Mindset, vision and what drives execution: protecting your health to finish the journey

There is a familiar formula in business for how a company survives and grows: roughly 15% project idea, 15% cash flow, 20% people and 50% execution. You can optimise those ratios down to the last detail. But when I look into the 20% that is people, after enough knocks in the market, I have come to see that the most important quality in a person is not a polished CV, the money they hold or a gift for talking.

Mindset and vision

For me, everything comes down to two things: mindset and vision.

A lack of capital can be solved by raising it. A lack of skills can be solved by training. But if the mindset is hollow and the vision is short, no amount of money will hold. Mindset decides how you face adversity and how you stand up after being turned down. Vision decides how far you will go, and whether you are building something that lasts or only putting up a facade to get through the day.

There is something few people say plainly: it is not only startups that need a startup mindset. Investors, accelerators and incubators need it too. If they enter a project as benefactors, or as financial machines that only push targets detached from reality, they end up choking the very project they invest in. A handshake that creates value happens only when founder and investor are on the same frequency, rolling up their sleeves together to find the growth numbers that are real.

The variable few people count

So what is the deepest mindset and the longest vision a person can have? I believe it is to see one invisible variable that very few people account for until they have lost it: health.

I do not mean to generalise about everyone, but people who reach what I would call whole wealth are rare. Someone who is fulfilled in finances, character, knowledge and health all at once is something I have rarely had the chance to meet. Behind the enviable assets of most successful people I know, there is a fairly long list of health problems.

And to be honest, I am no exception. I have my own health issues. They are not severe, but they were enough to wake me up and make me look again at what the foundation of life really is.

We are so busy looking outward, hungry for wins that earn society's recognition. But the more you need the outside world to applaud you, the thinner your inner self is. Building a company is, in the end, a journey of cultivating the inner self and sinking roots into the foundation, not of decorating the surface.

Working on a startup in healthcare, and meeting a great many real situations, I have seen at close range some of the heaviest moments in the cycle of life and death. When a person reaches that final line, the only thing they need is time, and that time is short. Some people nod hello to you yesterday and cannot say another word today. What is the point of working yourself to the bone for money if, in the end, you lack the strength to live with it? Do not trade your life for the label of being successful.

Do not idolise anyone

On the road in business you will meet many successful people and many seasoned experts. Stay clear-eyed. A person can be an outstanding expert, a model of success, and can play the part very convincingly on their own stage. But take away the spotlight and we are all flesh and blood.

That someone is an expert in their field does not mean they are better than you in every way. Do not put anyone on a pedestal only to be disappointed later. Look at them realistically: learn from their strengths, and also look at where they are unfinished, to draw your own lessons. Some people will judge you from a one-sided view. Let them. Keep doing your work steadily, and over time who you really are will show.

A shared destination, and the journey

Each of us may start from a different line, but the final destination is the same. Death is nature's absolute fairness, the last stop for every life, and it can come at any moment without warning. So the finish line is not something to race toward so frantically that we lose our lives on the way.

The real value lies in the experience of the whole journey.

The winner is not the one who reaches the finish fastest with a worn-out body. The winner is the one who keeps pursuing their ideals, fully experiences the joys and sorrows along the way, keeps their health, protects the people they cherish and holds on to a calm inner life.

As for me

After quite a few falls in business, I still choose to get up and keep going. I am fortunate to have good people alongside me, among them Hai H Nguyen, founder of BeginGuru and a Forbes Under 30 Asia 2017 honoree. Of course, when I go to meet partners or investors, I still get turned down from time to time. That is entirely normal, because not everyone is on the same frequency or suited to the path I am on.

So live, and experience this journey to the end. Work with strength and believe in yourself. That is enough.

These lines I wrote first of all for myself, as a reminder not to drift off course. If they fit you, I am glad you read them; if they do not, that is perfectly fine too.