One of the best selling books in our generation is “A Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. And it’s for good reason, as humans wants and are capable of achieving a higher purpose. A calling if you will.

The Bible says (paraphrased) “Without vision, my people perish.”. We are who we are because of what we can see with our minds. If I see myself as only a family man, then that’s all that I’ll be. If I see myself as an astronaut, I’ll do whatever’s necessary to reach there. Not saying the latter will ever come true, but a vision is a prerequisite in getting there.

I often struggle when people have a lack of vision. Thoughts like “what’s wrong with them?” quickly comes to mind. It’s like their fault for not seeing into their future and maximizing their potential.

But that’s wrong theology. Jesus gave Peter the fishermen a vision when he said “Follow me and I’ll make you a fisher of men.”. So like the word calling suggests, it has to be called out by others. ie, you don’t call out your own calling - that’s called ambition.

In a perfect world, everybody will have the capacity to see the potential of each other and call out each other’s calling. That’s step #1. The other crucial step is to give the person a chance, an opportunity, a platform to fulfill that calling. In my opinion that requires someone who’s truly capable and spirit filled.

A person is truly powerful if he/she can call out someone else’s calling.

The ocean’s wave is a product of complex and seemingly chaotic forces that culminates in a glorious splash on shore before ebbing back into the ocean to start the cycle again.

Life is like that. We can be at peace if we understand that whenever we’re at a low point, it’s part of the build up into something glorious, if we’re patient enough to go with the flow.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. ~ Bible

Wisdom can be distilled into principles. A principle cannot be complex but rather it has to be simple, bite size and actionable. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to execute, for our sinful bodies reflexes at odds with our will.

Wisdom can be felt. Some of the wisest friends I know aren’t even that knowledgeable. The contrary is true - some of the smartest folks that I have make very unwise life decisions.

Wisdom can be followed. Not through instructions, but having a listening heart and an understanding mind. That means being careful with advice from others and always juxtaposing it with research and knowledge that you know to be true.

I’ve been asked many times how to land a job with a Silicon Valley based startup. Here’s a recent reply. Replace nationality/interest as desired.

• It’s much easier if you meet startups in the valley face to face. I would suggest taking a 1-2 month trip here to do some networking.
• Use your climbing as a leverage. They’re lots of climbers working in startups here. Chat up with climbers in Planet Granite gym.
• Ping the SG-SV network. Go make an announcement at https://www.facebook.com/groups/sgfounders. I’ll invite you as member once we’re friends on facebook.
• Spruce up your Github profile. You’ll need it. Become a core contributor of known open-source project if possible.
• Get an account on Angellist and watch out for trending startups. They’re usually hiring so apply for them if you’re interested.
• An alternative route would be to enroll into dev bootcamps. They have hiring days upon graduation.

Nationalism

loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially : a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups

Nativism

a policy of favoring native inhabitants as opposed to immigrants

I’ve been thinking a crude formula to calculate quality of life is as such:

QoL = (Resource x Space) / Population

The problem with Singapore is that our only resource are human capital, thus if we increase our resources, it comes at the expense of increasing the population. This means the net effect would most probably be a stale mate in terms of improving our quality of life.

I like what someone in this thread said about going abroad for work and using SG as a home base. It’s a way to increase one’s personal resource and not compete with space. I wish more Singaporeans would look into all the good work that the government has done to enable us to be globalized - High literacy, good spoken and written English, low visa restrictions, free trade agreements with key markets. And I wish more Singaporeans would make full use of it and go global instead of boxing ourselves up in 60x40km tiny isle. 

I knew in my mind that SG’s really small but I only felt the true meaning of our tiny size when I started living abroad. What we have achieved collective as a very young nation is nothing short of a miracle. While we should celebrate the miracle that is our lion city, we must also at the same time be realistic and find ways to contribute to a healthy and sustainable growth strategy.

The government has recently proposed a strategy by increasing her population and capacity to 6.9 million. It’s cool if folks aren’t ok with it. What I would like to see are people carrying strategies whether personally or collective to help ensure a sustainable future for our home.

Met the good folks from IDA Singapore at an event a couple days ago. We talked shop and ended discussing on this topic of market.

I’ve iterated the view that IDA should stop helping consumer tech and focus on B2B startups, either a enterprise disruptor or a great lifestyle SAAS business.

My reasoning is that businesses are done pretty much the same world wide hence it wouldn’t make one’s locality a show stopper - easier to penetrate the english speaking business markets. Also, there’s a plethora of long tail businesses that one can chase after and possibilities of mergers and acquisitions.

I think we can produce really great world class entrepreneurs and engineers from the enterprise space too. Facebook got to where they are today because of the availability of world/enterprise class folks in the valley.