If this video has inspired and empowered you, please share it with all your friends and loved ones. Everyone deserves the opportunity to live their life with success and abundance

If this video has inspired and empowered you, please share it with all your friends and loved ones. Everyone deserves the opportunity to live their life with success and abundance

Risk Taking.
How do you feel about it? What thoughts and emotions do you associate with the act of taking risks? Are they negative or positive? Most people have negative thoughts and feelings about taking risks. They associate risk with ‘danger’, ‘uncertainty’, ‘gambling’, ‘speculation’ and the ‘fear of loss’. As a result, many people avoid risks. They’d rather go for something that give them 100% certainty like ‘capital guaranteed investments,’ ‘fixed deposits’ and a ‘stable job with fixed increments’.

Yet, in order to live our life to the fullest and be all that we can be, we have to take risks. To be happy, rich and successful we have to take risks. If you want the freedom and financial success that entrepreneurship brings, you have to take the risk of losing money in a business startup. If you want to experience the joy of being married, you have to take the risk of having your heart broken and losing half your assets in a divorce.

Success is Directly Proportional to the Level of Risk

The level of success you will experience in life is directly proportional to the level of risk you are willing to take. At the same time, society pays a huge financial premium for uncertainty.

For example, if you are a relationship manager who sells insurance policies and unit trusts in a bank, your income will not be more than $50,000-$60,000 a year. However, if you are a financial planner with an insurance company selling the same quantity of life insurance products, your income could be $300,000-$500,000 a year. Why is there such a big difference in the level of compensation? It’s because the bank manager is paid a fixed salary (with a small commission) while the financial planner has no fixed salary but is paid huge commissions. Financial planners are paid much more because they are willing to take a higher level of risk (i.e. not earning anything if no sale is closed).

It is for these very same reasons that CEOs and bosses of companies are paid an average of 5-10 times more than their employees. An employee has the certainty of a fixed salary. Business owners and CEOs’ income are based very much on profits, stock options and variable bonuses. The boss of a company takes the risk of making nothing and he even risks losing money if the business goes bust. At the same time, they have the chance of making millions when the company does well. They are again compensated for taking on this uncertainty.

This is also why money placed in a capital guaranteed investment (i.e. fixed deposit) pays an interest of a paltry1%-3%. However, money invested in the stock or property market can grow as much as 20%-500% a year. When you want absolute certainty, do not expect to achieve or receive much in return. When you are willing to accept uncertainty, you have a good chance of being handsomely rewarded for it.

The Most Successful People Take the Biggest Risk

“Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one’s ideas, to take a calculated risk and to act”
-Andrew Malraux (French Statesmen 1901-1976)

The most successful people in the world became who they were because at a certain point of their life, they were willing to take a risk and to go for their dream. Susan Boyle realized her dream of becoming an international singing superstar at the age of 47 because she dared to take the risk of competing in a singing contest (Britain’s Got Talent) against people half her age. Despite looking plain, frumpy and unattractive, she bravely took to the stage and faced an audience hostile to her because of her age and appearance. Everyone laughed and expected her to squawk like a duck. Instead, they were struck with awe when she gave a stunning performance.

With her newfound fame, Boyle released her first album, ‘I Dreamed a Dream’. In only six weeks of sales, it became the biggest selling album in the world for 2009, selling 9 million copies. In September 2010, Boyle was officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as having had the fastest selling debut album by a female artist in the United Kingdom. She was also awarded the record for being the oldest person to reach number one with a debut album in the United Kingdom.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are credited for starting the technological revolution of the 1980s-1990s and changing our lives forever with Microsoft and Apple because they dared to take the risk of dropping out of school, rejecting the safe route most people take and going for their entrepreneurial dreams instead.

Imagine if these people were afraid to take a chance. Imagine if they had the mentality of having to be 100% sure all of the time. They would probably have taken a safe boring and not attempted anything. And the world wouldn’t be where it is today…if not for these exceptional risk takers.

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live”
- Leo. F. Buscaglia

This is an excerpt from my latest book, ‘Winning The Game of Life!”

Dear Friends

I am extremely happy and excited to announce the launch of my 12th and latest book, ‘Winning The Game of Life!”. My book will be officially launched into all the Singapore bookstores on 16 November 2011. Thousands of copies have already been ordered by all major bookstores and I am sure there will be a mad rush for the first edition. It is already being translated into Vietnamese, Indonesian and Mandarin and will be available in China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia within the next 2-3 months. This is one of the best books I have written and I am really happy to share it with you, my friends and supporters.

Life Is Like A Game.
Have You Mastered The Strategies To Overcome Defeat, To Win & To Achieve Lasting Happiness?
Anyone can become a winner in the game of life – when you know how. If you would like to become the best in your field, enjoy beautiful relationships,create financial abundance, and have everlasting happiness…

With 19 Chapters Of Information-Rich, Practical And Actionable Content, This Book Will Change The Way You Play Your Game
Do you play to win or not to lose? If you are amongst the few who play to win, this book will equip you with the essential success blueprints. Learn about emotions, mindsets, strategies, motivation, checklists, psychology, tips, anecdotes, personal never-released stories.. everything I know, and everything you need to know about achieving lasting happiness and success!

What You Will Discover In This Book
-How to Take Control of Your Own Destiny
-What It Takes To Become The Best In Your Field
-Turn Adversity and Defeat into Opportunities for Success
-Staying Successful Amidst Global Competition
-The Secret to Lifelong Happiness and Fulfillment
-How to Develop Talent & Unleash Your Genius
-Develop High Self Esteem And Confidence
-Model & Replicate the Success Blueprints of Top Achievers
-Release the Emotional Baggage that Hold You Back
-How to Get Lucky
-Achieve Breakthrough Results in Your Career, Relationship, and Finances

P.S. If you happen to be a graduate from any of my programmes, my facebook friend or a registered member of my BLOG, you get the exclusive chance to get ‘Winning the Game Of Life’ before it hits the bookshops and with my personal autograph. You also get it at 20%-40% off the bookshop price. If you want to get this special pre-launch offer BEFORE the 16 November 2011, you can get an order form by sending an email to andrewoh@akltg.com.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it!

Adam Khoo

The school holidays are less than two months away and already my ‘I Am Gifted!’ programmes for the December holidays are filling up like crazy! Every week, we have hundreds of parents attending our seminars in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam to book their child a slot in the highly popular life transformational programme for students.

As a parent of two daughters myself, I can understand how stressful it can be when our children do not perform up to their highest potential. Deep down inside, we know that our kids are intelligent and have the potential to do so much better. The trouble is that sometimes, they may lack the self-confidence, motivation and right learning skills to score the distinctions that they deserve. It is truly amazing how much improvement children can make and how successful they can become once they learn the right mindsets and learning skills to make learning easy and fun.

Out of the many programmes that I teach (i.e. Leadership, Investing, business, NLP etc…), the one that I continue to enjoy the most is teaching students (aged 10-19) through my “I Am Gifted!” holiday programme and subsequently teaching their parents (through my Successful Parenting Workshops) to reinforce their learnings. The reason is because I have discovered that when children learn the powerful techniques of goal setting, time management, personal mastery, exam skills, speed reading etc…. at such a young age, it will give them a tremendous head start in life. It was these powerful ideas and super learning techniques that turned my life around 180 degrees 24 years ago when I was aged 13. For that, I will be forever indebted to my own mentor Ernest Wong.

I thought I would share with you some powerful ideas that I deliver to parents through my ‘I Am Gifted!’ Introductory Workshops in the videos below. A big thank you to my corporate parter OCBC bank for sponsoring this talk. You can watch the entire session on youtube as well. Enjoy my friends!

I am really proud to have given a personal endorsement to a dear old friend, Dr. Tony Tan who I have known since I was 13 years old. Dr. Tan made a positive impact in my life when I was young and I thought that it was the least I could do to be part of his 2011 campaign. Congrats Dr. Tan for being the 7th President of Singapore.

At the celebration dinner with Dr. Tony Tan, First Lady Mary Tan and my wife Sally Khoo