An Old Man with a Young Heart

This morning, I had a light breakfast in KL with an elderly man in his early 70s. We were in a typical kopitiam, not those fancy-franchising ambience but those with plastic chairs and dirty, oily table where it was hot and noisy! Once a while, I do miss those kind of kopitiam.

It was drizzling and later on, raining cats & dog for around 20 minutes.
While sitting there & having a sip of the original "kopi" without any caramel, I enjoy listening to the story of how this 70 year old ride on his roller-coaster of life.

He had a hard time in the 80s and went through bankcruptcy. Adding to his pain, his elder brother doesn't want to share the responsibility of taking care of their parents during his hardest time. And he has 6 children! Rather than dwelling on the problem, he sucked it up and explore other business venture while his existing business has rotten with many bad debts. Without much analysis, just based on some common sense, he just did it.
Eventually he managed to moved on and create a "little wealth" for himself and the business grew until he managed to earn around few hundred Ringgit a day. Remember, that was in the 80s. Earning few hundred a day was really an achievement.

Did I mentioned his elder brother was doing great financially? The greed of money can sometimes blindfold a person's consciousness and destroy a person's sense of goodness.

Long story short; a simple man with a strong commitment and perseverance, always win the race of life eventually.

I do hope this man is blessed with happiness and abundance of life (which I think he has) after going through such a tough time. Until today, he is still productively working and keeping his "old" employees who were loyal to him for years and I truly think that he deserve a great life ahead.

Not to mention being a millionaire or a tycoon, but I think his life is pretty enriching and it serve as a great lesson and example for Gen Y & Gen Z to follow.

Sometimes, we don't have to look far for heroes, just those around us might be an unknown hero or hero-in-the-making. Not only the Trump, the Buffett, the Branson are great, but this 70 year old man is a great example too.

Mr. Honda

Most of us drove or sit in a Honda car before, but do you know that Mr. Honda is one of the most persistent man ever.

In 1938, Mr. Honda had a little workshop and he developed a special piston ring concept and thought of selling it to Toyota Corporation. He is so passionate and dedicated in his work until he slept in his own workshop and pawned his wife's jewelleries to continue in his business research!

Finally, he completed the piston ring technology and presented it to Toyota. You know what.....he got rejected! It was due to the reason that certain standards were not met.

Then Mr. Honda continued to study for another 2 years to deepen his knowledge. After another 2 years, he eventually got a contract with Toyota.

We would thought Mr. Honda lived happily ever after.......

But at that time, Japanese government was gearing up for war and it was really hard to get concrete to build factory. Did Mr. Honda quit? No, he created his own concrete, then built his factory & get the job done!
What a true winner!

But....another bad episode happened!
During the war, the factory was bombed twice, destroying major portion of the factory.
Mr. Honda didn't dwell on it. Together with his team, he picked up gas cans that the US fighter had discarded and positively said, "This is a gift from President Truman!" Now he used that as the raw materials for the manufacturing process.
Talking about innovation, creativity & persistency, we can't beat Mr. Honda....!

What we didn't know was after the war, it followed by an earthquake!!
Most of us would have quit but not Mr. Honda.
Challenges after challenges, he persisted until he secured a long deal with Toyota.

But after the war, there was petrol shortage. Therefore, Mr. Honda couldn't drive his car to even buy food as he used to. Instead of putting himself in the corner facing dilemma, he thought of ways to go above it or under it or around it.....and finally he had a breakthrough!
He attached a motor to his bicycle to get around......
The neighbours saw it, like it and of course asked Mr. Honda to install it to their bicycles as well and they called it "MOTOR RIDE". The so-called "business" was so good until it ran out of motors!

Guess what? Mr. Honda set up a small factory producing motors. But, he has no capital....
Therefore, he appealed to almost 18,000 bicycle shops for his great invention and finally got 5000 of them to pay an upfront capital to fund his factory. Then he found out another problem.....the motor was too big & bulky!
He re-designed and created a scaled-down version of it and called it the Super Cub, exported it to baby boomers in US and ....... THE REST IS .....HISTORY....!!!

Anyone felt tired reading it? Not to mention the person experiencing it and solving endless problems & challenges that got in the way.

Now, when you see a Honda on the road......what do you really see? A CAR or a DREAM?

Doctors; A Blessing or A Curse

Dear Doctors or Future Doctors...

I'm writing this with all my respect to Doctors and sincerely wanting to thank all of them for the great work that they have done!

Just to share some observations and thoughts....

I've had friends in which their family members have been wrongly treated by doctors in which one of them past away and some of them never got cured but got worst.

At times, I've heard comments from relatives & friends mentioning unnecessary treatments & operations done by doctors ended up making things worst. Of course I've heard on cases where I should applause & salute them as well.

In fact, there's always a controversial opinion on whether doctors should charge for patients who can't afford expensive treatments or operations. We always think doctors are life-savers and should not make money or make "that" much money after all.

But they are human beings that need money to survive as well. They have invested hefty education fees and countless resources of time and energy to become a Doctor. It is about hardwork and dedication. They can't be charging it for FREE or at a mediocre fees where they can't even cover their own education investments for the past years.

Therefore, it is the own conscious of doctors to make a judgement. Perhaps a combination of Work & Charity.

For those who are merely becoming a doctor for the sake of becoming one or solely on making money should let go of this profession and do something else. As hospital is a combination of work in BUSINESS and LIFE-SAVINGS activities, it is important for doctors to refresh and remind daily on their purpose of existence. Not simply prescribing unnecessary medicines or conduct unnecessary operations out of the agenda of profit. Profits should be made out of Ethics and not Greed!

Perhaps some of the improvements that I can think of:

1. Doctors should be more of an Uplifter and spreading Hopes despite chronic situation faced by the patients. Besides cancer, WORDS can also kill somebody mentally before dying physically!
2. Doctors can also equipped with natural therapeutic knowledge instead of medicines or operations alone. The goal is to "Cure" patients or not to "Lure" patients! Moreover, almost all medicines are with side effect where natural diet or food has no side effect. Why not go for natural healing!
3. Perhaps medical bills can be adjusted not to reach a sky-rocket level but more of a slightly-above-average kind of profit? Or even paying by installment basis (not sure they have it now)?
4. Every 3 months, perhaps there are seminars or conferences to help doctors to gain back the Purpose and Drive of who they are or who they can be.
5. Perhaps some of the doctors should practise healthy lifestyle! Unfortunately, I've saw doctors who smoke out side the clinic and some of them are pretty obese! Yeah, talking about high blood cholesterol & high blood pressure....

As mentioned, being a doctor is not easy.
For those that have contributed to the society & mankind, I would wholeheartedly thank them.
For those who mistakenly treated patients, perhaps you should reflect a little on your passion & real driver in life!
For those who are going to be doctors, congratulations and thank you in advance for joining such a noble career. Put your HEART and MIND into it, you'll be great!