Business lesson #1: Confidence building

I had not intended this blog to be on anything other than investment and economic-related issues. But I thought I'll put this down somewhere. It serves as a reminder to myself to work hard and also, it'll be interesting to re-read my own posts/thoughts a few years down the road.

I had always been interested in running a business. When I was young, maybe around 7-10 years old if my memory serves me correctly, I remember playing the "business game" with my 2 brothers. Back in my home town in Muar, we live in our grandmother's house - a big house. We each chose our own corners of the house and set up our business stall. We used small tables and chairs as our stalls. We wrote our company names on a paper and propped it up in front of our tables. My company name was in Malay: "Syarikat Jin". It means something like Jin Pte. Ltd. in English. We fashioned out of cardboards and papers the sort of games that you see in fun-fairs. We would visit each other's stalls to try out the games. We used coins that we find lying around the house as money. We used marbles and erasers to play the games. We gave each other small rewards (erasers, as far as I can remember) if we beat the games.

Naturally, as the eldest brother, I always end up with the most money. If I remember correctly, I would encourage my brothers to visit my stall often, while not repaying that in kind.

This small activity further increased my appetite and confidence for doing business. I wanted to make real money, not subtly making my brothers hand money over to me. Over the years, I've learnt that confidence is what really matters. And confidence is best built up when one was young. Imagine the confidence that you will have if you had gone selling products door to door when you were still a kid! I never had that experience. But I always imagined it as though I had it. Even if you fake it, it will still work. I came across a phrase recently, and that is: Fake It Till You Make It!