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8-Year-Old Passes by Homeless Woman Sleeping on the Street Every Day - This Encounter Inspires Her
Uplifting News

8-Year-Old Passes by Homeless Woman Sleeping on the Street Every Day - This Encounter Inspires Her

Khloe Thompson from Irvine, California, was raised by her mother and her grandmother. From a young age, she was taught to be kind and compassionate to others.Her mother and her grandmother encouraged her thoughtful and inquisitive nature. And though Khloe was a beacon of positivity, as she grew older, her curious nature led her to question the injustices of the world.Khloe was only eight years old when she asked her mother why there were people sleeping on the street. There was one homeless person in particular that Khloe passed every day. “Her name was Michelle,” Khloe says matter-of-factly. After Khloe’s mother had a talk with her about homelessness, the eight-year-old could no longer bear to simply pass Michelle on the street every day.“When someone needs help,” she insists, “you’re not just going to walk by them and do nothing. You’re gonna act on it.”Khloe Kare Bags for the HomelessPhoto by Chris JohnThe young girl did what was in her power to do, making bags and stuffing them with things she thought the women and children she saw on the street might need: toothbrushes, toothpaste, socks, underwear, soap and feminine hygiene products. With youthful enthusiasm, she delivered the 25 bags she had made before realizing she would need to make many, many more. The need in her community was so great. Inspired by Khloe’s work ethic and conviction, her mother and grandmother helped her set up a nonprofit organization, which they named Khloe Kares. As a registered nonprofit, they could collect donations and make even more of the Khloe Kare Bags. But Khloe wasn’t satisfied just raising money. She wanted to hand deliver each of the bags and talk with the women.What Will Really Help People“You’re actually there and you’re showing that you care,” she says. Khloe insists that the one-on-one connection is the most important. She listens to their stories, tells them hers — and often, just making eye contact with the recipients of her bags and giving them a hug is interaction they haven’t had in a long, long time. Khloe says meeting the neediest people in her community makes her happy, too. “I’m here and I want to be here.” She calls the happy feelings she experiences when she connects with someone her “smile money.”When people heard about Khloe’s efforts, her initiative went viral. Schools and community groups across the United States started asking her to come and speak to them. She was just 10 years old yet she was speaking in front of hundreds of people.Khloe’s main message was always this: “You can be what you want to be because nothing can stop you.” She wants to make sure that kids her age know that they are capable of making a difference.Spreading the LovePhoto by Brett SaylesKhloe had spoken to many young people across the country when she received a heartfelt invitation from across the globe. A small group calling themselves “The Sunday Morning Girls” begged her to visit them in Ghana. Khloe was both excited and nervous.When she arrived in the girls’ village, Khloe was entertained with an elaborate welcome ceremony. She was shown all around the village. Khloe had never been somewhere without running water. She was surprised to see girls her age responsible for making dinner.“It’s very different from how I live,” she said. But when the girls started telling Khloe about their dreams for the future — to become doctors, pilots — she started to find things they had in common: “A lot of them want to help people, and also, I like to help people, so we do have some things in common.”In a country where opportunities for women are often limited, a young girl speaking to an audience about how to follow their dreams was a phenomenon. Khloe led the children in creating vision boards to inspire themselves and to help set goals.“Anything’s possible when you put your mind to it,” she reminded them.Recognized for Her EffortsWhen Khloe won a Points of Light Award in 2019, she saw Khloe Kares grow and help even more people. Natalye Paquin is the president and CEO of Points of Light, an organization that supports nonprofits. “There is a seismic shift that occurs when someone in need is cared for,” she explained, “and with every Kare Bag she delivers, Khloe is driving transformative change in her community and lighting the path for people of all ages to step forward and say, ‘I can help.’”It’s high praise for the girl from California who saw a need in her community and stepped up to fill it. “Never let your age stop you from being the next changemaker,” she says proudly.If Khloe could have one wish, it would be that homelessness didn’t exist. “Everybody deserves a place where they feel safe,” she says with tears in her eyes. In the meantime, she’ll continue to deliver her Khloe Kare Bags in person, exchanging items that might make a person’s life a little easier for “smile money.”More from Goalcast:Millionaire Reads About Homeless Couple in the News – Shocks Neighbors by Inviting Them to Live In His $4M MansionRestaurant Owner Sees Homeless Woman Searching for Food in the Trash – This Encounter Inspires Her

America's Best Boss Dan Price Is Speaking Out Against Stock Market Injustices
Entrepreneurs

America's Best Boss Dan Price Is Speaking Out Against Stock Market Injustices

The stock market has been in the news more than ever over the past few weeks, as less successful stocks have been incredibly, well, successful. And Dan Price, the boss who went viral for giving a minimum yearly salary of $70K to all his employees, is standing up for the greater good of the collective once again. Recent developments have led to stock market novices beating rich stockholders using the same tricks that they themselves have long used to make money.What is really going onMany started to question what the stock market actually means, and how valid its projections are, if it can so easily be manipulated. And it turns out, that’s precisely the point, according to Dan Price, the CEO of Gravity Payments. He explained why there’s actually no link between the stock market and reality in a Twitter thread that went viral.In fact, at its essence, believes Price, it’s a system that allows the rich to exploit the poor.Prince mentions examples such as airlines spending 96% of free cash flow on stock buybacks for a decade, then cutting 90,000 jobs, but then getting a $50 billion bailout. He brought up other companies too that laid off or furloughed employees, only to give their CEOs giant bonuses.He points out: “On Jan. 6, when the mob stormed the Capitol, the stock market went up 250 points to a new record, handing the richest 1% an extra $300 billion. Also that day, a new report showed employment dropped for the first time since April and a then-record 3,900 people died of covid.”A great divideSo does he have a point? Apparently, yes. Sam from the Financial Samurai blog was interviewed by Bored Panda and explained that the stock market created a giant divide between the rich and the average-income earners.“CEOs have no magical powers. Yes, they have the operational experience to run big companies. However, they are often just spokespeople and ambassadors of the firm. One person cannot make that big a difference in a large organization. If Tim Cook from Apple steps down, the company will be fine. Another overpaid CEO will take his place,”“The reason why CEOs can get paid so much is due to the direct correlation of the size of the company. When a company is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, it’s easier to pay a CEO tens of millions of dollars a year, which comprised mostly of stock options." “At the end of the day, the CEO and the Board of Directors’ goal is to provide as much value and returns as possible for its shareholders. And if that means firing thousands of employees, then that is what they will do. It is a sad reality of extreme capitalism.”Dan Price had endless examples of companies that mess with their employees’ livelihoods and cut jobs but somehow pay their CEOs huge bonuses. All of this enables the rich getting richer.An example of great leadershipDan went viral for cutting his own pay so that his employees could make more – but unfortunately, many aren’t like him. Business is business and, at the end of the day, those leaders often worry about the people on top before anyone else. That isn’t likely to change any time soon.But Dan’s twitter thread – and own history of being a great boss – shows that we can decide to change, within our own companies and lives – and set an example. Maybe more bosses can be like Dan Price and understand that it’s the people – the ones who keep businesses going – that need to be appreciated and taken care of. More uplifting news: Millionaire CEO Gets Wake-Up Call, Gives $70,000 Minimum Wage To All EmployeesThis Boss Just Gave $10 Million in Holiday Bonuses to His 198 EmployeesMacKenzie Bezos Pledges to Give Away Half of Her $37 Billion FortuneChiefs Player Who Abandoned His Team Is The Real Winner Of Super Bowl LV

Raised By Immigrant Parents, He Takes A Huge Risk At 24 Despite Disapproval - Today, He's A Millionaire
Motivation

Raised By Immigrant Parents, He Takes A Huge Risk At 24 Despite Disapproval - Today, He's A Millionaire

Trung Vien's parents moved from Vietnam to Australia "with basically nothing -- not a word of English and no experience or qualifications,” he said. But years later, he has managed to build up $10 million of property holdings and a promising pandemic-proof business. A Domino's effectVien's parents were hard-working immigrants who wanted the best for their son. So when, at 24, he told them he wanted to skip university and leave his relatively high-paying financial planning job to open a Domino's pizza shop, they were shocked. But even though he knew nothing about business, he liked the Domino's brand and the franchise model was scalable, so he took the plunge.“My parents said, ‘you can’t go into business, you have to go to uni and work a corporate job and be safe’, but I didn’t tell them that in my first year I made more than double the amount I had made at the bank,” he told News.com.au. "It was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life."Trung VienVien continued to be successful. In 2013, he bought a gym and started buying up properties in Brisbane.He worked extremely hard and rarely took any vacations, but the Brisbane real estate market dropped and he found himself “up to his eyeballs” in debt. Still, he owned $10 million worth of properties.“I did it by working hard and not taking holidays because my long term goal was to put cashflow into my investments."Trung VienHe took a break and found a new opportunityVien decided to take a much-needed break and his creative juices started to flow. He thought about his friends who were stressed out with their jobs, kids, and marriages, and noticed they were all losing their hair.“I thought, you know what, there must be a good solution to this problem and seeing my friends are facing it, it must be happening everywhere,” he told news.com.au.So in March 2020, he launched Hair Folli, a hair care brand that uses “superfood” Kakadu plum to treat the problem of hair loss.He didn't expect the company to do well right off the bat -- it was launched at the start of a global pandemic after all. But, “After the first two or three weeks we had a couple of hundred thousand dollars in sales," he said. "We had launched with a lot of hype because we knew there was a gap in the market."Vien said he expected the company to rake in $5 million in profits in 2021, a number he attributes to not having to pay huge overhead to sell in brick-and-mortar stores.The entrepreneur attributes his success to his hard-working immigrant upbringing.“Hearing my parents’ story makes me want to work harder to prove to them that ‘hey, I can make it big’ and provide an awesome business to the people in this country who gave us so much opportunity,” he said.Loosen the grip to boost creativityWe've heard the story before -- person from a hard-working immigrant family makes it big. And it's always motivating. But an enlightening detail in this story is that when Vien decided to stop working crazy hours and take a vacation, he was able to find a passion project that appears to be on its way to major success. So take this as a reminder that hard work begets success, but so does loosening your grip to allow the creative juices to flow. More uplifting stories:4 Years Ago, He Was Homeless–Today, He Bought His First HousePoor Man Who Missed Job Interview To Save A Life Had Employers Lining Up To Hire HimDomestic Abuse Survivor Marries The First Responder Who Saved Her LifeBrooklyn Landlord Cancels Rent For Hundreds Of Tenants, Setting An Unprecedented Example For Others

You Failed, Now What? Successful Entrepreneurs Share Their Comeback Stories
Entrepreneurs

You Failed, Now What? Successful Entrepreneurs Share Their Comeback Stories

If you’re in the beginning stages of a side hustle, bouncing a few big ideas around, or just trying to make your way up the competitive corporate ladder, it’s important to think positively, manifest, and to not be so hard on yourself. Especially if you are comparing yourself to the most ambitious companies out there. Why? Though it may seem rosy from the outside, every company and entrepreneur has to fail to discover their success. No matter how profitable they are today, at one point, they started from the ground up and had to work overtime to develop strategy, recover from mistakes and build their brand. Here, 5 successful entrepreneurs share how they recovered from failure:1. “Be transparent.”When Kari DePhillips started her company, The Content Factory, she was adamant about on truth: pay everyone. As a writer herself, she never wanted to ask for free content and because she also valued other creatives, she wanted to be prudent about paying for images, too.However, one of her new writers published a blog post to a client’s site that included a copyrighted image, unbeknownst to DePhillips. A few months later, a client received an email from a lawyer informing them they were being sued for $8,000 for using the photo. Not only was it embarrassing — but it was a lot of money for a young business. Though they eventually negotiated the fee down to $3000, it proved to be an expensive — but essential — learning for DePhillips. In addition to crossing her T’s and dotting her I’s, she now has a traceable, reliable workflow for every writer to follow, cutting down on mistakes. Most importantly, she discovered the value in being transparent. She published an expose, appropriately-titled "The $8,000 Mistake That All Bloggers Should Beware." It become the most popular piece of content, driving traffic and ironically enough, bringing in new clients. “People seem to like that vulnerability and candor and once they relate to you — flaws and all — they seem to be more comfortable doing business with you. Transparency is something I now carry throughout my business, from pricing to strategy to open communication with clients and employees,” DePhillips shared. 2. “Your team makes or breaks you..”Generally speaking, Julie Cole lives by the mantra "there are no failures, only lessons." However, that doesn’t mean it’s been easy-peasy growing her company, Mabel’s Labels. As the co-founder and senior director, it was difficult to hire and manage staff when she grew. Business is indeed, personal, and the people who work for your company reflect your brand. This means they can make or break your company — either through their smart actions or their poor choices. I was holding on to staff too long, even when they were not a fit or the company outgrew themShe shared: “It is always difficult to let staff go, but at the end of the day, you need a strong team with the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus.”Once she started to be more proactive and selective about her employees, she hired slowly and fired quickly, all in an effort to protect her brand and her bottom line. This resulted in more confidence, a fearless approach to business, and a strong retention rate. “We learned to develop and understand our company’s core values. In doing this, we could integrate our core values in our interview process and ensure we made smart hires. We try to hire and fire by our core values,” she explains. “We allow people to be 'intrapreneurial' in their jobs and we don’t micromanage them. Having a successful team makes for a successful business.”3. “You have to own your brand.”As the co-founder of Feel Good Foods, Vanessa Phillips has gone through many hurdles growing her company. Though some of it has been triumphs, she has also endured some failures. One notable failure involved preparing for a launch with a manufacturer who said everything would be covered. Phillips trusted them, and was excited to see them in the freezers of a large supermarket chain. However, as things developed, Feel Good Foods quickly realized the taste wasn’t up to their standards. Since they pride themselves on wholesome, delicious meals that are also nutritionally-sound, they were anxious about this misstep. Luckily, it was early into their company and they’ve recovered since, but it was a great lesson for Phillips. Nobody is going to watch your products and execute them the way that you would. "As we get bigger we have to trust the people around us a bit more but the once thing that cannot suffer is product integrity,” she continues. “This is so important and it's something you cant take your eyes off of even for one second, especially when product quality is the number one attribute of your product line.”4. “Call yourself what you are — and be proud.”Since she was a child, Dia Bondi says hustle has been at her core. She valued autonomy, adventure and creation. But as she started to dabble into an independent career, calling herself a coach and facilitator in the world of leadership communications, someone offered her an in-house gig. She did it to fit in — not because it was actually what she wanted to do with her profession. “It didn’t take long to see that this was a mistake. Some love the predictability and rhythm of a regular work day, to me it was a straitjacket. For some, being on the same team for a long time is a comfort, for me it was a bore,” Bondi explained. “My ability to contribute in meaningful ways withered." I couldn't stay connected to my creative self, my drive suffered. My light started to go out.So, she quit. She went back and developed her company, Ask Like An Auctioneer and now she guides professionals through their hurdles — personally and professionally. “I intentionally decided to trust my hustle, to dip back into the autonomous adventure of entrepreneurship. With no real plan, I rented a space and got back to work. It didn’t take long for my spark to come back,” she shared. “When I finally accepted my entrepreneurial self and recognized that was my way in the world, what I do and who I am became so much more aligned. And that’s made me more courageous, energized and have the kind of impact I can be proud of.”5. “Accept your weaknesses — and change them.”Though it might seem silly to take out a $100K loan when your business was facing bankruptcy, it was actually the right choice for Jessica Zimmerman. And it was the answer to the biggest mistake she made: not preparing herself for a career as an entrepreneur. In 2011, she bought an event business in the wedding industry, ready to hustle and watch her career skyrocket. Her predecessor went over the rental prices and she took everything as gospel, without doing research on the actual fair market price. She would make $20K in a month — but spend $21K. She would spend her days trying to book clients, her nights worrying about paying employees, and eventually, she knew something had to change. The answer? Going back to school so she could understand business basics. “But in order to get the education I needed, I’d have to put my business, and my all-hustle-all-the-time attitude on pause for an entire year. So I convinced the bank to give me a $100,000 loan, enabling me to spend twelve months learning how to turn my business around,” she shared. Today, her company is a 7-figure business, and she’s grateful she accepted her weakness and sought to change them. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that failure is inevitable. But if you’re willing to learn and grow, then failure isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something that happens for you.

The Mercedes-Benz "Emerging Leaders" Winners Are Changing the World, One Innovation at a Time
Entrepreneurs

The Mercedes-Benz "Emerging Leaders" Winners Are Changing the World, One Innovation at a Time

Being a woman in the world takes courage -- being an innovative leader takes dedication, passion and an unwavering confidence. That's exactly what Mercedes-Benz wanted to highlight with their "Emerging Leaders" winners this past autumn. Interestingly, Mercedes has a deep-rooted history with female empowerment -- in fact, it's in the brand's DNA. When founder Karl Benz lost motivation when his invention kept failing, his wife, Bertha Benz, took it upon herself to solve the technical issues and take the first Mercedes-Benz on the road. It comes as no surprise, then that Mercedes wants to continue to honor female leaders today. The winners of their "Emerging Leaders" span across many fields -- from doctors serving underprivileged communities and public interest designers to founders and CEOs. These women, aged between 30 and 40 are changing the world -- and inspiring others to do the same. When asked what advice these innovative leaders would give their former selves, here's what they had to say: You know who you are. Seek wisdom from others but trust yourself. You got this. -- Emily Mills, Founder, How She Hustles Slow down and enjoy the present moment. -- Karina Kesserwan, Founder & Partner, Kesserwan Arteau Inc. Believe in yourself, you are stronger than you think. -- Kim Hallwood, Head of Corporate Sustainability, HSBC Bank Trust your instincts, know your self-worth, and take more risks big and small. As a great mentor once told me, “don’t overthink it, just go for it!” -- Genevieve Pinto, Partner, Renewal Funds Be proud of your ambitions. -- Julie Quenneville, President, McGill University Health Centre Foundation These women show us that owning your authority in your industry and being proud of your drive will get you far in life, yes, but it will also carve the way for others, create a ripple effect and truly change the world. It really can start with you.

How to Hit Pay Dirt with Your Very First Business
Entrepreneurs

How to Hit Pay Dirt with Your Very First Business

Some say that most businesses fail because they don’t have a good website, or customer service, or proper execution of their product. But the truth is that most businesses fail because they never get started. If you want to see your big idea succeed, you need to stop procrastinating and make it happen, which is where your lifetime subscription to BizPlan comes in.BizPlan is a step-by-step business builder that divides all the tasks you need to do into bite-sized pieces so you can stay focused and accomplish less in more time. The simple drag-and-drop interface makes it an intuitive program to learn, and the collaboration tools make it easy to keep your team informed no matter how big it grows. Basically, it provides guidance: not only for those first few crucial steps that get your business off the ground but for several of the steps afterward. In all likelihood, you’ll still be using BizPlan years from now, when your “small business” idea is really up and running.The powerful programs built into this subscription contain everything you need to get going, including templates for your business plan, team salary forecasts, integration with popular tools like Xero and QuickBooks, and the ability to share your plan online and collaborate with investors and stakeholders. Imagine it: all your finances, your network of employees and collaborators, and your long-term vision for your business contained in one intuitive program. You’ll stop procrastinating not out of some burst of motivation or inspiration, but because Bizplan made starting your project so much easier. No more sitting around, blue-skying about what you will do one day when you have the time -- it’ll all fall into place shortly after you log into BizPlan, and hey, maybe you’ll even have fun with it.You can get your lifetime subscription to BizPlan right here right now for a limited time for just $39.20 with promo code: GREENMONDAY20.

How Serial Entrepreneur Dan Lok Went from “The Invisible Boy” to Multi-Millionaire Before the Age of 30
Entrepreneurs

How Serial Entrepreneur Dan Lok Went from “The Invisible Boy” to Multi-Millionaire Before the Age of 30

At the age of fourteen, Dan Lok made the long and difficult transition from his hometown in Hong Kong to Canada with his mother and father.However, what was supposed to be a hopeful transition became a painful journey of disappointment, struggle and loss as Lok’s world was turned upside down shortly after starting his new life.But despite the odds being stacked against him, Lok transformed his adversity into a reason to succeed and went on to become a multi-millionaire -- and do it before the age of thirty.This is the story of millionaire serial entrepreneur and mentor Dan Lok:The “invisible boy”I was becoming very good at becoming the invisible boy.From his first day of school in Canada, fourteen-year-old Dan Lok knew the transition was going to be tough.As one of only three Chinese in the entire school, in addition to being a new student to the area, Lok was the target of bullying throughout his high school years.Soon, he became adept at making himself unnoticed just to get through each difficult day. “Right after school, I would just grab my backpack, go to my locker and not look at anyone, not make any eye contact and just go home,” said Lok of his early high school days.But little did young Lok know at the time, this was only the beginning of a very difficult road.A turning pointI don’t care what effort it takes, I never want to see that again.Shortly after moving to Canada, at the age of sixteen, Lok’s mother and father got divorced.The bullying and challenges of feeling like he didn’t fit in were enough to make high school difficult, but this took things to another level.However, the challenges of Lok’s young adulthood weren’t over yet.One day, Lok arrived home to hear his mother speaking with someone in her bedroom. After the phone call, she walked out crying and spoke to Dan:“Mom, is everything okay?” said Dan.“Well, you know, I was talking on the phone with your dad and he just told me he went bankrupt,” said Dan’s mom.Dan’s father could no longer assist he and his mother financially.My mom was always a very positive… she’s like an angel to me. But, that’s the first time in my entire life that I looked at my mom now, in a country where she doesn’t speak the language…Her face… The hopelessness. I said, I don’t care. Whatever it takes, I never want to see that again.That moment was a turning point for Lok, who resolved to make something of himself and support both he and his mother from then on.Not long after that, watching Bruce Lee in his martial arts classic Way of the Dragon -- which depicts a Chinese martial artist (Lee) face off against an American karate master (Chuck Norris)– inspired Lok to pursue martial arts himself.And he was a guy who couldn’t speak English went to Rome and got criticized, and then suddenly he was kicking ass and protecting people, so he became a hero in a way...he became the father figure I never had.Signing up to karate helped Lok develop the confidence he was lacking, the confidence to commit to himself to make it happen -- whatever it took. He’d take care of his mom and do it without the help of his dad.And he did just that. After experimenting with several odd jobs, from paper delivery man to mowing lawns, Lok eventually started his own one-man advertising agency. With his first taste of success -- eventually making ten thousand dollars a month through that same business -- he was off to the races.But that’s not the end of Dan Lok’s story. Life has a way of putting things into perspective when you least expect it.An unexpected lossBe grateful with what you have while you strive for more.After several years had gone by, and Lok had the opportunity to mature and develop, he decided to reconnect with his father who was living in Hong Kong at the time.After a long conversation about what happened, Lok could tell his dad was suffering financially and resolved to travel to Hong Kong to spend time with his father.Shortly after arriving in Hong Kong, Lok took a walk with his father and had a face-to-face conversation:“Dad, you see that window up there?” said Dan.“Yeah,” said his father.Dan reached in his pocket, pulled a set of keys, and put it in his father’s hands. He looked puzzled.“Dad, I bought that unit for you. You got a place to live now. This is yours,” said Dan.Crying, his father said, “Son, let’s go get lunch.”In addition to his professional success, his relationship with his father was now better than ever. Things were looking up until an unexpected shift in his father’s health changed everything.After going in for a regular checkup, Lok’s father didn’t call him back to give him an update on his condition. The next day, he received a phone call from his aunt at 3:00 A.M. His dad was in the emergency room being prepped for surgery.At the time, Lok was chasing the biggest business deal of his life. He had to be in the states to close the deal, so he did a short video conference with his father so he could speak with him before being able to return to Hong Kong.Dad, once … as soon as I finish I will come back and see you.That was the last time Dan was able to speak with his father. “That was it. I never got to say goodbye,” said Lok.A new perspectiveDan would never be able to say goodbye to his father. But it was this unfortunate event which served as the catalyst to opening an entirely new perspective for Dan and his life.From that point on, I realized something...that I was chasing achievement. I was chasing all these things, and when suddenly my dad was gone, suddenly all this stuff means a lot less. Suddenly it means a lot less to me: fame, money, wealth. All this stuff.It was from this realization that Lok began to notice the stages so many of us travel through in life.Stage one, survival, is where Lok was when he was young. Struggling to find his place in the world while just getting by.Stage two, security, you’re at least paying the bills and don’t have to live in a constant state of struggle. You’re moving up.Stage three, success, is a place only a few ever get to. You have everything you need and want. At least, you think you do. You’re still missing a critical piece that makes life worthwhile.That’s the final stage, stage four: significance. A stage very few ever realize exists, let alone arrive at.“After my dad passed away, then I shift from success to significance. When you shift from success to significance, it’s no longer just about you. It’s no longer just about “hey, here’s what I want. Here’s what I want to have. Here’s what I want to own,” says Lok.Significance is about serving those around you. It’s about expanding your influence beyond yourself to the rest of the world.What is your legacy? What really matters to you? What and who do you care for and what do you want to give them before you pass?From being a poor immigrant who was bullied in school to a multi-millionaire entrepreneur and mentor who has been able to support his family and touch people in more than one hundred countries all around the world, Dan Lok transformed his life through hard work, perseverance, and the willingness to grow through adversity.Lok continues to strive for more, but he says that life’s experiences have also taught him to be grateful for what he has now.If you’re not grateful with what you have, you’re not going to be grateful even when you have more. So, I say it’s be grateful with what you have, while you strive for more.

3 Incredible Times Elon Musk Failed and Still Came out on Top
Entrepreneurs

3 Incredible Times Elon Musk Failed and Still Came out on Top

Much to the concern of Tesla’s shareholders and board members, Elon Musk somehow manages to top headlines nearly every week for both the big risks he takes, and for his epic failures. Whether it’s due to the 120 hour work weeks, or the chronic lack of sleep that he has admitted to, it seems like the billionaire entrepreneur keeps making reckless moves and having fun at everyone else’s expense. If that’s the case, then how does he always seem to end up on top? A high risk tolerance and an embracing attitude toward failure are key personality traits for any aspiring entrepreneur, so let’s examine a few of the many seemingly career ending failures that this eccentric entrepreneur was able to overcome against all odds by focusing on what’s next, instead of dwelling on the failure itself. Nearly Going Bankrupt After selling PayPal to eBay in 2002 for a reported $1.5B, which netted Elon Musk about $165 million as one of the company’s co-founders, he began searching for new business ideas and decided that he wanted his next business to solve more important issues than simply how we make payments online. That’s why he focused his efforts on clean energy and space travel. In a bet that most people would find astonishing, he took $100 million of his own money and started the rocket company SpaceX. Within just 2 years, he had also invested another $70 million into a little known electric car company, Tesla, eventually buying it outright. Four years after his sale of PayPal, he used some of his own money as well as assets from Tesla to invest another $90 million into the solar company started by one of his cousins, SolarCity. Along the way he nearly went bankrupt and went hundreds of millions into debt, borrowing money from billionaire friends and taking loans from banks, just to cover expenses while working tirelessly to keep the value of his companies from collapsing to zero. All three companies are now household names because of the years of big bets, hard work, and relentless focus that the entrepreneur has maintained. In the end, it was his unwavering belief in his bigger mission, and his willingness to give up everything else, including his personal life, that ended up ensuring the success of these ventures. Negotiating With Russians Musk’s interest in space started when he was just a child, so to those who knew him well, the idea of starting a rocket company wasn’t all that crazy. But to everyone else, it seemed he had lost his mind. When he couldn’t find affordable rocket suppliers in the United States, he decided to go to Russia and negotiate a deal to purchase cheaper, refurbished rockets from the government. After negotiating with the Russians over three trips to the country, he and his team were literally laughed out of the room when he brought $21 million in cash to pay for 3 rockets, only to find out that the Russians were taunting him and actually planned to sell him only one for this price. Many people would throw in the towel after such a defeat, but on the flight back to the United States Elon said to his partners, “screw it, how hard can it be to build a rocket?” After reading every book he could find to become an expert in rocketry, spending many millions more on failed launch after failed launch, in September of 2008 SpaceX successfully launched its first reusable rocket, forever changing the industry. Elon himself has said: “when something is important enough, it’s worth trying even if the risk of failure is really high.” As long as you keep learning from every mistake, if you keep trying, you’re bound to get it right at least once. Getting Sued By The SEC In August, Musk made headlines when he announced his plans to take Tesla private saying that “funding is secured.” It’s difficult to guess why he would make such a statement so publicly on Twitter, perhaps he really believed that taking the company private was the best option, or maybe he wanted to encourage the investors he was courting to make their decision faster, but now we know that the bet he made did not pay off. The SEC, the regulating body that’s charged with protecting public investor interests, took his statement as an attempt to manipulate Tesla’s stock price and began proceedings for a lawsuit that would have been detrimental to the business and to Musk’s future as the company’s head. But just a few weeks later, after what was likely a series of negotiations, the SEC settled with Elon Musk and Tesla, and he got away with paying a fee and Tesla made the symbolic move of removing Musk as a Chairman of Tesla. In the settlement he still got to keep his job as CEO. Was this recent move and the many huge risks that Musk has taken throughout his life worth it? Most of us would never consider taking on giants like the Russian government or the Securities and Exchange commission. But for leaders like Elon Musk who are attempting to reinvent entire industries and create technologies that our world has never seen, constant failure is just a part of the game. It’s something they’ve accepted as their reality a long time ago. There’s a valuable lesson here for the rest of us. If you’re someone who has big ambitions and wants to leave a mark on this world, the faster you get comfortable with the inevitable failures that you’ll face along the way, the easier it will be to get back up and keep moving forward.

5 Business Leaders Share Bad Ideas That Lead to Success
Entrepreneurs

5 Business Leaders Share Bad Ideas That Lead to Success

Have you ever figured something out just as you felt that all hope was lost? For a moment, you relaxed and looked at it in a way that you hadn’t until then, a figurative tilt of the head, and things just clicked? Sometimes, we think things will work out in a specific way and they don’t. Other times, we just keep trying to fit a square into a circular opening and don’t realize until many headaches that we just needed to make a small shift for things to fall into place. It turns out, some really amazing ideas were found in exactly that same way. You never know how things are going to work out and it’s often impossible to see things perfectly because we don’t have the full picture– a perfect perspective. That’s exactly what five business leaders found out about their own ideas. They turned out to be bad but by some chance, they were able to repurpose the idea into a win. Nothing surpasses the beauty and elegance of a bad idea. – Craig Bruce 1. From copy to iteration breakthrough It’s hard to look away when a company in an even slightly comparable industry is having incredible success. In fact, it’s like this in every area of life. We want to emulate what they’re doing, copy them so that we might have even a sliver of their results. This is what video conferencing startup Highfive did when team chat app Slack was the darling of Silicon Valley. They– along with many other companies– copied the same active user pricing structure that had worked so incredibly well for Slack. However, they quickly found that jumping on the backs of other success stories doesn’t always work out for you the same as it did for them. However, this failure led to the creation of a brand new and equally unique idea: what they call a “per-room” pricing model, which has since worked incredibly well. 2. Bringing back the old John Schuster of Tenka Labs, creator of unique circuit-cube-based toys, is no stranger to coming up with countless ideas for his next creation. Many ideas, according to Schuster, don’t make the cut. However, on one occasion he went back to a previous iteration of one of his Circuit Cube toys which he had disregarded because he couldn’t even get to the openings on the toy’s circuit board to finish the design. Needless to say, it was a bust. However, several iterations later, he revisited the design and realized that he could adjust the hole placement and get a shorter connector to the circuit board. Problem solved with one bad idea turned right. 3. Building on failure Adam Foroughi and his other co-founders at AppLovin, a marketing platform that helps developers monetize their apps, went through several different apps before landing on AppLovin including apps for fashion and dating. After several failures, they realized the failure in itself had taught them a lot about what it takes to monetize an app and showed them that there was a need for a platform that would help developers monetize more effectively. And, with that, AppLovin was born. 4. Seeing things in a new way When Whitney Casey, co-founder and CEO of Finery, set out to launch a business that helped women manage their wardrobe, they ran into a problem that seemed unsolvable. They needed to get connected with major retailers for the software to work, allowing their users to add items they had just purchased on X retailer to their wardrobe on Finery. Quickly, Casey began to think that the entire business never had a chance of getting off the ground because it would be impossible to get connected with what is essentially an unlimited number of retailers. However, she decided to look at things in a different way and found out to acquire that same data from a Finery user with the same level of convenience, allowing them to cut out the middle man and make the original idea even simpler, more profitable, and easier to use than originally imagined. 5. Big ideas bear fruit Adam Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of job marketplace Vettery, had a great, but horribly unscalable idea: they wanted to hand-deliver gifts to every user that found employment through the site. Awesome, right? Scalable? Hell no. As Goldstein recalls, “one guy got placed at a mattress company, so we hand-delivered him a new mattress. We quickly learned this wasn’t scalable, but we still firmly believed in celebrating each candidate placement.” That bad idea eventually led to a new and far better one which has helped Vettery become one of the fastest growing job marketplaces online: everyone who finds a job on Vettery receives $500.

Richard Branson Launched His First Business with $2,000, Shows How Far Passion Can Take You
Entrepreneurs

Richard Branson Launched His First Business with $2,000, Shows How Far Passion Can Take You

It’s often been said that you need to have money to make money, and that those of us who don’t have any money to our name have no chance of ever having money to our name. It’s sad to think about, but it’s also not always a sentence to failure -- lot of major celebrities started with pretty humble means. Take, for example, Richard Branson. The Virgin Group founder started his first venture as a teenager! In fact, he writes in a recent blog post, most people who come to him for business advice lament: "I need x amount of money to get started” -- and it’s simply not true, says Branson. "There's no doubt it can be easier to achieve lofty ambitions if you already have financial backing," he writes, "but in many cases, you don't need lots of money to start a business." Branson is dyslexic and dropped out of school as a teenager. But that didn’t stop teenage-Branson from starting Student Magazine, his first business. His publication, launched in 1966, was an alternative to other interschool magazines and covered topics school magazines generally wouldn’t cover, like music and the Vietnam war. He got started with a simple business plan, and in fact he kept track of advertisers and costs in his school notebook, and ran his magazine out of his parents’ basement. "I was just 16 years old when I founded the magazine, and had no money to put toward it," writes Branson. Funding came from a surprising place. Branson's mother found a necklace on the ground near their home and gave it to the police. No one claimed the necklace, so police returned it and they sold the necklace for £100 and that became the launch money for Branson’s business. (£100, which equates to about £1,500 in today's money or just about $1,900 USD). Branson used the money to pay for magazine's electricity and postage bills. "Without it, the business would have collapsed," Branson writes. That magazine was the start of Branson’s massive empire. He went on to create a mail-order record business, and that became Virgin Records. That brand now includes airlines, a music label and space travel. Branson says that nowadays, success is even more reachable because unlike teenage him, we live in the digital age. He says technology has "dramatically" has decreased the costs involved in selling products or services and you don't even need an office, you can work from your home computer. "Rather than commit to pricey premises you can set up online with no technical expertise using a website builder, and start selling from your kitchen table," says Branson. Funding is easier, too. "Raising finance to start a business from a bank has gained a reputation for being difficult, but today you can bypass this altogether with schemes that are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs launch, such as crowdfunding or Start Up Loans." "We didn't need lots of money to start our first business and that's even truer today than it was back then." Branson is tremendously wealthy right now, but he started out with nothing. That means we can, too. Never give up on your dream because of your current circumstances.