(serious piano music)
- So many people are asking about my perspective
on the coronavirus, so I want to make a video like this
to answer some of the questions that people might have.
First of all, I am not a medical doctor.
I'm not gonna give you any health advice.
For that, you should always see online
for the reliable source.
Now, first of all, with the coronavirus
there's no doubt it is affecting countries.
Countries are shutting down, companies are
going out of business, individuals are losing their jobs.
It's affecting not just the health of the planet,
but really also affecting the global economy,
and it is a very, very serious matter.
So, first of all, I want to limit my perspective
when it comes to individual,
obviously, to protect yourself, to protect your family,
to take all the precaution of wearing the mask,
washing your hands, make sure that you stay away
from places that are very, very much crowded
and that's how a lot of people now,
you can see from the news catch the virus,
and I do have, actually, a team member's girlfriend
actually unfortunately also caught the coronavirus
and truly it's affecting all the people around us
and you can see there's a lot of fear now on the street,
fear on social media, people spreading the fear,
and it is real fear.
It is a threat, maybe not as serious as we perceive
but it is serious.
So, here's what I want to say.
First of all, this will not be
the last virus that we will see.
It's not the first, it's not gonna be the last,
and this won't last forever.
It might last two months, three months,
five months, eight months, 10 months, a year.
We don't know, no one knows, just like,
as you know I was born in Hong Kong and back then,
SARS affected Hong Kong tremendously,
tremendously and so I definitely this,
this affects our lives, affects my family's life.
Even my relatives in Hong Kong, no doubt,
but knowing that it's not gonna last forever,
things will bounce back to normal.
It's just a matter of time.
Unfortunately, I could also see as a businessman
that a few companies are benefiting
from this tragedy tremendously.
There are a few companies right now
that are making insane profits,
that a lot of the fear, even being spread on social media,
that are purely money-driven,
just like it always is.
Just like it always is.
It's money-driven.
So I an individual,
as I said many, many times in my other previous videos,
that it's very critical to have a way
that you could make a living from home,
that you could work remotely
because now a lot of people are staying home,
that they cannot go out,
and they are getting hours cut,
and they may not be able to go to work,
and we don't know again how long this will last,
but having that skill that you could work remotely
and most of my students work remotely.
Most of my team members work remotely
having that skill set, so I hope this is a sometimes
a warning, a reminder, how important that is,
not just relying on one job,
instead developing a skill set that you could count on.
That skill set you could rely on,
and for company, I know that there are businesses
that are being shut down and companies
going out of business because of the coronavirus,
and it's very unfortunate,
and this is why as an entrepreneur,
we always need to be prepared.
Maybe now is the time to look what you do and restructure
your business a bit.
Maybe switching some of the employees
to independent contractors.
Maybe there are certain functions in the business
that you could outsource.
Maybe it's also time to consider having a more remote team,
a remote structure, so when things like this happen,
and it will happen again,
that it will not, it would affect your business,
but it would not destroy your business.
Also maybe consider not just having businesses
that are, maybe all events driven,
using the online, using the technology,
using certain tools to be able to keep your business going.
I think that's also pretty important.
So it's very sad to see many, many businesses struggle.
Some I saw from the news that they've been around
20, 30, 40, 50 years, and they're shutting their doors
because of the virus.
Now myself, my company, we just issued
a world-wide memo to our internal team,
because usually we have a quarterly meeting
where all our members from Team Dan Lok,
they will fly over, fly, come to Vancouver,
and meet, and now we're able to let them to stay home,
and they don't have to travel,
and I've structured my company to have most of my members
where they work remotely anyway,
so the virus itself doesn't actually affect my operation
that much, if anything, more people now are staying at home
and consuming content, so if your business,
you're not utilizing social media,
or you're already utilizing social media,
now is not the time to kind of minimize your activity.
Now is the time to expand
because now people consuming more content,
is to put more content out there,
to expand your reach to capture more attention
in the marketplace, depends on what you do, right?
Maybe it is a solution to solve some of these problems
that are happening or even it's not.
By putting out there, by putting your message out there,
putting your story out there, now is the time to do so,
not the time to hold back.
Now it's time to expand,
not to retract, so that's my perspective
for company, but for sure these are very challenging times,
so take care of your family,
take care of yourself.
Tough times don't last.
Tough people do.