Thursday, February 5, 2015

Inside the Mind of Cheryl Yeoh: 5 Powerful Lessons from the CEO of Magic

Successful people have a certain pattern that makes them successful. By learning some of the thought, we can take some valuable lessons. Most of the successful people might do it unconsciously but when they share their stories, we can can conclude into some certain principles.

Today, I attended Mindvalley's Project Renaissance featuring Cheryl Yeoh the CEO of Magic. Moderated by the founder of Mindvalley, Vishen Lakhiani (which was very awesome at hosting the session), Cheryl share some of her journey before becoming the CEO.

One of the accomplishment made by Cheryl was to build an app company called Reclip.It and managed to sold the business to the Wallmart. Some of the lesson shared during the session:

1. Entrepreneurship starts from young age
She learn to become an entrepreneur since the age of 8, where her mother made some unique batu seremban. She saw that opportunity and sold it to their friends at school. However, the teachers found out and doesn't like the idea. I remembered Roshan Thiran, the CEO of Leaderonomics shared about how in the US, kids were encouraged to become an entrepreneur. They sell lemonade since kids in front of their home. When nobody bought it, they learn an important lesson - location, location, location. Then they can improve from there. But us in Malaysia, most doesn't allow their kids to perform the act of entrepreneurship, including myself. I remembered when I started my business of trading sweets at the age of 10. When my grandfather found out, he asked me to stop doing it and focusing on studying. He said, if I don't have money, ask from him. But now, if I don't have money, who do I ask from? Perhaps BR1M can give some hope.

2. Selling is one of the crucial skills
Cheryl learn how to sell at a very young age. He went to one of the apartment at Glomac, Kelana Jaya and told the security that she was delivering something to someone staying there. She then knock from door-to-door selling his cabinet solutions. It turns out, to her, the ability to sell is one of the important skills to be successful. She added in one of the book she read that the author is not happy with Standford University because there is no selling course thought at the university level. How come the most important skills was not been taught in the university? She also jokingly mentioned that his father comes out with the 3 Cs of selling. 1. Convince. If you don't manage to convince step 2 is to Confuse. And you still didn't manage to sell then the third C is to Con.

3. Getting out of the comfort zone
When she was studying the the US, she noticed that most Malaysian tend to mingle with Malaysian over there. She got some different view on that. Why would she studied in the US if she were just to stay in the room to study and get good results. She can do that in Malaysia. She took every chance to get all positions in the clubs and societies, competing with other people from all around the world. You can't learn new things if you are being comfortable. Try to do something different and you'll learn something new. On making decision, she mentioned that she was afraid of making the wrong decision especially if that decision leads to something worse. However, she viewed making decision as an 'experiment' to get to know the outcome of that decision. If it works, then we can stick to it. And if we don't happy with the results, then change it. Getting diversity is a key value.

4. Accept failure
In the US, failure is such a normal thing. One might lose everything in a business and when she asked so what do you do now? That person might be answering, I am building my new business. It is like a taboo in Malaysian culture not to accept failure. It's like the end of the journey. I do believe that policy also punishing people who failed. For example, the bankruptcy, once you have been declared one your life is almost ending. But that is how life work, we make mistake, we failed and we learn from it. In fact, Vishen did share his conversation with one guy, the Prime Minister asked him how can we build successful entrepreneurship environment. That person answered, we should create an award to celebrate those who make the biggest failure of the year. It totally looking things at different perspective, but I do agree with that. Like what Napoleon Hill mentioned, in every failure there is a seed of an equivalent or greater success. Let's celebrate failure!

5. You don't have to be the victim of your own self
If you have some limitation of yourself, you don't have to believe that. She was upset when people labelled her as a female, and having very nice attitude. She don't like to accept that and what she did was to prove them wrong. Gender got nothing to do with a successful entrepreneur. Most people let things that happen in the past stop them from achieving whatever they wanted. So stop being the victim of our own self.

Attending this sharing session, there are tonnes of things to learn. Let's commit to become a lifelong learner and share the message with the world!

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