Samy Chong – Employees, Your Most Valuable Asset, Summer Series Interviews
Each week during July and August, I will take one of the interviews from my book, Tales of People Who Get It, and post it on the blog so that you may learn from some of the interviewees. This week, I feature Samy Chong, who treated his employees well.
Related:
Living an Authentic Life – Gabriel Draven, Summer Series Interviews
Leading Women toward Self-Sufficiency, Anthea Rossouw – Summer Interview Series
Pay Your Taxes – George Fraser, Summer Series Interviews
Building Relationships – Andrea Nierenberg, Summer Series Interviews
In 2007, I published my book, Tales of People Who Get It, which is based on interviews with successful people. The Invisible Mentor blog was born of my book. Let’s take a step back in time to the fall of 2007, I had been thinking about ways to market Tales of People Who Get It and hoping for a burst of inspiration. While I was taking a walk in High Park in Toronto, it popped into my consciousness that Tales of People Who Get It was my Board of Invisible Mentors. What happened, without being aware of it, is that when I faced a problem, I would remember parts of interviews that I had conducted, and would know how to solve that problem. After conducting research, The Invisible Mentor blog was born, and five years later the concept of the invisible mentor has changed.
One of the reasons people say why they love Tales of People Who Get It is that the interviewees are ordinary people so they can see themselves in them. If the interviews resonate with you, consider purchasing your copy of Tales of People Who Get It because there are over 30 interviews included. Seven years later, I am a better writer, and there are things that I would do differently today with the book, but I took a chance to put my work out to the world!
~Challenge~
In 1991 when the economy went into a tailspin and the interest rates went into double digits, I owned a restaurant and I remember feeling a sense of hopelessness, a sense of not knowing where the future of the business was going.
~Resolution~
I overcame this feeling of hopelessness by realizing that all the time that I had been investing in creating a place that was really nurturing for my team paid off in spades. I remember a dishwasher who was making $7 or $8 an hour came up to me and told me that if I didn’t have the money to pay him for the next couple of months, it would be okay. The faith and trust of my staff, which I had cared for in the past, pulled me through this very difficult time and ensured the protection of the restaurant.
We treated our staff special. When the head chef was getting married, we proposed to close the restaurant to accommodate those workers who wanted to attend the wedding. This was unheard of to close a restaurant on a Saturday night, the busiest night in the industry. When a worker needed a shift covered and couldn’t find a replacement, I would step in and cover the shift. Or if a worker was facing a very traumatic time, whether it was a father in a hospital or if a parent died, we would drive them to wherever they needed to be.
Because of my nurturing and caring, the turnover in my restaurant was less than six percent in an industry that averages over 250 percent.
~Lessons Learned~
- If you nurture and care for your staff, it will pay off in spades.
- I realized that there are no accidents in life, everything about where we are, what we accomplish, who we attract, is all because of who we are, and this is what I call the consciousness journey.
- It’s truly about how we continue to evolve, to grow, to learn, to make sure that what we do is in alignment with our purpose on this earth, and hopefully that purpose is in alignment with our passion. And if you have the purpose and passion, you basically have a vocation that truly serves humanity.
~How to Integrate Your Personal and Professional Life~
When you love what you do, and do what you love, it becomes seamless. If I am thinking about an idea, it’s about work. My work and personal life are pretty much seamless and not separated. There are times when I do not see clients. I have “Samy Days” where I do not service any clients. I make sure that I take care of myself, whether it be a spa day, massages or going away for the weekend or for holidays. I make sure that I schedule these things so that I have balance because I love what I do so much.
~Formula for Success~
For me, looking back at my life, and how I succeeded in different careers and moved forward, the formula for success has two components. The first is having a vision of where I want to go in life. For example, when I was 14 years old and washing dishes, I had a dream of owning a restaurant and never thought that at the age of 25 I would have that dream. And, when I sold that restaurant and bought a very expensive investment property, I had another dream to own a more formal and upscale restaurant. In less than two and a half years, that dream came true.
The second component of the formula for success is when you have your vision, you have to have absolute faith and trust that the universe will deliver. Know that everything happens for a reason. Once you signal to the universe where you are going, you just need to let go and allow things to unfold. And the journey that I’ve been on is exactly that, leaving a career where I was doing quite well and moving into another where I had no idea how I was going to do, but knowing that I would be serving the world and serving the greater need of the universe.
So, the formula for success is about having a vision, having a dream, having a hope that never flickers out of what you want to achieve. Stephen Covey says this by stating that you should start with the end in mind. I believe that if you have a compelling vision of where you are, where you are going and what that entails, you have won half the battle of what you want to get out of this life and you are on the road to success.
If I were to describe the formula for success as a diagram, I would use three overlapping circles. The first circle would represent what the world needs. Circle two would represent your greatest gifts, passion and purpose, and circle three would represent where the money is. Where the circles overlap in the middle is truly what you came here on earth to do – honouring your purpose, honouring what the world needs and following where the money or energy is. Joseph Campbell says it very well, “Follow your bliss,” and there is no doubt in my mind that you will achieve the kind of success that is unheard of.
~Major Regret~
My religion is to live and die without any regret. I have zero regret. I live my life the way I imagine it would be if I knew it was my last day. This is how I live and continue to live the life that I love.
Would there be things that I would do differently if I had to do it over? Because there are no accidents, and everything happens for a reason – what I’ve attracted, what I need to learn- I look back at my life and at everything that happened, there was always a reason behind it. I do not live a regretful life, I just know that whatever happens was meant to happen. It is for my higher good, it is for me to move forward to the next chapter of my life.
~Favourite Quote~
I have two favourite quotes that are interrelated. Popularly attributed to Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, I like “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting to get a different result” and “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them” by Albert Einstein because inside each of us we have the ability to create whatever thought or whatever life we want to create. If we can think it, we can manifest it. With challenges, are we willing to learn, to grow, to stretch to get to where we want to go?
~Influential Book~
My bible at this chapter of my life is Power vs. Force
by Dr. David Hawkins. I like this book because it maps out the skill of consciousness journey of where each of us are, and directs us to what the next step will lead us to. The book calibrates how we continue to live and grow as a human being. It’s the most powerful book that I have ever come across in my life.
The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure
by James Redfield also impacted me because it started me on this journey and allowed me to really open my eyes to what this journey on earth is really about.
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Author Bio: Avil Beckford, an expert interviewer, entrepreneur and published author is passionate about books and professional development, and that's why she founded The Invisible Mentor and the Virtual Literary World Tour to give you your ideal mentors virtually in the palm of your hands by offering book reviews and book summaries, biographies of wise people and interviews of successful people. Connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.
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