A lot of people always look at me with envy and asked how I did it. I've decided to share one important lesson I learnt...thru the hard way. In case you're wondering what I do for a living, I run the largest Underground Internet Marketing Seminar in Singapore and have a couple of different online and offline businesses coupled with the fact that I'm the No.1 Search Engine Optimization Expert on the planet. I'll talk about that in the next email.

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Firing Your Friend - It Works
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I remember in year 2001, I left the company I painfully built. Though I was not the owner or founder of the company, I felt cheated because I was owed commissions amounting to more than 30,000. I was employee No.2 in the company and broke all SAP Training Sales Record ($200,000 in one day!) when I was working there.

Soon, I was on the job hunt. I was a Group Sales Manager and used to hang out with my peers. I was spending lot's of time mixing with my customers, IT Managers, Senior Managers...etc. So I thought to myself, I better start contacting them to help me.

I was shell-shocked to realize this. None of the few hundred contacts that I used to spend time with could help me. Then I told myself, "OMG, I've mixed with the wrong people". The last few years had been wasted. I started telling myself, I should have fired my friends!

*Birds of the same feather flock together.
IT Managers tend to hang with IT Managers; Storemen with storemen, Senior Managers with Senior Managers, Directors with CEO...etc

To know what is your net worth or how much your salary is, I don't even need to see your pay cheque. All I need to do is to add your 5 closest friend's salaries, divide by five and your salary will be +-20% from there.

How to Fire Your Friends? What's the criterior for firing them?
Tell yourself this, if this friend cannot help you in your job when you lose your job, then fire him/her. I know this sounds like a tough decision but my advise is to just do it. Of course I'm not asking you to fire your childhood friends or someone who's very close to your heart. I'm asking to fire those that you regularly hang around with.

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Remember This Important Quote
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- Hang around with 9 losers and you're No.10.

Don't read this portion if you haven't come to terms with what I have taught you. You need to shed your miserable life and start afresh. To do that, you have to let it all go.

The luxury of running my own business is this. I choose my customers I would want to work with. I've turned away so many businesses that I've lost count. Remember the successful rule lies with the fact that 20% of your customers gives you 80% of the business. Ever since I've mastered the art of Firing My Friends, I've also learnt the art of Firing My Customers.

Another thing you need to learn about firing your friends is to fire friends who are not as intelligent as you. Ok, this sounds crude and you probably heard this for the first time. You need to evolve. I'll give you a simple analogy.

For example, you have a nagging wife who can't stop nagging at you whether you're doing the right stuff or not. You have a choice actually. You could either change yourself to adapt to it (and stop complaining) or you could change the environment. Ok, it might be a little extreme but I just want to tell you that MUST BE in control. You MUST BE driver of your Life! The easier way would be to go for counseling together or pray hard to God.

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Finding New Friends
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There is a certain progression. I'll give you a breakdown of steps that you can work on.

1. Find somebody smart. Bribe him by buying him lunch or dinner. Get close to him and tap his brain juice at every opportunity. Fire him when he runs out of ideas. ;-)

2. Go networking. There are tons of networking events out there. Many are F.O.C. (especially the IT ones) or those that cost anywhere from $10-$20. This is the best time to meet people who are successful. It's also a good time to have access to Managing Directors and CEOs that you usually won't get to meet when doing a sales call.

3. Join Alumnis / Trade Organisations.
Most of the members in trade organisations are business owners. It's a good time to find intelligent people and people with good connections.

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Firing CEO Friends
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After I realize the need to fire my loser friends, in order to be successful, I started going to many networking sessions. Mainly in IT. That equipped me with very good IT knowledge but most of all, I got to know a lot of Business Owners. The sad fact is this, you will find a lot of O.M.O. (One Man Operation) businessmen who are really lost. Once I realize I've got nothing much to learn from them, I moved on...and Fired Them!

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Are You A Loser?
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Chances is you might be one. The biggest setback a person can have is their pride and ego. They do that by not admitting they are a loser. I was a big loser once. I admitted to it, fire my friends, firing my CEO friends.

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The Need To Improve Yourself
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Now you probably have a peek on how successful people see things differently. There is an important need to improve yourself so that you'll keep up with the pace. Remember, it's a two way game. You can fire people and so can they. Once you're irrelevant, people will fire you for good.