I was looking for Ted Talks on YouTube recently when I came across a video by a guy named Dr Cal Newport about the damage social media has done to us and why we should quit.

The first part of the video was something I already kinda knew about like how social media works like slot machines and play on your dopamine kicks in order to get you addicted. The second part though was something new to me. Here it is. I’ve forwarded the video exactly to that part.

In this part he talks about how social media apps are not just meant to capture as much as your attention as possible but they’re engineered to do so at many many fragmented times throughout the day, constantly breaking our attention. The result of that is that we’re so used to being interrupted that we’ve actually lost our ability to focus. And when we’re not able to focus, we’re not able to do things that would make us successful because the point he makes earlier is that the economy today rewards activities that are rare and valuable. Activities that take a lot of focus.

So I reflected that upon myself and I realise that. I suffer from a very severe ability to focus. When I’m in meetings, when I’m at dinner tables, even when I read books I have to interrupt myself just to look at my phone (even if it doesn’t beep) or do something else every few minutes.

Even doing something that is meant to be immersive like watching a movie, I can’t help but still take out my phone to play a game or check for updates or something like that. It’s horrible. To be fair it’s not just social media but anything that plays on our dopamine kicks like games. I’ve been playing Sim City recently and it’s so bad for me, I keep going in every 20 minutes or so to make sure I harvest the stuff that I’ve produced.

Recently I’ve read a book called Mastery. About what it takes to master something, to do something really really well in life. True mastery requires years and years of apprenticeship and practice. If anything it requires relentless focus. Losing my ability to focus because of all these social media apps now though means that I may have lost my ability to do something great.

Now when I say do something great I don’t mean that we can’t advance in our career or can’t do our jobs at all. Heck… we can. But do something great like do an Elon Musk, or Steve Jobs (apparently Steve Jobs hated social media for this same reason and never used it) or Leonardo Da Vinci…. that we can’t.

It made me think about the world we’re bringing our kids up in. We’ve really fucked things up for ourselves but heck my kids aren’t hit by this. They’re still able to focus and play with their toys without being interrupted by a buzzing of their phone or the urge to jerk a newsfeed upwards with their thumbs. But the day will come when they too will have their own phones and go through the same trap we did.

How do we stop that? How do I protect their mental ability to do the one thing that could help them do great things with their lives…. to focus. More importantly, Dr Cal says if we keep this up, it can “permanently reduce your capacity for concentration”. Is it really permanent? Can we get it back?

Yep. I can’t believe we’re already halfway through January and I feel a heavy level of guilt when I realise that I haven’t updated my blog in a long time.

Forgive me as I have been really busy. Here’s what I’ve been up to:

1. I’ve been traveling a lot for work.

In the first week of January I was in Jakarta on business. And then in the second week off to Shanghai for a short trip again for business. I gotta say I haven’t been back to Shanghai for almost 10 years an the city has changed so much.

It’s so clean.. even the air (heck I remember how smoggy it used to be when I was last there). Things are so advanced and what’s amazing is that the people there are really really nice.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive there ordering food or taking taxis here and there but somehow my lousy Mandarin was good enough to almost act like a local there.

I really like Shanghai and I’m definitely going back again soon. Heck I had steamboat for dinner both nights there because it was so cold and nice.

This is me whacking the soup that was way too spicy for me but really felt soooo good.

2. I’ve been reading

I’ve been spending a lot of time in my past few months reading books. I think I almost average a book a week now. Learning about business, self-help, biographies, all sorts of things. All in a lifelong effort to enlighten myself.I’ve been spending so much time reading I’ve even given up playing War Robots, this game I was so addicted to before. If you haven’t started playing it, don’t. It’s one of those games that you really have to pay (like spend real money) to win.

3. I have however been playing another game.

I’ve been playing SimCity. I started it because Fighter has this huge interest in buildings and cities so I thought hey maybe we could play it together. We started it and well.. now I’m so addicted to it I play it on my own (and Fighter gets upset when he catches me playing it without him).

4. I’ve been spending time with friends.

I’ve made sure to spend some of my time catching up with friends too. Like throwing a last minute birthday lunch for this fella.

5. Most importantly I’ve been spending time with family.

The good thing is that the Shanghai trip gave me another short escape with Shorty so we got to spend time together then.

But with the kids… well I try to come home a little early from work and now I try to wake up extra early just to see them before they go to school. One morning when Shorty didn’t have enough sleep the night before I had the privilege of sending Fighter to school too.

Ah such a joy.

So that’s why I’ve been off the blog for a while. Fret not… while I may have sparse updates every now and then… I will always come back to update this. After all this is a journal of my life that I want to keep not just for myself but perhaps for my kids one day to read to know what their Dad is or was like.

Overall work at Colony has been great too. Really fulfilling. We’re working on the design of a new location and some other stuff that I hope to be able to announce in the next couple of months.

How is everyone’s New Year coming along?

Two days left till the end of the year and I still can’t believe how this year has been for me. As covered in my previous post, I actually expected this year to be a terrible year for me but it turned out to be one of the best years of my life.

It’s a great year not because of a number of big achievements or anything like that but because of all the small small things I’ve been lucky to have throughout the year. But if I had to pin down the major events in 2017 this would be it:

1. I lost one of my best friends

Earlier this year we all met for dinner at my friend Thanee’s restaurant and took this picture. Not long after this dinner he would realise he had Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and in a matter of months I would attend his wake.

I’ve lost people in my life before. My grandfather, my grandmother, my uncles and aunty or even a cousin. But this is the first time I lost someone that I was really really close to. Close to like I knew almost everything about him and he too about me. I miss him dearly and for the first time in my life it crossed my mind that hey the bright side of dying one day would be getting to meet up with him in Heaven.

2. I moved into a new home.

Earlier this year we made the decision to move into another home. Shorty led the renovation progress and I was indifferent to how the house would look. I told Shorty that I was happy with our previous apartment that we had stayed in for years and I would be happy to live there for the rest of my life. So it didn’t really matter to me how our new home looked.

All that mattered to me was that we Feng Shui’ed it up which she did. (Oh and that the cost of renovation didn’t go above out budget which it did.)

The day we moved in though I began to feel the difference. We now spend a lot more time at home compared to before. We have friends over more often now and entertain more often and more importantly my wife seems happy. And you know what they say happy wife happy life.

The lesson I learned here was that I totally underestimated the effect on our lives our homes would have. I’m glad that Shorty did a great job with the place because if it went the other way… man I’m gonna regret not getting involved.

3. I started a new business that seems to be doing really well

It’s hard to believe that just 6 months ago the now famed black and white marbled tile corridor of Colony that has found its way into many many Instagram feeds looked like this.

It now looks like this

It was tough starting a business again from scratch. From being used to have a PA or admin team that would help me with all the minor administrative stuff from incorporating companies to starting bank accounts, I had to do everything on my own.

I’ve also had to venture into a new business and industry in which I had no experience in. Here’s the funny part though… that because of the success of Colony, now many people come to me for advice as an expert in the coworking space or serviced office industry. Looking back, this time last year I had completely no experience. I’ve learned experience isn’t always about how much time we spend on something sometimes but about we spend that time and what we experience.

I am very blessed and grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given with Colony Coworking Space. With the team that has given me a chance and worked with me, to our investors, our customers and our vendors.

4. I used to think it’s crazy to run a Full Marathon of 42KMs… 

I did it in June this year and after having done it I can safely say that… I STILL THINK IT’S FUCKING CRAZY!

I remember my marathon. After all that training I was making really good time all the way up till 30ish KM. The last few KM though was when I started feeling my ankle, my knees and my legs breaking down. I’ve read a lot of articles about how full marathons are bad for the body, cause temporary kidney damage and all but I’ve also experienced what it really does to the body.

So I think I might give full marathons a pass in future.

I’ve now in my life cycled a 160KM century ride and done a 42KM run. Some say that hey just add a swim and I can do a Full Iron Man. Let me just say that after my 160KM bike ride or my full marathon, I was limping around like I had just been shot in the leg. I highly doubt I would be able to do one after the other. Throw in a swim too and I might actually drown.

5. I’ve learned what really matters in life

I can’t believe that it took me 33 years of life to figure this out but I’ve learned what really matters to me in life. That is relationships.

The relationships I have with my family, my friends, my colleagues and everyone I come into contact with every day. It’s really a simple thing but truly realising this changes the way I talk to people or treat people. I more often than before refrain from getting emotional or raising my voice on anyone that I love and when I do I often ask for forgiveness immediately.

I have also learned how to put other people in higher importance than myself.

Thank you 2017 for the wonderful year. I pray 2018 will be just as good a year.

One of the things you’d notice is that my blog updates are getting less frequent. That’s due really to a couple of reasons. The first one is that with Colony’s launch just about all my spare time is taken away.

The second thing is that I’ve made it a point to spend less time online, on social media, or on anything that sucks time (even games) to things that really matter. Like spending time with my wife, my kids, doing things for them and hey spending time on myself on where it matters. I’ve been making it a point to exercise more and read more too.

Right now I’m reading a book about the founder of the Four Seasons Hotel chain. I find that the more I read, the more perspective it gives me and the more inspiration I have for it in my life and in business. Since I’ve started reading very regularly a year ago, I feel like I have changed. The way I see things have changed, the way I behave, the one I handle stress, the way I run a company… even the way I talk to my wife and kids have changed.

I think of all things that is my strength. I have this ability to look at myself and see all my weaknesses as they are without my pride or ego blinding me. Then I am able to make adjustments to it and really change my behaviour., They say people never change but I can’t say that I don’t neither can I say that there are things in me that I will never be able to change.

One of the things I’ve really changed is the way I talk to people. The way I communicate with people. I’ve learned to make people the focus of all my attention. To really listen when people talk to me as opposed to listening to respond which we often find ourselves doing because silent pauses in a conversation seem to scare us.

From that alone I have gotten so much. I’ve gotten to understand people better, to win people over and heck I’ve learned a lot more myself than I would have learned otherwise, In fact the more people I talk to the more I realise I don’t know shit. I heard some saying once that the first step of enlightenment is admitting you know nothing. Well heck I don’t know if I’m supposed to be enlightened yet but the more I read the more I realise I don’t know.

Reading has become such an addiction to me that I lost my Kindle the other day and in the couple of hours I couldn’t find it, I was driven crazy. I started looking online for how to buy a Kindle in Malaysia, cursing at Amazon for still not shipping one over. I did finally find my Kindle though. Things got better then and I fall asleep a little better at night when I have something to read. Stories to read.

I also make it a point to spend less time on feeds on my phone and more time on my kids. Properly listening to them and sometimes when I do that, they tell me the most profound things or things that I never thought of before. Just yesterday my son was looking at my old phone and asking me why it didn’t have a camera. I tried explaining that old phones didn’t have cameras on them and he kept asking why why why.

Until it became obvious that it wasn’t obvious to human beings to put cameras on phones until… well it was obvious. And now that my son had seen every phone with a camera, it’s hard to imagine one without. Or why anyone would have one without.

Well yeah this is why I haven’t really had much time to update my social platforms. I know you guys are still out there checking in on this site every day and I am really appreciative of that. I will also continue to update this blog for as long as I can see the future… although the updates may not be as frequent as one every few days.

I thought that maybe instead quantity, I should focus on quality. Writing less frequent, but better blog entries. Ones that I get inspiration to write every now and then when something thought-provoking hits me, or when I read something in a book…

Until then… I’m off to a family holiday tomorrow. A short getaway! So see you soon.

I want to share a story about a friend of mine. Lets call him Tom.

Tom is a friend of mine who’s in his sixties. He has a very inspiring story. Coming from a poor family, he worked his way up building a business that made him the multi-millionaire he is today. At sixty, he’s very very cheerful, loves golf and loves buying new supercars. The only other thing he’s interested in (apart from family of course) is business.

A month ago I learned that Tom has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. It’s the same type of rare cancer that got Steve Jobs and the one insurance companies are so worried that I might get because of the cyst on my pancreas. So worried that they won’t insure me anymore.

I’ve been back to see Tom in the hospital 3 times now. He’s still his very happy cheerful self as he tells me how he feels about life now.

1. He says that he no longer takes any interest in his business. Something that used to give him so much joy and something that he would devote a lot of time to.
2. A month after he was diagnosed with cancer, he sold off all his supercars and kept only two more normal cars for necessary usage.
3. He can’t play golf anymore and doesn’t think about it.
4. He has millions to his name… but he knows even all that money isn’t going to necessarily save his life.

Tom is the first close friend of mine who’s fighting cancer and his battle has really changed the way I think about things. I think about my own death. The thought of dying and going into the after world doesn’t really scare me so much. I think I’ve done good things in my life in aggregate and I don’t think I would go to hell but hey that doesn’t say a lot. Okay so the thought of dying itself and moving on to a better place doesn’t scare me as much.

What scares me now is:

1. Who will take care of my family. My wife, my kids.

Now for this I know that they’ll find a way. My parents, my sister, my wife… heck there will be someone around to raise them and they’ve got a long line of great candidates for guardians after me and my wife.

The other thing that scares me though is:

2. That I die before I reach my full potential.

I was reading a book today written by the founder of the Four Seasons and he talked about a friend of his who died at the peak of his career. At least he reached the peak. I’m worried that I might die… before I reached my full potential.

I know it’s a little narcissistic and also naive because hey in reality.. when you die… you die. Life goes on, people eventually forget you. I always remember how Nando Parrado told the story of how he came home years after the world thought he died in a plane crash. Everything was the same. Everyone grieved at first… but eventually life goes on.

That’s a sad reality. That most of us won’t be able to leave any form of legacy that anyone else would care about. The legacy I would love to leave though isn’t for anyone else.. but for my kids. For them to see that their father was able to be successful in what he did. That he failed and failed… but alas he succeeded. What I’m worried about is that I fail… and fail… but die or get crippled by some disease before I succeed. Never reaching my full potential.

I pray God gives me time to live life. I don’t know how long I would ask for. Life expectancy these days can go to 100 and beyond but hey… maybe 75 for me? Is that too much to ask?