I thought it was impossible until it is done.

THE GIFT

I received a Lego set for my 49th birthday from the awesome team at Beyond Insights… who seems to know what I need before I knew it. (They are really awesome)
It was the Lego Technic series – The Batman – BATMOBILE™ 42127

And the set looked amazing from the box.

But as soon as I opened the box I was taken aback by an overwhelming sight.

There were 1,360 pieces, many of them really tiny for my ageing eyes. From the manual – there were 393 steps…

THE STRUGGLE

This Lego set is not like the Lego I used to play as a child.
While I didn’t have many toys at home back then,  I have played with them when visiting my more well-to-do friend Matt.

Matt would bring out buckets of Lego bricks – mostly rectangles, squares and some round stuff like wheels, and we would “simply whack”, i.e. putting the pieces together according to our imagination.

It was fun, but I don’t remember assembling anything worthy of Instagram (ok… Instagram and internet did not exist back then).

This set is different.  It looked daunting.

It is said – “the purpose of the Lego Technic series is to create more advanced models with more complex technical functions, compared to the simpler brick-building properties of normal lego.”

I was procrastinating.  “Let me put it aside until I have more time.” I thought, as I am going through a season of life where I am juggling too many priorities beyond my comfort level.

But still I decided to do it, because I really value the hearts and thoughts that were put in by the people who selected this gift for me – I could not put that aside.

And I gave myself 2 weeks, budgeting for 15 minutes a day.

What did I have to sacrifice?  My guitar practice was one of it.  I have allocated 15 minutes a day for that as I am in the process of mastering guitar, so that took a back seat during the 2 weeks.  

Also less time for Netflix because there were days where I couldn’t do any Lego assembly as planned so I had to do it in my “chill time”.

THE PROCESS

I was struggling when I started, challenged from many aspects.

The instructions manual only had pictures, no words – I misunderstood a few fundamental things.

I struggled to find the right pieces, because many looked similar but are actually different.

I toiled through the first few days, complaining about how things are.

But the vision of the glorious looking Batmobile spurred me on… together with my desire to acknowledge and appreciate the gift I am given.

And then the magic happened… 4th day onwards.

I got familiar with the pieces and I could identify the right one easily.

I got myself a few containers to sort the pieces so I can find what I need faster.

I began to appreciate the beauty of the instructions manual, it actually became simple because there is nothing to read… just pictures!

THE BLISS

There is this social stigma that guys normally understand cars and have the ability to troubleshoot car problems at least, if not fixing it. Not me.

I am the type who don’t really understand the parts under the hood and easily cheated by unscrupulous mechanics.  I think I would be interested to learn, just that I didn’t have any influence on this when I grew up

But this Lego building process has helped me understand a fair bit about how cars work,  I felt victorious finding that missing piece of puzzle from my life.

The process has also helped me to reflect on how life is designed, how I lead, how I deal with problems, and how I can improve my thinking process.

THE LESSONS

I completed the construction in exactly 14 days.
The end result looks glorious.
It is all worth it!

But it was the process and journey that uplifted my spirit, because:
I have more clarity about myself and what I need to tweak moving onwards, as a disciple of Christ, as a husband, as a leader, as a friend, as an educator. I learned about God’s vision for me, I learned about faith, communication, thinking process etc., I think I can write a book about them if I want to (or maybe not…  I have so many other priorities :D)

I also developed an utmost respect for the people who designed the Lego Technic sets.  If you think about it – a car is actually a complex system with many parts working together.  And the people who designed the Lego set has simplify it to the essential parts, and break it down into Lego parts to give customer a very realistic and yet vey enjoyable experience of building a car from scratch. 

This is a very difficult thing to do, no wonder the Lego brand has stood the test of times!

And then it suddenly dawned on me that …
The hard work we have been putting in for the past 14 years has paid off.

The truth is – success in the stock market is not easy at all.
It requires you to have a good decision making process, and there are many steps in the process. But it can be done…

  1. If you know what are the essential steps you need to go through, what are the things you need not be concerned about.
  2. If you have a map to follow and someone to guide you through it.
  3. If you have a clear vision of what you are building towards.
  4. If you are willing to make this your priority, with 15 minutes a day, or 30 minutes a day, or 1 hour a day… as long as you are willing.

We have put in the hard work to help you with #1.
It is evident in our students’ success, those who diligently use the process they learned.
I know for a fact we have an awesome team to help you with #2…
because so many of our graduates have told us so.

So all you need to have is #3 and #4.

What’s #3 for you?
It could be the plan to provide the best living environment for your family or the best education for your children.
It could be building up the funds to start a new business or new career in the later years.

Whatever it is, as long as it is important enough for you – you already have a compelling vision.

Then the only question is – #4 Is it time to make it a priority?
If the answer is yes, would now be a good time to use the S-T-P-M framework to help you create sustainable wealth from the stock market?

Would you make it a priority to learn a strategy that will enable you to withstand any challenging market condition like what we are going through,
so that years later when you look back and the process you went through, you can say to yourself:

“It is all worth it!”

The decision is yours.

We’ll be sharing more about the simple 4-step stock investing & trading framework to guide you with #1 & #2 in our upcoming webinar.

Register for the next session below

Thanks for reading!
Terence Teoh
Co-founder of Beyond Insights