Saturday, August 05, 2006

An Argument With My Partner: The First of Many to Come

My partner Ming and I are very different people.

Let me give you an example of how.

Before we started this business we spent a long time doing the necessary research. We spent time writing up a business plan, collecting market data and talking to the right people about it.


Yet, having worked in an investment bank twice in my life, I insisted that we build a financial model to predict the profitability of the business in the future.

So, with the help of Boss Lepton, I worked out a financial model on Excel.

As time passed, I tried perfecting the model by adding more variables to it to derive better predictions until there finally came a time where Ming said

"Listen... F*CK the model ok? They're all assumptions at the end of the day and few things in our business is going to work out the way we assumed it would be".

Ming was right.
The saying goes that the less educated you are the better an entrepreneur you would be and it comes from precisely this reason.

The more educated tend to over-analyze and when you over analyze any business, it will never turn out to be profitable enough for you.


Now, without Ming what I would've done (or at least try doing) was to build a kick ass state-of-the-art financial model that could predict how much our earnings would change even if the cute girl down the street decided to buy herself a new pair of shoes instead of our product.

What Ming would probably have done without me was... to not build a model.

But together, we had the best of both worlds and left the worst behind.

Our personalities complement each other but of course, they sometimes also clash.

Just yesterday we had our first significant argument.

It all started with a tiny mistake that Ming made in his work.


For me, it wasn't so much the tiny mistake he made in his work.

I just expected Ming to take responsibility for his mistake and move on because I had always believed that if you never took responsibility for your mistake, you'll never learn from it.
But Ming on the other hand had another good point.

He expected me as a partner to not rat on about this mistake and just take the required measures to move on;
something I had better learn to do in future when we make more mistakes and when the mistakes get bigger.

Both were reasonable expectations.


But you can imagine how they ran into each other.


Yet, the weird part about the argument was not the argument itself but rather the way we felt after the argument. Shortly after the argument when things were getting very emotional, Ming had the wisdom to say
"Ok look, I need some time to cool down... call me back in an hour".

In the time between hanging up the phone and calling him back I had a very weird feeling.

One of my girl friends used to tell me that I am always very nice to my friends and people I know in every way that I can be but when people upset me, I can be unreasonably forgiving and write them off my life.

Suddenly, whichever friend that upsets me would become no more than a casual "Hi Bye" friend to me and to be honest, I often did it subconsciously so it never affected me.


The only exception for this is of course... when I have fights with my girlfriend (
which I seldom do) Pic info: My baby, the only person in the world I would never shout at

and now.. this...


Ming was the first to mention it when I called him 3 hours later
"F*CK MAN, Do you know you're like my girlfriend now?

After I argued with you I felt very affected by it"
.

and then it hit me that I felt the same.


My mind was affected by the argument so much that I could barely concentrate on my work.

Instead, I kept thinking about what to say to him next and how I should apologize since I knew the way I talked to him before was wrong.

We kissed and made up in the end (
not literally of course).

So there you have it everyone.

Meet my new girlfriend. His name is Ming.

He can be very bossy. But he's worth it.

18 comments:

MaN|acZ said...

Quite emo post indeed. haha. anyway,
can I have your email? I'd to discuss
with you on some business issues.

Boss Stewie said...

man|acz: just email me at lengmoublogs@yahoo.com

pretenders: two dick is always harder to bend... yes yes.. u're right indeed

chocolat-latte' said...

hahahaha. you're just nice.. really.

Boss Stewie said...

ah i am nice

Jason Lioh said...

So, does that mean if I pisses you off, you would write me off from your brain too? *sobs*

Anonymous said...

yea..agree with you on the saying.. it definitely helps being naively optimistic about things sometimes.. otherwise, with too much reason and logic.. u'd not take the risk of being an entreprenuer eh? :)

good post..one questin.. what does ur girlfriend think of ur new girlfriend? heheh

Gwendolynne said...

First of all - Gay men are sexy.

SECOND of all. Why didn't you both just agree and buy -that- model, in your pic?!? Chun what. Argument over. Period.

Cheng Sim said...

i bet when you guys retired from the working world, both of you will look back and laugh like old ah peks at the coffee shop on a Sunday morning. sometimes, the more arguments...you can get more closer to a person.

Daphne Maia said...

with the arguments, u will both get to know each other better, n as time goes by, u will thus be able to work better with one another. right? so it is really quite normal to have disagreements, especially at the beginning when you're just getting started. all relationships are like that, including business partnerships. :)

Anonymous said...

not emo post ... bloody brokeback post ...

wakakakakak

Boss Stewie said...

jason: well.. but you won't piss me off right?

slacker: she thinks that she'll be able to satisfy me more than he would ever be able to.. so that's a good thing right?

teh gwenneh: ohh... well.. uhm... you know we both love women very very much

cheng sim: yeah.. that's what ming said.. the more we fight the closer we get.. as long as things don't get out of control

daphne: yet my relationship with my girlfriend doesn't seem to be one which we fight much... i think i'll go pick a fight tonight

earl: i knew the word 'brokeback' would come up somewhere after i wrote this post

Jason Lioh said...

You never know boss. Who knows you get pissed when I snatch your Fu Zhuk during our next Fu Zhuk Teh session?

Rebel said...

no lar..it doesn't really sound like ala "brokeback"

guys can be emo sometimes also ma..

Anonymous said...

What a sweet post... hahaha.

Gwendolynne said...

tbh, i've also experienced somewhat of a friendship with the same gender that started to look more than what it was. And I'm the bisexual one! heh heh but she started to catch herself sayin she missed me so much and all the lovey dovey stuff, of course we were joking but there's always 1% truth behind every joke right?

Boss Stewie said...

jason: jason if you steal my fu chuk then gone already.. then really really gone already jason.. better not do that. u can kick and slap me if you want... but don't u ever steal my fu chuk

simple: actually i didn't mean for it to sound so.. emo

pretenders: hah! that's why i included pictures of some girls in the post! hah! a post wtih just pics of me and him will look too colin and kero

bunny: aww... what a sweet comment

teh gwenneh: gwenneh, if Ming and I ever start saying "I miss you".. it is time to end the partnership

Anonymous said...

Boss Stewie...err refer to your last comments..why la...man cant love u meh...u so handsome maybe he love u but born male wat to do ler...so u wan him to operate so u can wan him bak? hahahaahahahaha lolz

Boss Stewie said...

celia... i'm not hemsem ler... and i'm sure ming loves women as much as i do