Tomorrow Starts Today

Resident contributor, Cobalt Paladin writes again…Looking out the window of my unit when everyone is asleep, seeing the darkened night sky, it sure brings back some familiar memory. The view outside my window may look the same 3 years ago when I started blogging, but I have changed a lot since then. Some memories are sweet; some bitter.

I’ve been through a lot.

About 8 years ago, my company’s factory was still reeling from the Asian Financial Crisis and later the bursting of the dot com bubble. It was eventually closed and relocated due to the rising costs of operation in Singapore. Many factories were moving to countries like Vietnam and China where the cost of operation was very much competitively lower. It was also during a period of financial crisis when I was retrenched 8 years ago.

It may have been the best thing that happened to me.

It forced me to re-evaluate my options. I asked myself then if I wanted to work in another factory again when our costs of operation is not ever going to be able to compete with the factories in other developing nations? What if 10 years down the road, the new factory that employed me relocates too? Would I still be able to get a job when I’m in my late 30s? How can I compete with the fresh graduates and youngsters then?

Coupled with the ignorance of youth and the encouragement from my wife, that’s when I decided and was forced to become an entrepreneur. I had wanted to see if I can become the stewart of my own journey.

I had also wondered if I was never retrenched, would I have become an entrepreneur? I’m glad though to have taken the path less trodden. I would not have been where I am today if I did otherwise.

For the past few weeks, financial bad news having been filling the tv channels, newspapers and magazines. The sentiments have been mostly doom and gloom. The dark clouds of retrenchment is overcast again. Before that, we have inflationary pressure on our costs of living. The price of oil had even hit a new record high of $147.27 on 11 July 2008.

Déjà vu. All these have happened before.

If you look at the economic history, there will always be peaks and troughs. When we ride out the current global financial crisis, a few years after that, there will be other financial crisis. The inflationary pressure will also continue to be there and the costs of living will just continue to climb. We also had gone through similar oil crisis in 1990 due to the Gulf War. Even our PM Lee Hsien Loong mentioned about the oil crisis in his 2006 National Day Rally speech (page 6, para 2). As we approach Peak Oil situation (if we are not already there), the only direction for the oil price in future is to go up.

How can we insulate ourselves against the bad times and constant inflationary pressure? How do you ensure that your income outpace the inflationary pressure? One of the ways is to be master of your own destiny. If you had always wanted to be an entrepreneur, this may be the best time to start because it takes years for you to build branding and reputation for your company. It took me 3 years before my potential clients become more receptive to my company’s products. So if you start now, during the bad times when business is expected to be bad anyway, you can make use of the bad times to slowly grow your company. In a few years time, when the economy recovers, you’ll be able to surf the rising wave of the economy right when it starts.

If you have always put off your plans to start your own business or becoming an entrepreneur, don’t delay, give yourself excuses and say you’ll start tomorrow. Because if you have decided to strike out on your own, tomorrow starts today.

By becoming an entrepreneur, it will be the hardest thing you do, that I promise you. But if you want your family to have a better tomorrow, it starts today.

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