DESIGN THINKING – PERFECT TOOL TO PUT YOUR PLAN INTO ACTIONS

Is your planning technique effective?

Do you find yourself always exhausted, racing to meet your deadlines at the last minute? Do you plan your life carefully and keep track of time well, but still struggle to get your job done on time? Don’t be surprised if you are, because you are not the only person in this world who fell into the planning fallacy mindset without realizing it.

The Planning Fallacy was first introduced by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1979. They proposed that human beings are not very good at estimating time, costs and risk to complete certain tasks, even if we have the right experience in doing such tasks. This results from only focusing on a prediction, based on specific elements of a plan, rather than the distributional data. This leads to tasks not being completed on time because the individual underestimates what is needed for the deadline to be met. Furthermore, we can be overly optimistic about ourselves, in that we believe that we have enough time to complete tasks. Consequently, this means that the individual makes excuses for poor time-keeping.

Design thinking is one of the most effective ways in which a person can overcome this struggle in planning and executing what has been planned. Design thinking is a human-centric concept to help people design their own solution by digging into the root causes and solving them. It is time to spend your time tailoring your own plan for the new year.

STAGE 1: EMPATHIZE – WHO ARE YOU?

Understanding yourself is easier said than done, but it is time to take a seat, to have a self-talk, to identify your strengths and weaknesses as well as to clarify your short-term and long-term goals.

There are 4 questions you should ask yourself. Try to answer as honestly and clearly as possible:

What strengths make you proud of yourself?
What weaknesses make you lose your opportunities?
Now, what do you want to change?
What is your dream for the future?

Do not answer in general like “I want to improve my English level” instead, make it specific and measurable like “I want to achieve IELTS 6.5 in the next 6 months”. The more details you give, the deeper you will understand yourself. Such types of answers will make your plan more practical and more suitable to yourself, therefore making it easier for you to implement the plan.

TIP: Consider asking your parents, your relatives, your co-workers or whoever in this world that you believe understands you, and ask for their opinions. This will help to avoid a subjective understanding about yourself or an illustration of yourself that you created.

The goal for this stage is to dig into who you are, to learn and to explore more about yourself.

STAGE 2: DEFINE – WHAT DID YOU DO?

After learning about yourself, your next step is to reflect on what you did last year by answering the following 3 questions:

Which goals/tasks did you complete in the last year?
Which goals/tasks did you plan but fail?
Which goals/tasks did you reschedule ?

Next steps: List down all of the reasons both subjectively and objectively that you think led to the failure of task completions. This will enable you to find a method that avoids procrastination in implementing the plan in the new year. There are many methods to help solve your procrastination and to reschedule the task completion on time, which may come from internal or external factors. For example, you may feel that if sharing your plan on social media or with close friends will motivate you to achieve your goals. Or you may challenge yourself with punishments and rewards. Whatever you choose to do, just make sure that it will boost your must-do attitude meaning that no delay or procrastination is allowed.

STAGE 3: IDEATION – WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS?

In this stage, you should keep calm and relax, let your mind wander to write down your goals: what do you want to improve or what you want to change? Where do you want to travel? How many books or what kinds of books do you want to read this year? Do not forget to think about your dream. Just write them down in your journal or whatever place you feel safe. Don’t worry if it may look a little bit messy on your paper, I will help you arrange it later.

One important note you should bear in mind is that your techniques should help you to overcome your procrastination, which you have listed in the ‘Stage Two: Define’. Ideation will be the foundation to enable you to implement the method successfully, thus try to make it as precise as possible.

STAGE 4: PROTOTYPE – PUT YOUR GOALS INTO PLAN

Design thinking is the solution-orientated and action-orientated step in which you must focus on finding actionable solutions. Thus this stage is the most important in the planning process. In this stage, you will put all your goals and activities into a detailed plan.

Categorize your goals and actions:

The first step is to divide your goals into 3 smaller categories:

Personal Development: The goals or actions that will help you nurture your personal growth.
Study/Work: The goals and actions that will lead you to your career path.
Family/Friends: The goals and actions that will strengthen your relationships.

The more correctly categorized and prioritized these goals are, the easier the next steps will be.

Strategic plan

These previous parts will be evaluated again in time length and importance in order to categorize them into short-term, medium-term and long-term goals. This step requires a lot of effort and careful thinking so as to avoid mistakes. The following is one technique that I find easy to apply.

Firstly, start with the axis of abscissas, you put all the goals in this axis. Arrange these goals based on its level of importance and affection to yourself.

After that, you will use the axis of ordinate to evaluate the difficulty level, time and effort in each goal. The more difficult the goal is, the more time you spend, thus you can move this goal to a higher position.

For example, if your goal is to achieve IELTS 6.5 in 2020, to me it is a medium difficulty level and it is also important. Thus my graph will be like this:

As you see the strategic plan graph divides into 3 parts:

Part 1 – Short-term and easy goals that you can finish in 3-6 months

Part 2 – Medium-term and average difficult goals that take longer time about 6-18 months to complete.

Part 3 – Long-term and difficult goals but not urgent goals which you can finish in 2-3 years.

Put your goals into these 3 sections and the goals, which are in the Part 1 area, are prioritized in your detailed plan.

A Detailed Plan

The detailed plan includes 2 important numbers: deadline and key result.

Key results: A plan is nothing without clear and measurable outcomes because they help you estimate the desired results and avoid giving up in the middle.
Deadline: Give yourself specific time of completion in the goals. There are many apps which can assist you as the reminder like: Evenote, Wunderlist, Calendar,… These apps will help you stick to your goals and complete them on time.

In terms of the medium-term and long-term goals, you can break them into smaller activities and put them into your detailed plan. This action will make sure that you are following what you have planned and start doing it from now.

STAGE 5: TEST – CONTINUOUS PLAN IMPROVEMENT

The plan is just what you write down on paper. That’s why to make this plan come true, you need to invest your time, money and effort. There is no perfect plan in the world and you should test, do, learn and test again, as to which method fits with your style. You might not be able to change your goals but you can change the way you take action in order to achieve your goals. Be flexible and be prepared because there will be uncontrollable factors coming from the external environment, as well as from yourself, that may cause failure in implementing your plan.

I hope that you can stay focused on what you are about to do, always believe in yourself and always try your best to be a better you. Remember that if you plan it on just paper, next year you will be in the same state as you are right now but you’ll be one year older. Be strong and brave, take action, and challenge yourself!

I hope all your plans come true as you expected.

May 3, 2019

Listen with empathy to be the leader

Let’s emphasize straightforwardly in this case.

What do people react when receiving information in both working environment and social relationship?

They prefer to be a passive hearer or an active listener. That’s your choice. It is clear that hearing is simply a natural ability of human, while listening is definitely a learned skill in order to transform information into meaningful messages. Someone has rightly said that “Hearing is through ears, but listening is through the mind”.

Why is it important to possess good listening skills?

Let me tell you a story about two energetic staffs. When being assigned the same task, they perform in two different ways which embody two different types of the level of listening ability. Candace always shows her comprehensive listening skills. As I saw that she always concentrates and pays attention to whenever we have a meeting for our next campaign. She prepares to actively listen and learn, and then thinking about this topic critically. She takes note carefully the key point after meeting and carries out effectively. Moreover, information selection is one of her strengths. Mainly because she thinks that the key concepts are much more important than the whole of argument in the meeting to answer the questions of What, Who, When, Where, Why and How.

On the other hand, Simon is quite different from Candace. He is a kind of passive listener. An active listener is the one that receives message from speakers, then analyses and responds to strengthen the mutual understanding. A passive one is different because he receives information without analysing, and stops at receiving information but keeping asking many times. It is reasonable that asking questions is a measure to make sure the instructions are understood and be clear,however, without taking note drives him to be difficult to remember the guidance delivered before.

Conversation with Consul General of France Vincent Floreani

When it comes to listening skills in social relationship, there are two ways that people are going to react when their friends tell them a story on a day hanging out. One of which is that people tend to dig deep into the storytelling to figure out the problem when their friend is confronting. They analyse the issue together and help the friend overcome feelings of pressure. Otherwise, people are not interested in that story, as a result, they show their no inspiration to continue the conversation. Somehow they still respect their friend’s story, but they do not react or do not respond anything, just only “Oh!”, “Really?”, “Seriously?” for example.

Derived from two situations conveyed above, who do you think that they possess a good listening skills? So to review how to be a comprehensive listener, I am going to list these levels of listening to enhance your skills effectively and efficiently. There are five levels of listening that need to be considered.

Ignoring

Ignoring is the lowest stage of listening – not listening at all. It means that people usually interject a remark into the conversation with someone when they are speaking to others. They do not listen to at all with this person, then starting a new conversation with other one.

Pretend Listening

Pretend listening is easily explained in face-to-face talk. People may nod their head or other gesture to portray that they are listening, but they are not giving their full attention to the conversation. They are able to hear what others say but they do not show their impression.

Selective Listening

This stage is a beginning level of an active listener. People tend to pay attention to the speakers when they discuss about aspects that they are interested in; however, not all. They are probably the one that says “So, what’s your point?”. They are more likely to go straightforward to the thing that is important to them and interrupt the conservation when they realize that thing is not amusing anymore.

Attentive Listening

An attentive listener spend their time and attention on listening to other people. They have a tendency to respond according to their own experience. Instead of putting themselves in others’ situation, they listen and explain with their own perspective.

Empathic Listening

This is the top level of listening because those who are empathic listening are more likely to pay their full attention to gain the information and respond to develop the understanding in a conservation. It can be referred as the hardest to accomplish this level. However, to give a truly listening is not complicated.

Regarding to Clinical psychologist Kevin Gilliland, to practice to be a skilled listeners, people should following suggests:

Be curious: you’re more favor in listening to what the other says, rather than formulating your response.

Ask good questions: avoid asking yes/no type questions, which are closed-ended. You need to concentrate on questions that invite people to elaborate.

Don’t jump into a conversation too quickly: you should consider easing into the conversation when speaking to someone.

Anchor yourself to the subject and don’t get distracted: you should avoid unrelated topics to distract from the subject.

Stop making up stories: a lot of information which is missing is not a good idea for those who want to listen to your stories.

Don’t make a big deal out of being wrong: If you’re good at admitting fault, this should be a fairly easy tip for you.

Dalai Lama once said:

“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”

In order to be the leader, we not only need a vision to inspire the team but also need the great ears of listening with empathy to feel the pain and recognize what is not shared on the vocal conversation.

The world will be more peaceful when we stop talking about each other, start listening to each other and collaborate with empathy thanks to listening.

December 14, 2018December 27, 2018

Opening Speech of Final round of Lead the Change 2018 competition

My honor guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is such a pleasure and honor for me to be here and mark the final round of Lead the Change 2018 competition.

As mentioned before, I dream of the Vietnamese young generation with good English and soft skill, great attitude and mindset. UEH Connected was founded with that dream and we have incubation programs and activities that attract not only the Vietnamese but also the foreigners.

Mr Cong-Thang HUYNH, Mr Rick Yvanovich, Mr Eddie Thai, Ms Nguyen Phi Van,Mr Mike Tran, Mr Gaku Echizenya, CG Kyle Nunas & CG Mary Tarnowka –

Lead the Change is the new way of leadership incubation which we used it as a tool to bring the youth abroad. We are proud to share that we brought 32 young Vietnamese to Singapore in July of this year for intensive training

Lead the Change 2018 competition is also a good tool for us to nurture talents with good ideas and potential; and equip them with training, mentorship, networks to open their mindset so that they can lead the change to drive Vietnamese economy.

We have 800 qualified applications this year from more 40 universities and organizations. If someone follows us from the beginning will recognize that it is the big transformative journey for the youth. They came to us with a big dream without necessary skill and right mindset. Through 8 intensive trainings and 8 mentoring sessions covering from business plan, finance to how to make the pitch deck and presentation. They are now totally different and stronger than they were before our competition. You can read hand writing feedback to feel what I meant.

And we can not do it alone without any support. We would like to express our thank you message to

Consul General of US Ms Mary Tarnowka – our good friend
US Consulate General
Startup Campus from Korean Goverment (Ms Dorothy & Mr Collin),
KIMC (Mr Ted Kim),
Consulate of Italy,
ITP (Information Technology Park) under National University
University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city,
Arizona State University,
RMIT and
Ms Nguyen Phi Van – Founder & CEO Retail & Franchise Asia
Mr Rick Yvanovich – Founder & CEO của TRG International
Mr Kyle Nunas – Consul General of Canada
Ms Ngo Phuong Thao – Founder Anbooks
Ms Thi Anh Dao – CEO Isobar Vietnam
Mr Eddie Thai – Partner 500 Startups
Mr Gaku Echizenya – Chairman of Navigos Group
Mr Warren Eng – Leaders create Leaders

, many judges, mentors, trainers of 5 rounds and especially my Lead the change team who spent months for this project and making it happen with me. I know that my thank you message here is never enough for what you have contributed to this community and competition but history will remember you all. 😀

There’s an old African proverb that says “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” But We can not be slow in this 4.0 industrial revolution, we have to go together further quickly.

Thank you for going together with us and making us stronger day after day.

Hope you will have a great day!!!

Thank you,

September 4, 2018

5 ways to advance your life and enterprise with a growth mindset

Why do people imply staff performance related to mindset?

When I assign the same task to two of my new energetic staff, they perform in two different ways, which embody two different types of mindsets. Vincent’s mindset is about guarantee. He sometimes has no idea dealing with failure and also be afraid to change when receiving feedback from others to improve his performance. He takes it personally and sometimes she is displeased. Vincent requires his benefits before doing something.

Youth training in Botanic Garden, Singapore

On the other hand, Jules expects to receive feedback from the senior when making mistakes. To cope with a failure, she dares to change and improve her ability to accomplish well later on. She perceives challenges as ideal opportunities to fail and to learn. If she encounters something that is quite troublesome, she will endeavor to overcome somehow. After all, you can know that who has the fixed mindset and who possesses the growth mindset in this story.

What is Mindset?

If you refer to someone’s mindset, that means their thoughts and beliefs drive them into habits and the way they commonly think about issues. The mindset orients our disposition or attitudes to handle situations. The mindset has much influence on what people think, how they feel, what they perceive and what should they react. In other explanation, the mindset shapes your belief and your belief shapes your attitudes. People have various mindsets of the same thing due to perceiving in different ways.

The book called Mindset: The new psychology of success written by Carol Dweck, who is a psychology professor at Stanford, is one of the most prominent psychology and individual development books nowadays. The book reminds me vividly of my personal experience.

The Fixed Mindset

People with the fixed mindset believe basic qualities like talents are fixed traits. They view failure as permanent. They are more likely to give up when facing an obstacle. When they feel criticism as a personal attack, they seem to quickly give excuse and explain.

Their behaviors are shaped by innate ability and their priority always is validation and achievement. The insight of people having the fixed mindset is that better performances. They are less likely to take creative risks. They choose easier tasks and put in minimal effort.

The fixed-mindset people don’t allow others be better compared to themselves. If their colleagues try new things and succeed, fixed-mindset people feel threatened. They are afraid that success will put pressure on themselves to do more. Safety is their choice.

The Growth Mindset

People with the growth mindset believe new abilities can be developed by practice. They consider challenge which is just an issue need to be faced, resolved, and learned from. It is possible to say that growth-mindset people can all adapt, progress and experience without any fear of being painful.

Most people are not perfect, and they should suffer from losses and hardships to be stronger and more at peace than ever before. The growth mindset doesn’t mind to show their imperfections as they think that weaknesses are not the problem. The problem is just only the person who cannot accept these weaknesses belonging to them. The imperfections should be recovered since that helps people to improve their adequate development.

Personal performance is good, but the process of how to bear the failure is much more important. The growth-mindset people assume that it takes time for development and achievement. They aren’t convinced of being talented. They strongly believe in the determination of learning from time to time, arduous working and toil to get an accomplishment.

How do you know that you are a fixed-mindset person or a growth-mindset person?

Let’s emphasise straightforwardly in this case. What do people react when receiving a course of work? With the fixed mindset, it will be: “People will finish it with no mistakes. People should avoid being a failure. People simply lose interest or temperature when facing challenges. People think about the inputs for themselves rather than the outputs for others.”

In contrast, with the growth mindset, it will be: “People make mistakes, and it’s not a problem. People need to have feedbacks, even constructive criticism. People get ready to undergo current trouble. People are excited to try to do something beyond what they’ve mastered. People make an effort to figure out the measures of solving issues better than they did.”

5 Significant Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset

1. Acknowledge and embrace imperfections

Even if you demonstrate your best traits of a great person, but you hide from your deficiencies, you will never be excellent in most cases. You are unable to overcome the fear of weaknesses. Of course, fear can hold you back. Have you ever thought that fear is an obstacle distract you from building your strengths? Grasp an opportunity to discover yourself, uncover imperfections hidden and deeply understand yourself. This will be a premise to change the weaknesses towards your strengths.

2. View challenges as opportunities

The growth-mindset people consider each challenge is an opportunities to grow stronger. We continuously determine who we are and what we are able to achieve after enduring troublesome issues. In fact, people might not control events that occur to them, but these unanticipated events serve as a big deal to test truly your characteristics. Thus, it is grateful for welcoming opportunities to learn and to improve.

3. Replace “to fail” with “to learn”

Have you ever heard a quote of Samuel Beckett? “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

It’s not a shame to share your failures with each other. When you make a mistake for your goal, you haven’t failed, you are learning. You learn from the bad experience for yourself instead. You shouldn’t think you’re a loser, think that you’re a learner and then an achiever.

4. Redefine “genius”

A genius is a person who suffered from a whole host of challenges, hardships, losses, and toils. You should redefine that the genius is shaped by hard-working, not only natural ability. The fixed-mindset people believe in talent or intelligence. However, the growth-mindset people only recognize improvement and development throughout the experience. You will be a genius if you mobilize your resource and stretch on your way.

5. Learn from others’ mistakes

It is better to combine our mistakes and the mistakes of others to learn. That will be valuable information for you to tackle the problems that push you up. People sometimes share the same weaknesses, which is a chance to empathize and adapt it to your case. It’s not always wise to compare yourself to others. Learn from others’ missteps and travel down on the bumpy road that helps you be more better.

May 28, 2018June 4, 2018

Advancing the youth’s success with 21st century skills

“Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.” — Will Smith

I have been traveling around Asia to share my experience, idea, skills and mentoring many young startup. I have been asked many times which skills need to be developed and how to obtain them. As the world is changing so fast, technology like AI, IoT, robot will soon take over many current jobs. What should the youth prepare?

We clearly foresee that entrepreneurship acts as our central comparative advantage. Nothing else can give us the necessary leverage to remain an economic superpower sustainably. It is undeniable that the need of 4Cs including Critical thinking (and problem-solving), Communication, Collaboration and Creativity is a integral part in the global society.

Critical thinking

In fact, a person cannot learn well without thinking well. As I know, graduates in Vietnam specifically or Asia in general are lacking of autonomous learning whereas researching and marshallings are foundation courses of educational system in international colleges and universities. International schoolchildren learn to filter out unnecessary information and choose the reliable one. Yet Vietnamese youth do not have this important skills because of their lazinesses in exploring and thinking leading to being unable to absorb pertinent knowledge and gain fulfillment after graduation. They complain about the Internet-based references are unreliable and misleading. And the reason is that they do not sift data or even estimate resources they had.

In addition, they figure out a problem with irrelevant questions which make others are fed up due to their insufficient thinking well before asking. The process of making such inquisition helps you to deeply understand to problematic aspects that you endure. You want to exercise critical thinking, let ask the questions whenever you discover or discuss new information. Let start with 5W1H: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. Such questions regulate your decisions. I definitely underestimate those who are not able to making decision. Even it fail or you make a mistake or fall short of a goal, you have not failed, you have learned.

Communication

The ability of communication effectively which means that you communicate what think and feel. You are going to convey clearly a message and inspire someone to do better, good communication helps you to do it. There are several ways to communicate well among individuals throughout face-to-face conversation, digital channels or teamwork. People who get involved in a casual conversation will not grasp your thoughts or ideas properly unless you make an effort to practice communicative skills on a daily basis. In each case, you have to learn how to share information, how to present in public and how to make a request effectively and efficiently.

You sometimes make the same mistakes that you demonstrate excessive information, or you explain ambiguously with unfamiliar words. If you ramble on, your listeners will either tune you out or will be unsure of exactly what you want. A good communication means saying just enough – don’t talk too much or too little. Try to convey your message in as few words as possible. Say what you want clearly and directly.

Collaboration

In 21st century, collaboration is of significant importance among community. We are now living in multi-society where people from different backgrounds, cultures and nationalities. We tend to integrate ourselves into this community to achieve a defined and certain purpose in global society. Therefore, Vietnamese youth should learn collaborative skills in order to work effectively with a particular group of people and lifestyles. You should learn interactive methods and empathy while working in a team to get a higher level of productivity, to share responsibility instead of devolving it to others.
Vietnamese people are woefully inadequate this skills since I assume that they are afraid of taking responsibilities and endeavoring to gain results. They have a preference for being secure and unwilling to take risks. Personally, I properly appreciate those who dare to change and shoulder duties which aim to lead their members and thrive their organization. I consider that they are inspiring leaders, and I always advocate them to become more genius.

Creativity

Creative skills is to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connection between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.

Of course, critical thinking can support people to master creative skills. If you have ideas but do not act on them, you are imaginative but not creative. However, Vietnamese citizens, particularly young people, are not accustomed to innovation. They might be wounded when they demonstrate different ideas from others and get negative judgement. A judgment is just an opinion of someone else, and you should not mind to limit your ability.

It could be a culture of Vietnamese people as they cannot be accepted if they alter something new. They are able to speak up but they keep silence, they want to debut their products to public but they do not, and then still living in imaginative world instead. It is not alive. It is a glimmer. Get your ambition which means to stretch on your own way and be creative in order to compete internationally.

It’s 4Cs that I want to mention to enlighten those who are still get stuck in common issues in my country. When young generation acknowledge the need of 4Cs and master these skills, we will account for the prosperity of Vietnam to be a worth-living place in the world. Are you contributing to be a pivotal part of this development?

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018

Still procrastinating? Start the new day right with a productive mindset

Do you suffer from the so-called symptoms of procrastination? Here are some things you can do to help improve your workflow

Procrastination is a bad habit. It directly affects the success of your career and your life.

The sages of ancient Greece used one word to talk about the state of hesitating or not being sure whether to act or not. They used the term ‘Akrasia’, which basically means procrastination. One of the biggest reasons that prevent young people from succeeding in any endeavour is Akrasia.

To address this problem, you have to understand that you’re suffering from procrastination. Try to overcome it with specific plans.

Are you a procrastinator?

The common ‘symptoms’ of procrastinators are as follows:

Lack of motivation. If you’re not working for your goal, you will find some excuse to get rid of the tasks at hand. Without deadlines for completion, all the things you must do will be delayed.
Lack of clear objectives. Procrastinators underestimate the difficulty of their job. One cannot visualise how to solve the work to the extent that the tasks remain stagnant. Such people often do not know how to use effective tools such as to-do lists, notes, and reminders, and tend to avoid all unwanted work. Procrastinators often prefer doing things that offer short-term satisfaction than long-term value.
Lack of assertiveness. If you cannot decide what to do, you will simply push back decisions and re-schedule tasks for a later time. Procrastinators are often worry about perfection in the way they work, to the extent that nothing gets accomplished.

Rescue yourself from procrastination

Do you suffer from the so-called symptoms of procrastination? Here are some things you can do to help improve your workflow:

Make a plan every day. When you have a plan, you need to stick with it and make sure nothing can slip out of your schedule.
Take advantage of tools. Use a “to do list” for example. Note down everything you need to do during the whole day. Or, you can try various apps that help you through reminders and task lists, so you don’t miss the important things.
Set priorities. You need to know which things need to be resolved first, so you can avoid delaying something you don’t like.
Split your projects into smaller tasks. When you divide tasks into smaller ones, you can more easily create a timetable with specific deadlines. Solving these will be easier than vaguely aiming to finish a big project. This way, you can keep track of accomplishments and then reduce the pressure on yourself when you tick off tasks from the list. Set a time limit for each job — this helps you become more willing to finish each task.
Reward yourself. You can kick the procrastination habit by incentivising yourself for achievements. It does not have to be expensive or big-ticket. This can involve eating out with friends, a delicious meal, a satisfying drink, or anything that can make you feel comfortable and satisfied. You will become better-motivated this way, and it helps create joy in your work. Still, reaching your goals is, in itself, a great experience.

Life is a river. It never stands still. It always changes, for better or worse. So every day, we must ask ourselves:

Am I looking forward to this new year?
Am I feeling better, happier and more prosperous than last year?
Had I been a better person today than yesterday?
If the answer is “No”, you might need to do things differently to welcome the new year with better perspectives.

May 24, 2018May 24, 2018

7 lessons for young Vietnamese entrepreneurs

You will face a lot of challenges as an entrepreneur; Here are some things that can help you overcome these

Having done many projects – some of which were failed ones while others made considerable progress – I have gained myself a few life lessons that I think would be valuable for young people.

1. Observation

Observation skills are the first thing we need to work on. I am talking about the observation where you learn by watching things happen around you, and you analyse them.

When attending a networking event, how can you tell who is important to approach?

Let us suppose that you want to open a restaurant. Now imagine yourself setting foot in a trashy Pho diner with dirty tables, and the rude staff – would you find yourself feeling annoyed? If not, then, do you think you could operate a good restaurant of your own?

When you observe, you can learn how a lot of things need to be done correctly for setting up a successful startup.

2. Self-discipline

As you launch your startup, there will be no one to supervise you. Hence, you need to plan your schedule carefully, be strict towards yourself to avoid days where you feel like not going to work and oversleeping because you are too tired or, just simply, unmotivated.

When you are the boss, not only do you work for yourself now but you also work directly with your business partners. Being the boss, you have to be an ideal model for your employees to look up to. Especially when you are the one to set up a startup, during its first period, you are expected to deal with and solve all of the unexpected problems. Without discipline, your system will most likely to not run smoothly.

Having a self-disciplined life guarantees you a physically healthy body and a flexible mind. In contrast, an ill body accompanied by a tired mind will prevent you from being productive. Spend at least 30 minutes per day on exercise to get in shape.

A self-disciplined lifestyle helps us have enough energy to face and cope with business challenges.

3. Getting used to rejection

Rejection could come and knock on your door at any time when you invest in a project or found a startup. Back to days when I first started my business, I was turned down at least 30 times before getting my very first client. You must accept the fact of being rejected and take that as a normal part of the process. What needs to be done here is that after every rejection, you figure out the reasons that lie behind it and prevent it from happening in your next attempt.

In order to become a businessman or a businesswoman, bear in mind that you will have to face a lot of bad news coming from many sources: your investors, your staff, customers, and so on. If you let the negative thoughts distract you, you shall waste a large amount of time, nothing will get done, and no lessons will be learnt.

4. Right attitude

There are some problems in younger generation: throwing rocks at people that are better than them; looking down on others’ talents and hard works, and spreading rumors about someone they know nothing about because of envy. You will never can be a better version of yourself if you do things like these.

When you face bad things in life with a positive attitude, you will gain life lessons, which seem to be small and not worth paying attention to but in fact are very valuable.

Humility is a good way to help your soul flourish. Humility helps us fight against greed, braggadocio and narcissism – all of which are cancerous to Vietnamese’s values.

5. Being fluent in at least one foreign language

The world is getting flatter and flatter, and if you do not know its lingua franca, which is considered to be English, then your job opportunities are very limited.

Learning a new language is like working out. In order to be muscular, we have to work out every day. Spend at least 5 minutes to practice your English skills, turn this language into a tool helping you step up in the career ladder.

People who speak English fluently tend to be more confident. According to a survey, a person who knows how to speak English earn 30 per cent more than those with the same job but do not speak English.

6. Daily reading

Vietnamese people read approximately one book a year, stated Mr. Hoang Le, deputy chairman of the Vietnam Publishers Association. Vietnamese people spend only VNĐ 40,000 (US$ 1.76) on books every year, meanwhile an average Chinese person spends VNĐ 200,000 (US$8.80) and people from developed countries spend around VNĐ 4 million (US$176).

Reading is a way for us to gain knowledge, learn skills and experience things for free. Reading could also provide us with a deeper understanding of our jobs, life, better thinking habits and therefore helps us grow. As a result, we are more equipped and become confident when holding conversations, have better control over the way we behave and improve our conflict solving skills.

7. Keeping promises

Young people have to get rid of the bad habit of being late. Try to arrive at least 15 minutes in advance for every kind of meeting.

Once you promise someone something, make sure to do your best to keep your word. I promised to help a Vietnamese French man recruit his team and sort out the red tape and bureaucracy during his first time coming to Vietnam to do business. I tried my hardest to assist him and expected nothing in return. Later on, thanks to him, I met a lot of now very big clients of mine.

So bear in mind the word “trust” and do not let anyone down once they have put their trust in you.

May 23, 2018

Why did I start my own company?

Thinking of starting a company? Need an extra push? These reasons are a reminder why we got in the startup game in the beginning

One point that makes us humans is curiosity. We want to know more and more about the lives of our friends and about their job.

That is why people always ask me the question, “Why did you start your own business?”.

There are so many reasons why one person starts a business. So many, in fact that think it’s useful share my own reasons as well.

To enjoy freedom

It was such a beautiful feeling when I realised the benefits of working for myself and enjoying the freedom I gain from designing my own prosperity. I have total power to choose when I will work, with whom I will work and what I should focus on.

There is no more inappropriate orders from superiors who lack tact when delivering an order.

To have a story to tell

I really love this reason.

Whenever I meet people, and tell them I run my own business, they always want to know more about what what I do. They ask how I do it and how it’s going.

I am proud to tell them my own story’s chapters as I am the one who determines how the journey will end. (When working for a corporation, the feeling of working for others makes us spout only facts — making for a less exciting story.

With the right attitude, networking can be enriching.

Life of an entrepreneur is full of exciting moments — and I especially enjoy the networking part.

We love to meet each other, share stories, and learn from each other’s experiences. The number of people I have met over the past two years working in the startup community increases significantly as many founders need others to lean on, to survive, and to talk about the challenges known only to them.

Lessons from others are never useless if you listen and learn from them carefully thanks during a networking event.

Obtain new skills

Do be successful, I must self-learn an enormous amount of new skills.

From sales, digital marketing to accounting…. I get motivated to learn everything I can reach. It is essential to boosting sales of my product, running the team, maintaining service and balancing myself personally.

Everyday to me is filled with new opportunities to challenge myself, be creative and learn something new.

The great thing about owning a small business is I rarely experience the same day twice. Work for a corporation is not conducive to this kind of learning, in which procedure is quite clear and workload is assigned according to the job.

Why was I was forced to learn new skills? Without them, I would not survive. But, the positive side-effect is these skills will be invaluable assets for me throughout life.

Create jobs

There is nothing that can describe how happy I am knowing I am creating jobs for others and responsible for their success.

My ideas — used to be considered stupid — are now providing the youth with opportunities to earn a living and fulfill their own dreams.

Get Things Done – Faster.

Most large companies are too big and bulky to be proactive. Employees have to wait the approval from many levels of management and can often make a small problem messy.

I would rather solve the problem myself and be held responsible for the consequences.

And last but not least, one of the biggest differences in owning your own company as opposed to working for someone else is the sense of pride you establish in building something of your own.

I truly feel this sense of satisfaction when I see my business running well.

May 22, 2018

Keep an eye out for the Vietnam startup ecosystem and its potential for growth

Vietnamese attitudes towards technology and its potential are very positive

Expansion beyond big cities

Vietnam has been the fastest-growing middle class in Southeast Asia in recent years. However, the development is noticeable: the number of startups has increased — four times from 400 in 2012 to 1,800 in 2015, and nearly 3,000 in 2017. And it is also expanding geographically, with new provincial pockets of affluence beyond the important and traditional centers of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi Capital.

One bright example apart from Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi is Danang where there have been many startups and events in 2017. DNES is an Danang – based incubator that helps startups from the early to growth stage and has accelerated over 30 founders in 4 batches since 2016.

On June 2017, the Law on Technology Transfer was revised to promote technological advances and the commercialization of technologies such as AI, IoT, Edtech, O2O, E-commerce, FinTech, and AgriTech.

On March 6th, 2018, a VIP luncheon meeting themed Blockchain & E-Governance: A Gathering at Intersection of Investment, Innovation and Policy was held by the co-operation between Infinity Blockchain Labs and Vietnam Blockchain Club, aiming to provide an open discussion about blockchain among top educators, entrepreneurs and investors.

Mr. Dung Ta VIET (Tạ Việt Dũng), Chief of the State Agency of Technology Innovation, gave a short opening remark on the main theme of the event — Blockchain & E-Governance. He stated that for the past few years, the Vietnamese Government has been strongly supportive of the adoption and application of new technologies in the manufacturing industry as well as other socio-economic fields. Specifically, this could be proven by the fact that the Vietnamese Government has been preparing a legal framework. Moreover, on July 1, 2018, the revised Law on Technology Transfer comes into effect, and this will create easier access to new foreign technology for Vietnamese corporations, because there will be greater assistance from the government in importing these technologies including blockchain. The method used to approach blockchain technology varies from one nation to another and among different fields.

Global Attention

Moreover, Vietnamese startups have many big opportunities to meet with global partners from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, US, Israel, Finland, Singapore and other countries to exchange knowledge on AI, IoT, Edtech, O2O, E-commerce, FinTech, and AgriTech. These are all areas of considerable opportunities for many industries.

Shinhan Bank Vietnam (Shinhan Bank) — one of the leading banks of South Korea, has officially taken over the retail banking segment of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group in Vietnam (ANZ Vietnam) to expand its payment services by utilising ANZ’s resources. Moreover, we also invested in Fintech application, Shinhan Future’s lab Vietnam to accelerate the startup in Vietnam and Korean.

Start Up Campus in Pangyo Techno Valley, Korea held the Asia Startup Network, a conference that provides a platform for connecting startup accelerators, startups, venture capitals, and young entrepreneurs to present and further discuss their findings on the startup ecosystems in Asia.

In its inaugural year 2017, the conference focused on sharing trends and successful cases in Korea, China, Malaysia, India, Singapore, Philippines, and Vietnam. They were planning to hold conference annually to build the Asia international network and synergies together. I was honored to be there and tie the partnership to set up Asia Startup Network.

The Israel Embassy is actively partnering with many partners to bring Vietnamese startups to Israel to learn and grow as well as enabling Israeli startups to connect with and explore Vietnam market.

Lead the Change is a competition for young startup entrepreneurs from 18 to 25 to have a chance to challenge their ideas, learn skills, find right partner and get funded initiated by UEH Connected community.

Highlights of 2017

Many startup funds are established such as ESP Capital, Innovatube, VIISA and 500 Startups Vietnam.
SpeedUP 2017 is the fund which founded by Ho Chi Minh City Department of Science and Technology has 11.75 billion VND (520,525 USD) invested in 14 startups in Vietnam at a minimum of 350 million VND (15,505 USD) to a maximum of 1,282 billion VND (56,792 USD).
Tiki was founded in 2010 received 54.5 million USD (series C) from China’s JD.com and Korea’s STIC Investment.
The SEA Group (formerly Garena) from Singapore paid 64 million USD to acquire 82% Foody’s stakes.
Vntrip, a Vietnamese online travel agency has raised 10 million USD (Series B) from Hendale Capital.
KyberNetwork was co-founded by a Vietnamese and launched its ICO on September, 2017 taking in 200,000 Ethereum, which was valued nearly 56 million USD at that time.
The launch of reality television show named Shark Tank Vietnam

Why do we need to pay attention to Vietnam market?

Vietnam has 96 million people, 67% of which are Internet users, 57% are active social media users and 73% are individual mobile phone users. The annual growth rate in Vietnam is breathtaking –the percentage of Internet users increases by 28% (or 14 million people) and 20% for active social users, according to a Kepios report. This indicates great opportunities for new product ranges focusing on this consumer segment.

The success of innovations, unfortunately, depends on the go-to market stage rather than the product itself. It is also important to pay attention to the longer-term consumer needs, and catering to these needs will present economic, social and cultural opportunities and challenges for Vietnam notably not only in basic commodities or real estate but also in healthcare, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and financial services.

Moreover, Vietnamese attitudes towards technology is very positive and with great potential, 61% of Vietnamese people believe that new technologies offer more opportunities than risks and 63% prefer to complete task digitally whenever possible.

I was invited to be the speaker and judge at APEC SME O2O 2018 in Brunei and nominated one Vietnam startup tictag — One-tap-for-all NFC ecosystem to go with me to compete with 14 other startups in the APEC region. Finally, the Vietnamese startup went on to win the competition. Even more interestingly, one of my mentees edu2review.com in Vietnam received funding from an investor called Nest Tech from Singapore. This is also amazing and proved that Vietnam market is extremely potential and worth keeping an eye on.

May 22, 2018May 22, 2018

Network building is one of the most important skills in today’s business environment

We are heading into “the Era of Connection”, “the Era 4.0”. If you want to become fully integrated into the global community, you should not take your network building skills slightly, as it is one of the top 5 most important skills in the future, according to “The Future of Jobs” report conducted by World Economic Forum in 2017.

The art of building strong relationships and how to expand your social circles have always been of concern to many of those in UEH Connected community (which has approximately 6,000 members from various backgrounds with different nationalities).

Coming from a poor countryside with low social status, no identity, no business relationship and not being able to study abroad nor at an international university, I have been fortunate to meet, to connect and work with numerous leaders and business people from all over the world. Moreover, I am trusted by foreign business communities in Vietnam such as the French, the American and the Australian.

Partners from Thailand, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and the Philippines usually get in touch with me when they want to participate in trade promotion programs or need an insight consultancy when they wish to expand their business in Vietnam via private channels.

There were many times I received questions, texts and emails asking me how I built my own network. To be honest, my secret is very simple – I have built it with my sincerity.

This is my very first sharing with our community about the topic “How to Build Your Network”, on the occasion of the 4th anniversary of YSEALI – Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, at which I am taking part in as a former member.

What is network?

These days, a majority of young people think of it as a list of Facebook friend list with many popular names in it, and they pride themselves on having lots of name cards that were taken from social and networking events.

For me, a network means that I have a person who:

Is ready to be there for me with just one call away.
Always have faith in me, even though the outside world has it back turn to me.
Think of me when they have any chance to.
And most importantly, think of me when they are at a dead-end in their own lives.

Put it simply, “building a network” is turning a complete stranger into an acquaintance, then a friend, then a close friend and we trust, think of each other when we feel like sharing ideas.

How to build your network when you are still an anonymous?

Many people only care about the relationships they have in the outside world, while forget about their family having a strong bond with other family members should be claimed as their top priority. If you cannot even get close with your family, how could you create a strong network with the strangers out there?

Back to the main question, nothing can be successful without well preparation.

When sending a friend request on a social networking site, do you explain why you want to connect with that person?

Before attending a social event, do you look up to the people you want to get in touch with?

Before approaching a person, have you got any idea about who they are, what they like, what interests them, how about their profession and the field they specialize in?

Anyone of us wants to be cared about, to be remembered, and in order to be treated so, we should treat others like that first.

But in random cases, is there any formula that helps us to connect with others more easily?

Most expect to learn some tricks (or you can call them “tips”) to impress people in the under 30 seconds at the first meeting, or how to get to know many people in one occasion, or how to start an intriguing conversation with a stranger.

However, bear in mind that these tips may provide you with some unexpected side effects, making you appear boring to people. But why is that?

Everyone has their own unique personality, their own interests, and therefore if you approach all of them in the same way, you are creating a dead-end to yourself.

Your sincerity, combined with careful-preparation, good observation, sophistication and ingenuity in communication make a recipe for success in connecting with people.

How do you develop your network?

There are 5 key words you need to keep in mind:

1. Conversation

There is no relationship that can grow strong without conversations. These come as simply as a “how was your day?” phone call, hand-written cards on special occasions, or even the emails/texts you send one another telling about things in your lives.

2. Asking each other

Being human, we have the tendency to be listened and to be respected. If you want someone to like you, you should first respect them and be willing to listen to their ideas.

3. Support / help

Before “take”, learn how to “give”. Showing up and providing help at the right time mean so much more than thousands of words of cliché promises. Just enough attention and just enough subtleness make up the ingredients for this recipe.

I have a friend, who started his career as an employee at a quite well-known company. Back then, he saw that his boss was almost always late for work, yet would always leave early for home – which was strange and unusual compared to his calm and professional working manner. A while later, my friend figured out that the boss had two little kids and it was his job to take them to school every day. Being a kind person who adores kids, my friend offered to help his boss, taking over the duty. After 5 or 6 times turning down the offer, the boss finally accepted it.

As for my friend, he did great as a baby-sitter and was never late for work, despite having to wake up an hour earlier and traveling a few extra kilometers every morning. However, thanks to doing that, he got closer to his boss, and therefore learn more from him, such as how to organize his life better. Moreover, the boss sometimes gave my friend books about how to improve his professional skills.

After a few months, his company carried out a big project. Having considered carefully, the boss decided to let my friend take the lead in the project. Although my friend’s ability might not be as good as other colleagues’, he earned himself a big plus in terms of observation skills, problem solving skills, and his ability to work with people.

As you can see, if you build your network with sincerity, you will always get back what you deserve – love and trust from people around you.

4. Create value

Why do you want to connect with someone? Because of benefits! Whether it is tangible or not, it is certain that once a relationship is formed, it is because the parties involved see their benefits in it. Identifying your and other people’s value help you understand who should stay inside your “network circle”, and do not forget to added create value to your relationships.

After 75 years of research and four continuous generations of scientists, those at Harvard University have finally found out the most important thing that brings about happiness in one’s life.

“It’s not just the number of friends you have, and it’s not whether or not you’re in a committed relationship, but it’s the quality of your close relationships that matters,” said Robert Waldinger, an American psychiatrist and a Professor at Harvard Medical School.

5. Keep promises

Keeping promises is an important factor in building your own personal brand. Keeping promises helps creating trust – the thing that people in the modern society usually lack of, and might hesitate to give one another for the fear that people will betray them. In some worse cases, people take promises with their family members lightly, thinking that “they will understand”.

Five years ago, when my network was yet to be strong, I did not have as many global relationships as well as trade promotion projects as I do today. But thanks to keeping one promise, my career path has changed completely.

There was a Vietnamese French coming back to Vietnam with the hope to help build bridges and schools in the poor countryside of Southwest of Vietnam. The man wanted to find someone who could assist him in sorting out the paper work in order to establish a non-profit organization in Vietnam. At that time, I was studying law, and was confident with my ability to get the work done easily and therefore I made a promise to help him. I was happy that I was doing something helpful for villagers in the region as well. Nonetheless, things did not go as I expected, as it turned out it would take me approximately tenfold the amount of money I had anticipated, and almost a year to get all of the necessary paper work done.

I had to face two hard choices: (1) Keeping my word, using my own money to get things done or (2) Breaking my promise.

I went with the former. I stayed at the Department of Planning and Investment for around a week, asking from one to another for a less costly way. And it worked. I did find out a way that was much cheaper and faster to get all the work done.

After 6 months, I eventually finished my task, and it was also the time when the name “Cong-Thang HUYNH” became valued in the French community. 8 out of every 10 French people coming to Vietnam get in touch and agree to do business with me.

After a long time, I have gained myself a lesson “Planting too many seeds yet spending no time on taking good care of them is like ending their lives”

My article on e27 tech magazine: https://goo.gl/5UM5aL