357. Networking with Billionaires

“One very hot day, when I was seven and a student at St Mary’s Elementary School in Woodside, Queens, New York, my classmates saw that I had this amazing portable fan and that I was really cool while everyone else was sweating like crazy. They asked me, ‘Hey, Chris, where did you get that fan?’ I bought a bunch of the fans for $2.00 each in Chinatown and sold them at school for $3.00 each. So, in second grade I learned the principle of supply and demand. That really was the genesis of me being an entrepreneur.”

Chris had a number of challenges in his Catholic school. He was the shortest kid in class, he was thought to have a reading or learning disability and the teachers thought he talked too much. “They had me write ‘I will not talk in class’ hundreds of times.”

“My uncle Deng, an immigrant from Hong Kong, hired me in his company when I was 12. He paraded me around all his clients saying how amazing I was, how talented and hardworking. That really shifted my idea of what was possible for me and gave me self-confidence.  Now, as I give speeches around the world, I credit my Uncle Deng for being that first entrepreneur role model in my life.”

“I believe successful entrepreneurship is all about pushing yourself and aiming high. You’ll never get to your dreams if you don’t push yourself. A lot of people don’t succeed in life. They might have the intelligence, the connections, or they might be born in a great country, as we were, but if they don’t have the courage to push themselves, they’re not going to get to do what they want and love to do.”

1. Don’t be afraid to aim high and reach out to successful people you admire.

2. Continuously ask yourself, “What kind of value can I add?”

3. Focus on learning how to find commonality, build relationships of trust.

4. Be a self-starter. Always push yourself to do your best.