Plan to Succeed

Good Afternoon, Fellow toastmasters and guests!

How many of us want to go to the Disney World in Florida? How many of us want to drive there without a map? How many of us here want to build our own dream house? How many of us here want to build it without a blueprint? We are all plunged into a journey called life. Do we have a plan for this great journey? Fellow toastmasters, today, I’d like to share with you three my personal stories. They all have shown me the power of having a plan to succeed.

One year after I graduated from college in Shanghai, I was selected to head a summer camp of 30 high school students. They were children of my colleagues. The last day of camp was also one of the boys’ birthday. After his birthday party was over, he came to me with an envelope. He said, “My father passed away with leukemia when I was 13. He left 5 sealed envelopes and asked me to choose a man as my mentor and read the letter on my birthday. Will you read this last one to me?” I took the letter out and it read: “Dear son, today is your 18th birthday. Please forgive your father for not being able to be with you. The previous four letters were a plan for you to follow. I don’t have any more plans for you. My son, you are big enough to plan for your own life…” I finished reading that letter in tears. I never met the father but the wisdom shown in his letters still guides me today. What did I learn from the boy’s father? Have a plan for life. Plan to excel. And plan to succeed.

I immediately applied what I learned and benefited from it. The institute I was working for had more than five thousand scientists and engineers guarded by the PLA. It had a small beautiful lake and was surrounded by mountains. What a beautiful place! But I did not want to stay in that isolated rural area even before I went there. The only way I could get out was to go back to graduate school. Finally, I got the permission from my boss, but there were only one hundred days left before the qualifying exams. I had to score in the top 20% of the tough exams over three days. The pressure was as heavy as the mountains I could see through my window. I looked at the lake and could not entertain the thought of failure. Suddenly, I heard the boy’s father whispering in my ear: “Have a plan ready.” So I followed him. I made a study plan for each subject. The plan to succeed paid off. I scored in the top 3 in each of the five exams among 250 applicants.

Have I always planned to succeed? I wish I had. In the fall of 1998, I opened an online trading account with $30,000. It went up to $135,000 in the spring of 2000. Some of you may still remember that brutal Monday. The stock market crashed. By the end of 2003, there was only $4,000 left in the account. Did I figure out how I could do better? No. Not until I read Robert Kiyosaki’s book. Mr. Kiyosaki was also a fellow toastmaster. He said in his book “Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing”: “Don’t be average. The average people don’t have an investment plan.” What was the result without a plan: I lost money and more importantly I almost lost the confidence.

Unlike me, you may already have an investment plan and are making money. Congratulations! Well, do you have plans for other things? Do we have a plan for our great journey called “life”?

Today, at this moment, as I stand here, I can hear a voice from the sky high above. The father is talking to his son: “Boy, people don’t plan to fail, they just fail to plan. Have a plan for your dream. Never give up”.

Ladies and Gentleman, like the boy and his father, we all have our dreams, we all have our goals and we all want to be successful. Let’s plan for our dreams. Let’s plan for our goals. Let’s plan to succeed.

Thank you, everyone!