- I was born in Singapore
and immigrated to Canada at the age of 12.
I grew up here, I naturalized here.
Even though I look Asian,
I didn't really have Asian Asian background,
because we were a Singaporean mix that we spoke English.
So when I came to Vancouver I didn't really blend in.
There's a lot of Cantonese and immigrants coming in.
I naturalized more with the locals
and then I was the black sheep of the family.
I did some illegal things when I was younger around about 16
and then what happened was,
when I got in trouble with the law
I made a shift in my life.
That's when I started working really hard.
I felt I disappointed my family and my parents.
During that time, in like 18-19,
I bumped into these guys that were like business mentors
and they were actually forming kind of a group
where they had different business mentors
speaking to younger people.
A couple of them were in network marketing,
some were engineers, some were architects,
some were real estate, some were financial planners.
I guess they were using it as a recruiting process
around that time,
so I got recruited actually more into network marketing
but the network marketing actually opened my eyes
to personal development.
It wasn't so much the network marketing and the making money
but I did see wealthy people both in the corporate world,
people like Brian Jessel or Segal,
Jimmy Patterson here in Vancouver
but I also saw very successful small business owners
that made their millions.
And all of them, the common trend, was personal development,
reading books, going to seminars, things like that.
So it expanded my mind
because I didn't really want to go to university.
I wanted to learn street smarts.
Then I got distracted.
I had a girlfriend break up with me
and I moved out to Japan.
I just wanted to explore Asia.
A lot of Cantonese were going back to Hong Kong at that time
because of the repatriation
and a couple of my friends said,
Desmond you're such a banana,
you don't know anything about Asia,
you should go back to Asia somehow.
I didn't want to go to China, I didn't wanna go to Korea,
I didn't want to go to Hong Kong so I chose Japan
because I liked racing, I liked sushi, I liked the culture.
So I went there on a vacation to meet a girl
and I fell in love with the city.
Tokyo is like the New York of of Asia in a way.
When I went over there, I got caught up over there.
I worked in the coaching and corporate training industry
first as a salesperson.
I had one of my first few mentors as well over there,
training me how to be good at sales,
how to pick up the phone,
how to book appointments, how to close sales
and around that time I also got exposed to Robert Kiyosaki.
Though he never came out to Japan and he had a Japanese name
and I learned a lot about real estate
and different things in business.
That was when I jumped full feet, both feet,
into my very first venture.
And that was with these crazy Australians
to do a jewelry business dealing in sexual jewelry
and I was the talker who learned how to raise finance
because I had a network, I'm a strong networker,
I had a strong network already at that time
in a short period time in Japan
of high-net-worth individuals
who would become angel investors in this venture.
So I raised half a million dollars,
that business went bankrupt,
the partners ran out, left me and this other young guy,
left in Japan with holding the hot potato.
That taught me a very serious lesson in cash flow
as well as also responsibility.
I felt very responsible to those business owners.
To fast forward the story a bit,
I went on to recover, I got married
and so that's when I I went off and I went independent.
Away from my wife so that we wouldn't divorce.
We could have the happy marriage.
She does her own project,
which I helped to raise the finances for
but now no longer part of,
and I went into the music industry.
In the music industry, this is a yet another venture,
partnered up with a guy from Atlanta Georgia
who brought a lot of connections to Japan.
It just happened his wife was Japanese,
so he was already heavily involved in the music industry.
Came to Japan because his wife is Japanese
and when we did that, it did very well for about a year,
a lot of cash flow, a lot of money in hand
and then my wife's restaurant, true as I expected,
started to fail.
Half a million dollars going down the drain,
lawsuits, different thing going on there.
So my wife is now completely wiped out,
all the money I had is now wiped out
and not only did I get wiped out
but all the people I will normally depend on.
So back then I could easily pick up the phone to 10 people
and say, hey I need $100,000 float.
Can you float me a 100,000
and I'll pay you back in 30 days with interest.
But all those people got wiped out with me
because I brought them all into the deal for the cash flow.
So needless to say all those investors
were very very upset with me
and that's when I was just dabbling in internet marketing
as a way to generate some income
but I had to come back to Vancouver.
So I came back to Vancouver,
embarrassed after being overseas for 12 years,
I felt really really just disgusted, embarrassed, shy.
I moved back to my parents house,
lived in the basement, had to get a job
and I got a job with Sony.
I worked at Sony, I worked at a couple of their stores.
The three stores we had here
and I just didn't want anyone to know
I was back in Vancouver.
I start to research because I had to bug,
the entrepreneur bug in me,
and I could not sit down quietly so I started to research
what if I was to create an entrepreneurs club.
The first thing I did was type "Vancouver Entrepreneurs"
and boom, who's this Dan Lok guy?
Dan Lok, Dan Lok, Dan Lok.
Who's this Dan Lok guy, man?
Personally, if you don't want to compete
with whoever is dominating the market,
you want to join them and partner with them,
that's the way I was taught.
Or you keep your friends close,
you keep your enemies closer.
So Dan was my enemy in my mind,
I thought this guy is my biggest competitor,
I'd better go spy on him.
So what I did was, I first came out to one of the VEG events
and in an instant I completely changed my mind.
Literally the moment I walked in the door I thought no.
I don't want to compete with this guy,
I definitely want to partner with this guy.
Very professional, very very well organized,
definitely knew his stuff.
Over the years I'd gone to a lot of gurus.
I'd worked with Tony Robbins, Robert Kiyosaki, Jay Abraham.
They had come to Japan, I've been in all the stuff,
I traveled to the United States
at least two to three times per year, every year
for some sort of personal development training.
So I invest a lot of money in personal development
and when I was introduced to Dan,
I could definitely sense that he knew his shit,
if I can say it that way.
He knew his shit.
He was coarse a bit, he was funny,
he definitely had showmanship
and what it was was for me personally
I needed a way to come back, right?
I felt I had a somewhat initial fame before and I lost it
and now I needed to come back and come back fast.
So I really was looking for a partnership
with someone I could respect, someone I trust
and so I didn't want to be like everyone
who rushed to contact Dan and say, hey Dan please mentor me.
So I secretly, very quietly just sat in the sidelines
and I tried to think how can I give value to Dan.
What can I give value to Dan?
So I started to slowly promote Dan,
talk about him in my social media,
using my contacts in Vancouver,
got him an interview and I think that charmed him
or showed him that I cared first
and then Dan invited to have a meeting more with me
to talk about let's work together, let's test things out.
So that that's kind of my story of how I went from
my whole story and then devastation
and then come back to Vancouver, embarrassment,
humbled myself and then come back and meet with Dan.
So pride was it was a key factor for me there
and I was feeling like I was getting old
and I had all kinds of excuses and self-limiting beliefs,
such as I'm depending on my mom as a babysitter
and she's extremely anti-business.
You should get a job, all your business wiped you out,
didn't you learn a lesson,
why you want to go back to entrepreneur again?
And so it made it very difficult
every single time I want to come out
even just once a month to meet with Dan
it was so painful to get out of the house.
I would get a lot of emotional pressure over there.
I did not know if I really wanted
to go back to entrepreneurship.
Maybe I should just get a job,
maybe I should just go work at a bank,
maybe I should go do something like that.
Especially while my wife is not here and just with the kids
just have something stable
but then when Sony laid me off the fear,
that was early 2015,
I needed to go back to entrepreneurship again.
I was doing the online marketing.
I was actually afraid to appear on the scene again
and how to rebrand myself in Vancouver.
I saw Dan as a really good way to help me do that.
When Dan actually implemented the mentorship with us,
with me at least,
what happened was he helped me to structure.
He very quickly could pick up my weak points.
He understood my personality very very quickly
which made it very comfortable to work with.
That's Dan strong point, he can read people
and then he figures out what their weak point is,
what their strengths are and he can quickly give you
very short projects that keep me focused.
For someone like a personality of myself, a sapphire,
I'm sometimes disorganized or ADD.
So he gave me something to work on, chunking it
and when I could chunk it,
in step by step I could see results.
Then of course he gave me a recognition,
he helped to put me on stage again,
helped me to find my confidence at speaking again.
Rebuild my confidence as a business owner, as someone.
I was afraid to start mentoring people
because of my failures
but Dan showed me that I had successes again.
I'm a loyalty person, I'm a Scorpio.
Dan is not 100% Scorpio,
he's kind of just on the verge of Scorpio.
Everything I've ever felt from Dan is that he prides,
I can feel he holes loyalty, credibility, integrity
at a very high level.
So I want to do business with someone like that.
Every time we've had discussions I always feel
that trust is a very very important factor for both of us.
I can trust him and I want him to trust me
and I feel I've earned his trust.
That's key.
Once the trust is there we can do any kind of business.
Yeah, it's long term, I'm looking for long term.
I speak less, I'm able to close better,
I'm able to read people better.
He's taught me how to read people better,
he's also taught me to pick and choose in a better way.
What I mean by that pick and choose.
Before I'm trying to do too much,
now he showed me to pick and choose certain deals,
like the 80/20 rule sort of things, those kind of thing,
who to spend my time with more
and he helps me to qualify people better.
I think those are those are very big improvements for me
and as a result my income has gone up,
I've become a better coach, I become a better speaker,
I have a clearer plan of what I need to do,
how to brand myself.
As a fatherpreneur,
I have to have this work-life balance, right?
This was something a little bit worried about
because when I approached Dan,
Dan doesn't have any children so I was worried
that maybe he could not really mentor me as a father
on that side.
How to be a business owner with kids
but on the other hand of Dan has a pretty good perspective.
I think he doesn't have to have kids himself
but he definitely understands, he's very sympathetic,
or I wouldn't say sympathetic, that's not the right word.
He's very cognizant, he's very aware.
So Dan always makes sure that whatever advice he gives me,
he knows that that is very precious for me,
the children time,
so he doesn't overload me with too much stuff.
He tries to figure out what I like to do
and what are my passions
and then he basically gives me advice
on how to improve what I'm doing.
So as a fatherpreneur, I'll give you an example.
He talked about some of the videos I make,
showing my lifestyle videos and he's like,
well those are great but now how about giving some content
or some in-depth how-to type videos
so that you can not only show your lifestyle as a happy dad
but someone who's also a professional,
someone who's an authority,
who can give these kind of skills
that's gonna attract the people
that want to be mentored by you as well.
So that's one thing.
The next was the skills that Dan taught me
on closing for high ticket items, that increased a lot.
I was good at sales but I was good at small sales.
So I was bringing in a lot of small sales,
spending a lot of time with these sales.
What Dan did was, in a very short period of time,
showed me how to close one high ticket sale
that covered my entire quota.
So instead of doing you know say 20 phone calls,
I just did one phone call
and I made the same amount of money.
That was a big leap in income right away.
I love the inner circle
because of the one-on-one time with Dan, right?
You can't get that if you were to go to VEG
or watch YouTube videos.
Now that Dan has given me the responsibility and the honor
of being the director of the DLIC,
I actually probably sit in a very unique seat
and that I get to see more than the other DLIC members
and what I see is a lot of people,
a lot of hopeful young entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs
that think they know it all.
They think that if they watch 100 Dan Lok videos
they know it all
but really they haven't even scratched
the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg.
There is so much more, it's priceless
the amount of information you get by being just around
at the dinners, in the workshops, the hot seats.
I even think there's so much more
that Dan would like to give that he can give
but we just lack the time even.
Even if we were to spend 24 hours,
seven days a week with Dan,
in the shower with Dan, eating dinner with Dan,
in the living room, sleeping with him,
you would still never be able to learn everything.
So I think DLIC is priceless for anyone
who is really really looking
for a business partner and a mentor.
Yeah, just VEGs, the one-day seminars
and things like that not enough, not enough.
I'm just gonna imagine a sort of a case study
or a certain person and why should they hire Dan?
I don't know.
I would probably reply to them, say,
I don't know you tell me, why do you think.
You tell me what is your expectation from Dan
because I don't know what they know of Dan
and I don't know what their weak points are,
what their strengths are.
In general what Dan has trained me to ask these guys
is what do you expect to get out of the mentorship
and if they can answer that question,
if for example they can give some quantifiable number
my business is making a 100,000,
I think if I work with Dan I can get 300,000.
Good, he just answered the question.
Dan's gonna give me more confidence
or Dan's gonna show me, help me to do some joint ventures.
Good, they just answered the question as well.
So why should they hire Dan?
I trust Dan, Dan has all the knowledge.
There's a reason you're coming to Dan.
It shouldn't be that I have to pitch Dan to them.
It should be the reverse.
They should pitch why Dan should be.
They should try to convince me why I should say to Dan,
hey Dan I think this guy would be a good mentee in the DLIC.
They need to sell themselves
because quite honestly Dan has very limited time
and I honestly don't think
that Dan should be wasting his time with people
that are not going to implement what he's gonna do, right?
What he's gonna teach them.
So if they are not willing to fight for Dan's time,
we're not gonna go and sell Dan to them.
They gotta sell themselves to get.
Yeah.