Every time I meet an entrepreneur, I ask one question that looks simple.
“Do you really want to grow this business, or do you just want to keep doing business?”
Most people don’t see the difference at first. The truth is, the two are very different. That’s why I always look at business like a sport. Anyone can step onto the field, put on a jersey and play every week. But that alone doesn’t make him a world-class athlete.
Athletes who genuinely want to be champions make different decisions from day one. How they train, how they hold their discipline, how they take criticism, how they get back up after a loss — all of it is different, because their target is different too.
It’s the same in entrepreneurship. Many entrepreneurs really just want to run a business. They want sales, they want customers, and they want income that’s better than a salary. There’s nothing wrong with that choice.
But when someone comes to me and says he wants to build a company that can last, grow, and impact more people, then the game he’s about to play changes completely.
I can’t coach a founder who wants to succeed — to be a ‘champion’ — the same way I coach someone who just wants to stay in the game.
That’s why, before we talk about marketing strategy, sales or AI, I’m more interested in understanding a founder’s real intention. Is he truly willing to pay a certain ‘price’ for that dream?
Because every stage of growth needs a different version of you as the ‘driver’. A business making tens of thousands of ringgit a month needs a certain way of thinking. A business hitting millions a year demands a completely different level of leadership, discipline and clarity. We can’t expect world-class results if we’re still training with an amateur player’s mentality.
That’s why I often draw inspiration from Sir Alex Ferguson. His greatness wasn’t just in leading MU to trophy after trophy. It was in building a high-performance culture that kept producing great players, year after year. He never allowed any individual, no matter how big the name, to be bigger than the team culture he was building.
Business works the same way. Products change, markets change, technology changes. But a founder’s culture towards learning, discipline and self-improvement will always decide how far the business can go.
In the end, I believe a business’s success isn’t decided by how good the game is. It’s decided by the decisions the founder makes before he steps onto the field.
Wanting to be an entrepreneur is a choice. But choosing to succeed is a commitment.
Datuk Wira