WBW 9: "A Glass that's Never Full" Mindset - be Curious Always

While growing up, lots of us had so many dreams of what we wanted to be as we grow up - doctor, businessman, teacher, etc. Yet in our journey, circumstance always tends to push us away from these dreams, oftentimes distracting if not postponing our plans of pursuing our dreams. In this episode, John shares with us his experiences of how he never forgot his passions, and how he handles his still growing list of things he wants to do through entrepreneurship. "A glass that's never full."

Who is John Sy?

John is a serial entrepreneur with more than 15 years of extensive experience in start-up formation, marketing, and management. His background and experience span several industries including export-manufacturing, pharmaceutical, import-export, distribution, logistics, wholesale-retail sales, services, and technology.(That's a mouthful!)

John is currently the Managing Director of Viper Solutions, the leading Tier II partner of CA in the Philippines and a Managing Director of Viper Technologies, one of the Philippines’ pioneer digital agencies. He is also a Director of Periculum Consulting, Inc., a firm specializing in security and audit preparatory services aimed at addressing IT governance policies and standards. After his Jesuit education at Xavier School, John went on and graduated from the University of Santo Tomas with a degree in B.S. Economics.

Yet at the end of the day, he ends up as what he considers to be the most important professions in his life, to be a great husband to his wife June and father to his less than one year 14-month-old daughter, Athena.

When asked what's his greatest failure?

When asked what's his greatest success?

Show notes:

Passion

• Doing something that I really love doing
• Relate that to being an entrepreneur

Childhood Dreams      

Through High School and College, John had a lot of dreams and wanted to get into many fields:

• politics
• photographer
• writer
• chef
• architect
• finance

Resposibilities to the family business

• He realized following his dreams wasn't as easy as it seemed to be
• His dad wanted him to help out in the family business
• A few months into the family business, everything was routine and boring
• Then he followed his dad's advice, to take a vacation
• He went out of the country to babysit his sister and helped her with her MBA

Return to Family Business

• After his vacation, John's dad setup a new pharmaceutical / medical business
• It was not part of his dreams, but he felt the responsibility to help out his dad so he gave it a shot.
• Worked his ass off, but the business was not a success
• Eventually found himself dragging his feet to work
• Later on shut down operations as it was losing money

Courage

• After closing the business, he asked himself, "What's going to happen next? Am I going to work for another company? Or am I going to start pursuing my dreams?"
  
• Got the courage to talk to his dad asking "would you mind if I pursued something on my own?"
• To this day, he's very happy that his dad didn't stop him
• Dad just asked "will that pay you well?" because he was after his well being

Glass is Never Full

• John went into different things but had one big realization: to think that the glass is always half empty / half full.
• Thus, because of his curiosity and drive to be all that he ever wanted to be, he went into things always thinking that there are more things to experience. Ventures were always based on interest and curiosity.

Why is he a businessman?   

• His niece asked him why was he a businessman
• He told his niece he's a businessman because he gets to do everything he wants to do. He may not be 100% on a specific profession, but he's doing it.
  
• Technically he's not an architect, he's not a chef, or any of the original things he dreamed of while growing up, BUT
  
• He is part of a food business - makes him a chef
• Finishing construction of a site now - makes him an architect
• He gets to write Projects that need some PR/content - makes him a writer
• Dealing with different business and unique characters their unique backgrounds - makes him feel like a politician
• He has free time to dabble into finance - got him into finance
• The manageability of time as an entrepreneur has allowed for time to learn finance for personal investing - makes him feel like a fund manager/finance person
  

Lesson       

• Never keep your glass full
• Always keep your glass half empty / half full
• There are many things to learn, so many things to do    

"The Board" message       

FYI - What is a Serial Entrepreneur?

According to thefreedictionary.com,

Although this is the normal description everyone seems come by online, we believe Serial Entrepreneurs are simply more dynamic than that single-liner. Leave a comment and tell us what you think. Thanks!