Word of Mouth Media marketing people. We spend our lives online and exploring new ways to communicate for ourselves and our partners.

An amazing thing happened recently. I experienced the power of word of mouth marketing first hand.

Whenever I get a sore throat, I head over to 7-11 to buy myself a packet of Fisherman’s Friend. It did the job. But just as I went, I mentioned this to my colleague to which he instantly replied.

“Why that? Get the purple packet from Strepsils, its the best”

I didn’t think much of it but my throat was really hurting that day. So bad that I could see this pea sized ulcer in the back of my throat next to my tonsils.

But that was it. Just like that, I went to 7-11 and bought the purple pills. Was it a better product? Couldn’t tell the difference. In fact my last sore throat was so long ago that I barely remember what happened.

I think with all the buzz about social conversations today, we should not forget that real conversations are also happening out there. These conversations can be deal breakers for a consumer when they decide on a product.

So the question is, how can we turn online conversations to offline?

…Jump to paragraph 3, second Sentence. Write it in a post.

Sometimes we get discouraged and turn to inspirational writing, like stuff from Vince Lombardi: “Quitters never win and winners never quit.”

Hah! I got this line from The Dip by Seth Godin that is on my desk. (No kidding it was the nearest book)

You’ve probably heard that quote before and I used to think.. yeah that sounds about right. But read what Seth actually goes on to say immediately after that.

Bad advice. Winners quit all the time. They just quite the right stuff at the right time.

Interesting eh? Makes you look at things a a whole new perspective.

I was watching some Nike ads for Kobe and Lance Armstrong yesterday. Those guys are really dedicated. I read somewhere that Kobe had this workout called the  666 workout.

6 hours a day, 6 days a week, 6 months a year.

Now that’s thats some serious commitment! It’s no wonder that man has 5 championship rings.

Going back to the second half of the quote, it is essentially what The Dip is about. When to quit what and the importance of being the best in what you do. Being the best he says, doesn’t necessarily have to be in the world, but in context to your own world, here and now.

Too often do we equate quitting as failing therefore we have this mentality that quitting brands you as failure.

Which is what stops most people from trying anything. That fear of failing.

Try new stuff, quit often, but once you find something that leads you in the right path of being the best, go all the way and don’t look back.