About Author.. H D Gupta
-Become largest owner of Sim Lim Square-a famous IT complex in
-Seldom buys anything in retail but owns and operates retail store.
-Don’t know what credit debit is but guides even chartered accountants/CPA.
Till an age of 46 he has not taken 46 offs overall, means working almost 7 days a week, 365 days , 14-16 hours a day, not because he has to do but he loves to do.
My 1st Million- Preface
Preface
There may be 1000s or even more of references or book on similar business topic. So why one more?
If analyzed carefully it can be found that how many of such business books are written by businessman itself sharing their own business experiences.
Very few probably.
How many trainers, motivational speakers have made million by doing business?
Isn’t it strange that most of people who teach business have never done any business?
Can anyone tell the taste of Sweet, unless he has eaten it himself?
Even if eaten, it can be experienced only and can't be fully described.
Even if eaten, it can be experienced only and can't be fully described.
How can anyone get into heaven without dying himself?
The difference here is that this book is written by someone who has covered this journey of business multiple times of his own.
And our approach to My 1st Million is based on Do it yourself approach which you may find quite different to other said ways.
Making a Millions is something similar to taking a flight
When we have to go overseas and take a flight for it, there are many ways to reach the airport to. You can go by car or get a taxi or maybe take a bus or even the MRT train. But one thing is sure that you can’t reach if you don’t start. So, we urge to take you the first step as soon as possible.
Just start going in the general direction where you want to head. If you want to go to the airport, but you keep driving to the west, no matter how fast, it is for sure that you will never reach it for sure, since the airport is in east in Singapore
However, if your start driving towards the east, not even with the full directions in mind, nor really knowing the best path to it, sooner or later you will reach the airport since your general direction was right. So if the direction is right but path is still not sure, you will reach your destination sooner or later.
This book may help you, in this journey to your First Million; start in the right general direction by using the tools and strategies stated hereupon. This is quite different that it is sharing some unconventional ways to get to your First million. This may not be the only way to make your million. But it has worked effectively for us and we hope that it will also work well for you.
We believe in sharing what we know. Knowledge is only thing in this world which increases by sharing. Rest almost everything gets reduced, if shared. And what we are sharing is that most of people don’t even dare to try. What we share in this book is the direction that most other people either don’t know themselves or if knows then not willing to share it with anyone. We try to go all the way to conceal nothing and share everything with you in your journey to your First Million.
Allow yourself to benefit from the words of wisdom shared here in to the greatest positive effect and we wish you the greatest success on this less trodden path to making your Millions.
Every medicine has a different effect and a varied degree of effect on every different patient. In the same way, the information and knowledge that we share here may benefit every reader differently.
CAT vs. RAT
Journey to Million can be illustrated somewhat like a CAT vs. RAT race.
Especially when Cat is really hungry, the race is powerful. All engines are going full speed and there are no speed limits in this race, nor are there any rules that cannot to be broken!
Furniture may fly, glass may break and any damage is possible. Ferocious tiger like roars may be heard from the cat as it chases it’s prey from alley to rooftops to the inside of homes to deep drains,
Who shall win the race? Though likelihood is in favor of CAT but in many cases, it is the rat who wins this race!
Despite being Smaller in size, with tinier feet and also the inability to pounce high like its enemy, and with all bets placed against it, why does the rat can still win many times?
The answer we believe lies in this small but very important and crucial difference:
1.The Cat Is Running For Food;
2.The Rat Is Running For Life!
Which one are you going for?
Are you the rat or the cat in your pursuit for riches now?
What do you have to learn and adopt to make sure that you are not eaten up and that you survive this day and even may face other bigger rival next day?
A1. Why people want to have their 1st Million?
1. Why people want to have their 1st Million?
This is a very interesting question.
When asked: “Do you want to be a Millionaire?”
Most people will jump up and say: “Of course!”
In fact there are many who will add: “Who does not want to be one!”
But when we try to dig deeper and ask: “Why do you want to be a Millionaire?” there are many different answers that we get. Let us try to look at some of the common responses.
(a) “I want to do this for Charity!”
This sounds like a very good answer to pull at the heart strings of the public, Judges and the Mentors. You will win emotional support from them and also from the viewers of the show. Sympathetic votes may also be cast for you as you declare that you are doing this for charity.
But the important question to ask yourself at this point is: What are you doing for charity right now?
Let’s assume that you earn $5000 per month. Are you already giving something say $500 per month or even $100 per month or at least even a $50 dollars from it to charity right now?
You do not have to wait till you are a Millionaire to start giving to charity. It is habit. If from whatever little you earn now, you put aside a portion for charity, then we know that this habit will go on when you are a Millionaire too and you will continue giving to charity.
This is a good reason to become a Millionaire, if you are already giving to charity, but if you do not have a habit of doing so yet, do not use this as an excuse to be on the good side of the Mentors and the Judges and of course the viewers of the show at home.
(b) “Because I want to go for Holidays and Rest and Relax!”
Let’s recollect a Good story to share a point.
Dave used to go to the beach daily. It was his habit since childhood, when his father used to bring him there as a young boy. Though his father had passed on, Dave still went for his long walks at the beach everyday either before or after work.
He noticed and he had been noticing for many years that an old man used to come to the beach daily and sit under this equally old tree and just watch the waves come to the shore. It seemed like the old man and the old tree shared some sort of loving relationship and more.
One day, Dave could not hold himself back any longer. He went to this old man and asked: “Why do you come here daily?”
The wise, old man coming out of his thoughts looked at Dave from head to toe and replied: “Why? To of course just relax and sit back and enjoy nature, my child!”
Dave wasn’t impressed with the answer and queried further: “But don’t you have to work or anything? I see you sitting here from dawn till dusk everyday! “
The wise old man cracked up and asked Dave back: “What I will get when I go to work anyway?”
Dave replied: “To get good income
Old Man: and then what?
Dave: you can have a nice house and even a car
Old man: and then what
Dave: you can get a wife and some kids
And of course, you can buy all the luxuries of life that money can buy!”
The wise old man looked up at Dave and said: “And why do you want to have all these?”
Dave said:” So that you can rest and relax for rest of life!”
The wise old man shook his head and said: “am I not doing the same rest right now.
Why I need to follow such a long way to get the same rest which is available freely even now without doing anything. Come join me in the sand, here and now, and we can rest and relax together.”
Enough said!
(c) “To Retire!”
Ah! Another favourite reason we hear when asked the reason someone wants to be a Millionaire. Yes, it is an attractive word by itself, but we think that this word is over-used and even exploited in its daily use.
You see, people can retire from the Civil Service, serving the government jobs or even from the private sector; you can retire when you reach a certain age.
But in business, is there such thing!
When you are doing the business of your passion, you will surely get addicted to it. Seven days a week, you will want to come back to office and do more to grow your baby!
Age 55 may come and you see your peers ‘Retiring’ from their jobs, then age 58 comes, then 62 comes and finally at 65, you see the last of your friends saying goodbye to their offices. But as business owner, you do not care. You feel like going on and on till the last breathe of your life.
From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:
For the last 45 years of my life, I have been coming to work day in and day out. In fact, I have not taken even 45 holidays in the same period!
“If I had to stay at home for even a day having a holiday or without meaningful work, it seems to be a big punishment to me.”
Is Retirement a boon or a bane?
Is it really a Blessing or a Curse?
See, mindsets are different.
The Employee Mindset versus the Business Owner’s Mindset is really on the opposite sides of the equation. Maybe that explains the big difference in the bank balances of the two too.
Once you start getting involved in businesses, you will surely find it hard to break away and retire.
(d) Other reasons and thoughts
There are still many other people who want to be Millionaires for various other reasons. There are many who are earning reasonably well and have comfortable lives; but they still want to go our there and venture into the business arena to make their millions.
Some may want to do it because “My neighbours’ house or car is so much bigger than mine and so I shall have bigger than theirs!”
Some may be thinking: “My friends and peers are better than me in designation or salaries and already so much further in financial success and doing so much ahead!”
This thought may then push them to do better and excel in their careers too and this drive will surely see them go much further.
Others may feel that in my career in the corporate world, I have been making millions of dollars sales for the organisations that I have been working for. How about making it for myself? So I should venture out on my own and make the millions for myself too!
This is a good motivation and it shows the self confidence of the person, but generally there miss a small but important point.
Many times they think sales are profit and they fail to see that the cost of running those businesses or the costs of acquiring the goods and services may be very high.
Like a computer may be sold for $1000 but profit may be only $50 or even $25. So the Millions of dollars of revenue that was brought in from the sales may actually lead to a very small net profit, after all the costs are deducted.
This misunderstanding of gross revenue and sales versus the net profits of an organisation has to be correct understood before that person really goes on to start his own business ventures to make his millions.
(e) People with the True Reason Why!
The last group of people we really want to talk about are small group of business owners. They comprises of not more than 10% of the people out there in this race.
Their reason for doing business is that they just want to do it and they just have to do it!
They just have a passion from within for what they are doing and they deserve to be saluted for the same. This passion within them does not go down regardless of how the business is performing.
Whether they make it or not; they will just go on and on and these people shall be considered the real heroes of the business world for their drive, irrespective of their success or failure.
Are you one of them? What is your reason for wanting to become a Millionaire? Once you know the real motivation you have from within, then your journey will be much simpler and effective.
Find the true “why” within you now.
A2. Can you earn Million by your dream JOB?
Can A Job or rather a GOOD JOB lead to get My 1st MILLION
In most cases Certainly NO
It is obvious those millionaires are many times more in business as compared to jobs.
Why
Lets is Study the growth pattern of salaries of last 10 years:
See appendix A published by Source ministry of manpower, Singapore
You can easily find out:
That there is hardly any industry offering 10% growth per year YOY;
So in 90 % of job cases, if you are growing at an average of 10% YOY, it will take about 10 years to double your salary.
Say if you start with $2000 it will reach about $5000 in about 10 years.
Other way to understand is that if you take flat 10 years to save a million you need to have a saving of $8,333 ($1000, 000/120 month) which means a beginning saving of $5,000 and growing to about $11,000 for an average. Remember it is saving, so if you save even 50% of take home salary then either it may take about 20 years to save a million.
How many of us gets job to have such saving?
Fact is that Most of jobs start with below $3,000 after graduation and then grows.
This is why most of life gets over dreaming million.
How to get Million then?
Suppose you start job at 3,000 and goes YOY 10% increment then it may take about 30 years to reach such levels which is almost whole life gone just dreaming about it.
For last 10% combines growth has been in range of 50-60% – averaging
Report B5
===
Now think
Those who are studying
Do you know how much salary will you able to get?
Do you know=if yes, fine
If not then Study this report B3 to know average salaries
And now calculate yourself:
Starting salary =________
Less expenses = ________
Nett saving =________
Growth =_____%
10 year after:
20 year after:
30 year after:
RETIRE
It will take you ___ Years to save your million make it.
Now think how long you need to make your million from this growth ratio.
So Think again seriously - are you in right direction to reach your 1st Million?
While airport is in east direction but Looks you are traveling in west. Will you ever reach?
Answer for yourself
Now Study the growth pattern of SME business
How fast they grow?
Is there any limit to doubling your sales or profit every year? Many organizations do it very regular.
Think which is better way to your 1st Million -job or business?
Decide yourself that which is east which is west.
And which direction is better?
Even if you are slow in right direction -you may reach your goal faster than most of Jobs.
A3. Can your Role model help you?
We keep studying about big billionaires/celebrities/trainers
What they did.
How they did
Why they did
How many of us have compared
Are we same as of them
Is our situation same as theirs
Only common thing is-they were also like us about 10-20 years back.
But can that similarity put us on par?
Or can we succeed by doing what they did
If not then why we study or follow that?
How case studies can help us.
Is that a sure shot formula?
If so all could have been millionaires or rather billionaires by now.
All of us are UNIQUE, with many skills and many limitations, with various temperaments and styles. We need to have solution for our problems and not to keep studying others problems and their solutions.
A4. Is Education essential to have your 1st Million?
Education is considered very important from childhood and all of us and our parents are struggling hard, first to get good school/college and then jobs and even then so on and so forth for next degree/diploma so on and so forth.
Many people focus on academic education. They think to themselves, “I will achieve financial success when I have a better degree or a higher diploma”.
It is the belief of author that it is NOT essential to have Degree/diploma to succeed in Business.
But time and again, many successful people in the world and some of the richest individuals in the business world did not excel in school and some were even dropouts and chose to leave education behind in pursuit of financial success.
Thus academic excellence does not necessarily mean Financial Success in life, though some people may have success in both arenas of life.
From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:
I graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering but have not used it in the last 20 years of my working life.
I remember in Engineering College
In fact, back in 1986, I was the first batch of students in Delhi (India
I also remember that when we entered a keystroke back in those days, there was a delay of a few seconds before anything appeared on screen. The processing power was not only slow, but also very small.
Today, my hand phone has 100 times more processing power, speed and functionalities compared to the computers of that era.
But my point is that to this day, I have hardly used that Degree or my Diploma in my working world. They taught us various skills and we earned the degree but were never specialized and focused.
But what has really helped me in tough times is learning of my father-who was not having even any formal education even but has given me a strong foundation that I am able to face toughest storms in business life.
In no way it is being proposed that you should be an illiterate and not posses any form of formal education. But not possessing that is not the limiting factor and it should not delay the start of business.
The general masses however keep thinking that I will get all those educational qualifications and amass tons of relevant working experience and then go to work and become rich.
This core difference in their thinking makes the rich grow richer and leaves the rest of society behind.
Some people also believe that upgrading their book knowledge by doing Masters of Business Administration (MBA) is going to increase their chances of business success later on.
However facts have shown that this is not the case. These advanced studies are not essential to business success and lots of time, effort and money is spent on chasing these paper qualifications.
At the end of the day, these MBA degree holders end up working as higher-level Managers and Supervisors.
Only less than 5% of them go on to become successful business people themselves.
The remaining 95% end up working for business owners who may not be even half as qualified as them. Many of their bossed were the “Duffers” that society had cast away as explained in the previous chapter, but these lesser-qualified individuals have garnered up enough courage to take the less trodden path of starting their own business and have become more successful.
To substantiate it further, there are 100s of different Universities that offer MBA programs and they focus on different areas of specialization. But this “specialization” is still too broad and academic. There is a lack of practical application of the lessons taught. They try to package as broad and wide theoretical give-always and thus this becomes a shortcoming on the part of the MBA programs.
Look at it this way, when we subscribe to the cable TV network, we get a sophisticated set-up box capable of doing a lot of things, including recording our favorite programs, even when we are not at home.
Detailed user manuals, in multiple languages are provided and all one has to do is to read them and learn how to use the systems.
But adults have common complains about the system being too complicated and difficult to operate, even when all they had to do was follow the steps listed in the user manuals.
Children however, can do it better. They seem to be able to just pick up the remote controls and play with it for a while and then be able to start recording and doing all the other fanciful things that adults thought were just impossible to do. And the kids can do all this, within minutes and sometimes even with their eyes closed!
Now what the major difference? With all the advantages of age, maturity, intelligence and more and also with the availability of the user guides, the adults fail because they lack the practical, hands on play of things.
In the same way, all these MBAs being produced have a lot of book knowledge but lack the ability to apply it effectively in the real working world.
Today, huge amount of information and knowledge is readily available on the Internet, the bookshops and even in the libraries. But we need to learn how to choose the relevant information and then learn to adopt it and apply it to our needs to make us the best dollars in our business.
From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:
I have interviewed 1000s of Electrical Engineers in the course of my life. Many of them do not even know how to remove a blown fuse and replace it practically.
What I find even more astonishing is that when asked about the voltage flowing in each of the points in the common household electrical socket, more than 90% of them are not able to give correct answer! This is after 4 years of studying for a degree in Electrical Engineering.
Same things happen in most of commerce graduates, majority of them don’t remember fundamental laws of accounting even.
When their resumes come in for job applications, they look perfect and charming.
But when given a small easy task of even replying to a Business enquiry, they are unable to draft a small letter to general expectations and you get varied degree of results which are really interesting to watch.
I sometimes wonder if the resume they show is written by them really and if they have-where it gets lost in day to day work??
Once again, the gist of this topic is not to limit you from academic excellence or to limit you from studying, but is to help you remove your limiting beliefs that you need academic excellence for business success.
You are on the wrong track if you believe that you need to have a string of academic qualifications and more to excel in the working world and the world of business.
From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:
Though when counting one day, how many who has started with me as fresher are millionaire now, count was over 25 but I think my biggest achievements is;
-helping a man who do not know even spelling of computer but become the president of Computer association of a city which is many times bigger than country of Singapore.
-Helping a man who could not sign his name but could assemble computers.
Look at the World of the Rich and names like Bill Gates, Dhirubhai Ambani and more come to mind that may not have excelled in school but made a big name for themselves in the World of Business.
A5. Is Experience essential to have your 1st Million?
General understanding is that first let me study and then work for few years to get experience and then I will start off my own.
The author believes that Experience is NOT essential to success.
From Fact file of Mr. Gupta:
When I took over the running of the Goldkist Beach Resort here in Singapore
I remember that when I first went for the Tender interview, there were about 10 officials sitting on the other side of the table from various government bodies and departments.
They asked me to share how I would be able to manage this property without any relevant past experience.
I told them:
1. 20 years ago, I had no business experience in the Computer industry. I still did that business and did it well. In all the products that I marketed, I was always in the Top 5.
2. 5 years ago, I had no business experience in the Mobile Phone industry. I still did that business and did it well too.
3. Thus I am very sure, that in managing this resort, I will also do it well too.
Today, I successfully run this resort with a huge traffic of over 200,000 guests per year.
Leave aside running business successfully isn’t it strange that despite being die-hard vegetarian we run a restaurant that serves even non-vegetarian dishes. That too not only Indian but even Chinese and Malay wedding successfully
Not only that though I may not drink or even touch liquor, but own and run a complete bar.
Not only that though I may not drink or even touch liquor, but own and run a complete bar.
All without having any past experience.
The main point that we are trying to assert here is that Experience in business, may be helpful if you have it, but is not essential for business success.
Along the way, you will face many day-to-day situations that will force you to learn on your feet and these lessons will remain with you forever and cannot be replicated in any classroom environment.
Also, in the fast changing business world, past experience may never be totally relevant and applicable to new situations that you will face.
Also, by working for other businesses to gain experience, you will be limited to experience in that arena from an employees’ perspective and not that of the business owner and employer.
You will thus not be aware of the many challenges that are faced by the business owner and would not be prepared for them anyway.
So even if you have worked in a particular industry for a long time, you will not be aware of the mechanics completely and will only have a small and narrow view of that business and lack the complete bigger picture of running that business. Thus this “relevant” business experience will be questionable when starting your own business. You would not have seen the whole movie but only a small trailer!
Many people spend years in schools and colleges and Universities getting all the right paper qualifications and then go on to get the Masters degrees and even PhDs. More than 10 years of prime youth is spent chasing these paper qualifications and getting expertise in just 1 arena of life.
But in business, you can learn all the relevant skills in just 10 months if not in 10 weeks, for sure.
Here, in the world of business, it is the race of Survivability, like the rat we spoke about in the first topic. It’s not about running for food, like the cat does, but Running for life, that the rat is forced to do and life teaches you and gives you all the relevant experience daily on an on going basis as you run a Live business and not just read and study about it.
So we urge you to not allow lack of experience to stop you from taking the first step in starting the business. Experience will come and it will make you a richer person in all terms of the word.
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