Dear Friends

You may have realized that I have not been blogging my philosophies for the last two months. Well, the reason is because I have been spending the last 60 days intensively writing my 8th book ‘Secrets of Building Million-Dollar Businesses’! Yes!!!! It is Completed!!! I would say that among all my other books, this is the one I am most passionate and proud if. It reveals all my insights and learnings on how to build successful businesses. It draws the lessons I have learnt from the time I started my first mobile disco business at 15 years old to the $30 million group of businesses I own today.

So, why am I so passionate about this particular book? Well, So, why did I write this book? Well, in the last ten years, I have seen so many of my friends start businesses with full of hope and dreams, only to see them crash and burn. And these were intelligent, hardworking and passionate individuals, many of them with business degrees.

So, why did they fail? Well, simply because intelligence, passion and hard work is simply NOT ENOUGH to build a successful business. I have found that to become a successful entrepreneur, you have to possess a specific set of mindsets and skill sets. Unfortunately, these mindsets and skill sets are something you can never learn in school or even in university.

You may have heard that less than 10% of businesses ever succeed. I am telling your from experience that it is NOT because these 10% were smarter or luckier than the rest. It is just because they did business THE RIGHT WAY. Well, in this book, I am going to show you the right way…step by step on exactly how you can build a multi-million dollar business starting from scratch.

Now that my manuscript is done, there is still a whole lot of work to be done before you will see it on the bookshelves. Here is the process of getting my manuscript into print…

1) Send for editing (my mum is doing this for me)
2) Get my illustrator (Aik Cher) to draw some cartoons and illustrations for the book
3) Send to a designer to design the cover and layout
4) Get an ISBN number from MITA (ministry of information and the arts)
5) Work with my distributors and the bookstores to get it launched
6) Get my publishing division to organize a book launch, author signing and get lots of publicity in the newspapers and magazines

The whole process is going to take at least 2 months+. In the meantime, I will tease you with extracts from my chapters and show you the book covers, layouts and pictures as they come out.

P.S. Those of you who are graduates of my programme will get the opportunity to buy this book at a super duper discount that you can never get at the bookshops by pre-ordering the book ad getting the very first collector’s item print

Dear friends,

Just want to share a recent proud moment in my life. I was extremely honored and humbled to receive the Eminent Alumni Award from NUS Business School last week.

I still find it hard to believe that I could have been selected as one of the most successful business leaders among a class of thousands of elite students who have passed through the doors of NUS Business School in the last few decades.

Adam Khoo receiving the award from Mr. Lee Yi Shyan, Minister for Trade and Industry

What amazes me the most about receiving this award was the fact that two decades ago, nobody ever believed that I would qualify for a tertiary education (not even myself), let alone the National University of Singapore.

As a student in my teens, I was a slow learner and an underachiever. Fights in school had gotten me expelled in Primary four. I did so badly for my PSLE that I was rejected from all six secondary schools that I had applied for. Back then in Ping Yi Secondary School (a neighborhood school in Chai Chee), I was told by my friends that I would be lucky to qualify for a polytechnic and that going to university was an unrealistic dream.

Then at the end of secondary one, something happened that would change and define my life forever. After attending a motivational program for teens, I learnt about the power of positive thinking and began to discover accelerated learning techniques that would allow me to learn five times faster than before.

Empowered and inspired, I leant to dream big. I set the audacious goals of becoming one of the top students in Singapore and making my first million by the age of 26. That was the time when I set the goal of going into NUS Business School, where I would get the best business education I needed to pursue my entrepreneurial dream!

While I started by first business at the age of 15 (a mobile disco business I founded in secondary three) and a training business at the age of 21, NUS Business School helped to give me the essential knowledge, skills and opportunities that gave me the competitive edge in building Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group to become one of Singapore’s largest education and training company.

Indeed, dreams do come true. However, I have learnt that you have to first start by believing in yourself and daring to dream big. If a once hopeless underachiever like myself can rise to become a top student and among the top business leaders, then anyone can! All of us have the phenomenal potential to design our own destiny. I am very proud to say that NUS Business School has played a significant role in helping me to design mine!

I received this email yesterday and I would like to share it with you:

Wow! Thank you Citran for your very special letter. It really touched and inspired me so much that I just had to share it with the world (through my blog).

It just goes to show you never know when you’re going to touch and change someone’s life, and the people around them, with your thoughts, words, and actions.

So go out there and start living a fantastic life and BE an inspiration to the people around you!

I am really proud and honored to be featured as an ‘Expert Dad’ on this months issue of Young Parents. But the credit has to really go to my wife Sally who is truly an excellent Mother. My kids are really lucky to have her as a Mum.

Before my first child was born, Sally would go to the bookshop and pick up all the books that were available on parenting, child development, accelerated learning and children’s health. She spent nights reading over 38 books to ensure that she had the best knowledge to create the best environment for my childrens’ learnings. She even poured through over 50 issues of Young Parents magazines, cutting and filing useful articles on parenting tips.

Today, she spends hours enriching my daughters by reading to them, playing educational toys and exposing them to as many things as possible. This article is really dedicated to her!

A couple of months ago I Blogged about my experience at the immigration in Changi Airport. Although there was an ‘Automated Clearance’ machine that allowed Singaporeans to go through customs by scanning their passport and thumbprints, many people just preferred to stand at the long queues where they went through the manual process of going through the Immigration officer.

Last week, I had a similar experience. When I went to Changi Airport Terminal 2, I noticed that there were at least 10 automated check-in machines for Singapore Airlines customers. The funny thing was that it was completely unused!!! Instead, there were long queues of people at the manual check-in counters.

Although I have never used it before and has no clue how to work it, I just thought I would give it a shot. Afterall, I was late and did not fancy joining the long queue to get checked-in. I must say the machine was amazing. It first asks you to insert your credit card and passport for identification. Then you able to select your own seats on the plane just like booking a movie seat online…COOOL!

In less than 2 minutes, the machine prints out my boarding pass. As for the check in baggae, you just drop it into a bag-drop and its in! In under 6 minutes I had checked in and had gone through immigration (automated machine of course).

So, why is nobody using these super cool technology? Are people afraid of doing something new? Must someone tell them to do it? What do you think? Where is the proactive spirit? Have you seen those machines yourself before? Have you used it? Why not?

A couple of months ago, I talked about writing an entire series of ‘Secrets of…’ books. Given the huge phenomenal success of Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires and the tons of emails I have gotten from hundreds of people who have benefitted from just reading the book, I discovered that there are so many people who want to learn concerete and practical strategies on HOW TO MAKE MONEY through sales, business, investing, marketing etc….

I think people are fed up of all these typical ‘you can make money’ books in the bookshops that give you are the crap, bullshit and fluff about making money WITHOUT actually teaching you HOW TO DO IT. One good example is a recent book written by two world famous gurus who want you to be rich but honestly I felt like puking when I read the contents. No substance whatseoever in my opinion. It was more like a big PR stunt to cross sell all their related products.

So anyway, enough griping! I said a few posts ago that I will write a series of Wealth Books under the ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires series’ that will contain real, no bullshit, no holds-barred strategies that I personally use to create my multiple streams of income. The first in the series will be ‘SECRETS OF MILLIONAIRE INVESTORS’ that I am targeting will be launched in bookstores by 24 June 2007. And I know that the only way I will write it is if I put myself ON THE LINE and announce it to ALL OF YOU OUT THERE!

For those of you who think 7 months is a really long time to get a book out, let me tell you the list of things that must be done…

1) Come up with the table of contents (Just got it done!!!!)
2) Write each chapter. I have listed 9 chapters and each will take about a week to complete! This is given that I write 4-5 pages everyday amidst my training schdedule (which you know I speak every day for average of 4-7 hours) and running my companies and spending time with family and of course trading the US and Singapore markets
=> Total time will be about 9 weeks
3) First round personal editing => about 2 weeks
4) send for editing & corrections=> this will take about 4 weeks
5) Get copyright permissions from the websites that I quote from => about 2 weeks
6) Get someone to do illustrations and design the cover and layout => About 6 weeks
7) Select a printer and go through the printing process => 2 weeks
Liase with distributors and bookshops on the launch campaign => 2 weeks
9) Meeting with my marketing team to dream u all the necessary advertising and promotional materials (ads, flyers, contests, book launch, media release, talks) => 3 weeks

Of course, some of these things can be done concurrently but all in all, I see it on the shelves in June 2007! I will you guys updated about the ongoing progress. Cheer me on! I need the morale support!

For you guys who are wondering why I am making this announcement it is becasue I have learnt that over the years, human beings WILL ALWAYS procrastinate on heir goals and NEVER get it done. ‘I will do it later…’, ‘I still have time…’, ‘ even if I don’t finish, it does not matter…’ The secret of achieving a major goal or project is to PUT YOURSELF ON THE LINE by making a commitment to everyone you know. That way it becomes a MUST to achieve and there is no way you can give yourself excuses anymore.

‘ Human beings will never ever achieve anything until and unless it becomes a must for them.’ The main thing that motivated me so much when I was a kid to score straight As and top my school was because I put myself on the line by telling all my teachers, friends and even tutition teacher that I WILL TOP MY SCHOOL and GET INTO VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE. At that time, for a kid like me from a neighbourhood school to dream of getting into VJC seem crazy, but with enough passion and commitment, EVERYTHING is POSSIBLE.

Recently, one of my graduates from Patterns of Excellence Program (who also happens to be my personal insurance agent) achieved her Court of the Table (COT) (an award given out to the top 1% of insurance advisors in the world). BTW, COT advisors typically earn at least over $300,000 a year in income. Although she achieved the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) for a couple of years (which is no big deal), she was never able to hit the COT, which requires a production of triple that of the MDRT. Like most people, she lost her momentum after a while. So how did she finally achieve her COT after my program? Well, she put herself on the line by making a personal commitment to her team mates and support group. I also put her on the line by constantly announcing to everyone that she WILL ACHIEVE COT last year and this year. And guess what? She did it! Her name is Lorraine Koh from Prudential.

Stay tuned for my next post on the progress of my latest book!

Â

This post is specially dedicated to the 112 graduates of Wealth Academy Oct 2006! Training two major programs (Patterns of Excellence and Wealth Academy) has been extremely intense but hugely rewarding. Thank you all for your wonderful emails, testimonials and comments. I am really glad that all of you really pushed yourself past your mental and physical limits…sleeping 3-4 hours a day (maybe even less), going through 54 of non-stop wealth training and games and being able to come up with a business within 8 hours!

You should be really proud of yourselves. I want you to know that all of you have learnt and experienced more in 4 days than what most other people learn over a lifetime of trial and error. You have learnt…
1) How to identify the best undervalued stocks in the market today
2) How to track the investment decisions of the richest investors in the world
3) How to create mutliple streams of income through intellectual property, Internet marketing, business and so much more
4) The winning habits and principles of self-made millionaires
5) How to build a business that will be among the top 10% of its industry
6) How to double your sales and business profits through the power of advertising and marketing
7) How to to maximize your market value and personal income

The most important thing is to continue to push yourself as you return to your daily lives and keep taking massive action. And I guarantee that you will see the fruits of your labour.

If you happen to be reading this post, feel free to leave a comment on your experience in Wealth Academy right here!

It’ s been about 2 weeks since my last entry. I know it is an excuse but the last two weeks have been really packed back to back. But hey, I am not complaining. I am certainly having the time of my life.

I just completed the Patterns of Excellence Module One training. It was truly a great experience watching how over 112 people managed to break their perceived barriers and learn the strategies of how to take charge of their life and find the renewed passion to go for their dreams! I think what was really special about this particular group was that many of the participants had such powerful personal stories to share that what they said was probably even more powerful that what I shared. We had so many cases of participants who had experienced multiple business failures and personal bankruptcies and yet found the courage to bounce back and rebuild their lives. We had some young participants who had lost their loved ones and found the strength to use their painful experience as a springboard to find their driving force again. When many of the participants heard what some of their peers had to share, it really put their own lives in perspectives. I must also say that after every life transformational program like this, I learn as much from my students as they learn from it. I too, am always re-transformed and re-inspired whenever I finish a course like the patterns of excellence. I would really like to say a heart felt thanks to all of you who came and gave your heat and soul!

I have also been so blessed to receive so many wonderful testimonials from people who have made such fantastic progress from reading my latest book ‘Secrets of Self Made Millionaires’. I just thought I would post his email here.

<< Dear Mr Khoo

I admit. I was an extremely skeptical person in life and never trusted any self-improvement or “get-rich” books. But after I read your “Secrets Of Self-Made Millionaire” book, it really changed my entire attitude and I realized that throughout my entire life, I have been living like a VICTIM — using “skepticism” as an excuse to cover up for my “laziness-to-do-anything”

WOW! After I applied the Internet Moneymaking Principles you shared, I made a tidy profit of $500 from 2 main internet marketing streams namely; eBook Sales and Adsense publishing.

regards
John>>

Thanks for the email John, it really means alot. For those of you who are wondering if I have any upcoming books in the pipeline, the answer is…definitely so! In fact, I am working on the following upcoming titles, ‘ Secrets of Millionaire Investors’, ‘Secrets of Building Million Dollar Businesses’, ‘Secrets of Super Students’…so look out for it.

I am also really pleased to report that Wealth Academy 2006 (Oct 5-8) is ALMOST SOLD OUT. There are only a couple of seats left so if you always wanted to not only learn the theories, but to experience first hand how to build multiple streams of income and build a million-dollar networth, then come down for one of our last few previews. You can register a free seat at www.akltg.com

Have Fun, Make a Difference and Make Money

Wow! A whole week has zoomed past since my last post. Time really flies when you are super busy and having lots of fun. So, here are some updates about what’s happening in my life and business…

A couple of days ago, I watched Adam Sandler’s latest blockbuster ‘Click’, I thought it would be Sandler’s usual mindless, slapstick and vulgar comedy (which I love to unwind to by the way!). To my surprise, it was not only funny but extremely philosophical and life transformational…if you actually look deep beyond just the comedy and into the message it is delivering.

The show was about a success driven architect (played by Adam Sandler) who like many people, looked forward to achieving his career goals of becoming a partner and a CEO one day. In his quest for career success, he had to constantly sacrifice his time for family and the hours of hard work that came with it. However he dreaded having to go through all the months and years of hard work, slogging and worry before he could eventually get his promotion. He wished that he could just skip through his family commitments 9when they cropped up) so he could just get his work done and achieve his goals.

So, it was a dream come true when a strange man from nowhere appeared and gave him a Universal Remote that could fast forward/pause/mute and rewind every part of his life that he did not like to go through. At first, it seemed like a dream come true when he could fast forward through his wife’s nagging, time he had to spend with his children and parents, hours working on his project and even fast forwarding through sex. He was so impatient on achieving his goal that he kept fast-forwarding through all the tough times so that he could only experience THE END RESULT, theta he thought would make him happy. During fast forward mode, his mind would go on ‘auto-pilot’ where he just ‘went through the motions’. He just wanted to reach his life’s destinations without having to walk the journey.

After fast forwarding through A WHOLE YEAR of LIFE and feeling the happiness of finally receiving his dream promotion to partner, he discovers that his children have all grown up and apart from him. His wife has lost her feelings from him as he acted like a zombie (his mind was on autopilot). After his constant habit of fast forwarding, the Universal remote develops a ‘habitual memory’ and keeps fast forwarding through all his family time, all his work hours to only arrive at his goals. The next thing he knew, the Remote fast forwarded TEN YEARS into the future within a split second, where he becomes CEO of his company. Except when he reaches there, he finds that his wife had left him, his parents have died and his children have all grown up and moved on. He was so fixated on getting his goal that he was not there to experience all these events. Soon after, he suffers a heart attack and his minutes away from death.

It was there that he realized that his whole life had passed him by in a blink of an eye and that he would trade all his goals for the chance to go back and experience every single event that he fast forwarded past.

In real life, many people do the same thing. We think that it is reaching the end of the rainbow and finding the pot of gold that would make us happy. We think that it is only the day that we make that $1 million or the day we become CEO that we become happy. So we miserably slog through each day or our lives, forgetting & ignoring the beauty of the people and events around us. However, the truth is that the happiness derived from reaching a goal may seem super exciting for a few moments. However, the next thing we know, we must pursue and reach another higher goal in order to feel that short happiness once again.

If you think about it, we spend 99% of the time chasing a goal and 1% of the time achieving it. If you only allow yourself to enjoy and feel happy when you achieve a goal, then you are only happy during 1% of your life. That’s crazy! You allow yourself to feel miserable 99% of the time in order to feel happy 1% of the time.

This show truly reminded me that success is about enjoying and savoring each and every step of the journey; the pleasant times and the bad. The easy and the tough times. I remind myself to enjoy every moment I am on stage speaking, listening to my wife (even when she nags), watching my children play, writing my books, dealing with huge challenges, training my participants and managing my staff. I find that when I truly enjoy each step of the journey that I am truly successful.

Over the weekend, I went to do my round of book talks at Kinokuniya, Borders and Times. It was great to meet so many of you who came down to give such overwhelming support. It was also very heatwarming to hear your personal success stories after applying teh welath creation stratagies within. There was a lady who increase her personal sales income and just a month and another gentleman who decided to finally take charge of his finances after working for 7 years without any savings to show for it. A big thank you to all of you who have supported my latest book and a big thank you to all the bookstores: Popular, MPH, Times, Kinokuniya and Borders for making Secrets of Self Made Millionaires #1 in Singapore.