STIMY 122 Part 1: Peter Yong [aka Mr Money TV]
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Peter Yong [MrMoney]: I would work there from eight o'clock and by 7.30, CK will come from his work. We'll continue working until two o'clock. Wow. Sometimes four o'clock, head home, come back to the office at about eight, nine o'clock. Work again day, just repeats like that.

It's just grind and grind and grind and grind and grind.

What kept you going? Was there ever a point where you thought maybe this should be an easier way.

And every day, every day I ask myself that question. Yeah. I think literally of a joke among ourselves, partners is this, man, if we just keep this operation a little bit smaller, all of us will be driving a Porsche.

Man. Yeah, yeah. Let's just drive a Porsche. You know what, why not next month, let's just drive a Porsche. So that's our joke. When you say drive a Porsche means that let's just cut down the numbers, just work on few things. Then we would drive a Porsche.

But Nola, there's not a plan.

Ling Yah: Hey, STIMIES!

Welcome to episode 122, part one of the So This Is My Why podcast. I'm host and producer Ling Yah, and today we have one of Malaysia's Hot Personal Finance YouTubers on the pod., Mr. Money a k a. Peter Young.

Now, these days being YouTube is hip and trendy. Everyone has a YouTube channel. Everyone wants to be a YouTuber.

But just because you want it, doesn't mean it's that easy to turn into a business, which Peter has. He started his career earning RM 2500 by the age of 30, he was earning RM 250,000 a year. Then he decided to give it all up. Sold his B M W And this all happened just as his wife had given birth to their first child.

Now, obviously Mr. Money has been through a lot and since he's quit, he's managed to turn this business into a seven figure business with an entire team under him. We spoke and he shared so much that we have to split this into two parts. So part one essentially focuses on his personal journey, his childhood, the sacrifices, and how he started to build his journey, how he started to build his business, as well as the kind of people that he encountered.

So if you wanna a sneak peek behind what it takes to become a content creator, and a very successful entrepreneur at that, then this is the episode for you.

But wait, before I proceed, did you know that this episode was also recorded in person?

The YouTube version of this interview also exists, so if you wanna check it out, head over to www.sothisismywhy.com/122.

You'll find the YouTube link and don't forget to hit subscribe as well.

Now. Are you ready to hear Mr. Money's story?

Let's go.

All right. So Mr. Money, you're one of the very rare guests who come on my podcast where I've actually have had quite a few conversations with you, and I feel like I kind of know you, but then I realized that I don't actually know what you were like as a child. You grew up spending your whole life in kl. Who were you back then?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Actually I did not grew up in kl exactly.

Ling Yah: Oh, no. I started off with the wrong facts.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: It's not good, but close enough. Close enough. What happened was when I was a kid apparently my parents actually moved down to Kang. Okay. Yeah. So I actually live my childhood there between one year all the way until nine years old.

Ling Yah: Honestly, I always think that, oh, this is just KL.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: From nine years old, onwards only we moved to PJ. Mm-hmm. And the interesting thing is I found out later Yeah. Was that they actually moved down to Kajang because they were running away from death. Yes. Wow. Yeah.

Ling Yah: Wow. And was this after your father had become bankrupt because he used to have money, right?

He used to own several buildings as well.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: he used to be a developer mm-hmm. Or contractor, be great contractor. So basically if you go to pj, you will actually see like Shire and surrounding there and some houses some of those properties there. He was the main contractor. So he was doing very well, but that was way before I was born.

Yeah. Yeah. And that time I think it's in the 19 seven sixties. Seventies. Yeah. That was a time that he was doing very well. But by about late seventies to about eighties probably things were not doing well anymore and he just went really down. Yeah. Yeah. And that's when they start moving down to Kaju.

Were you aware that dentists were after your family? I mean, I think when you were eight, nine, you share, your mom used to buy leftover food to bring home.

Mm. So I think the good thing about being young when you are poor and you're young, is you actually don't really understand what's happening, right.

You do kind of know that like you may not be doing very well, but it kind of doesn't really mean anything. Mm-hmm. And the fact that your mom goes to the market after the hours and getting leftover food to bring home for us. Yeah. For me, I didn't feel anything because I would be happy not eating.

I just wanna play, right. I was a kid. Yeah. But for my elder sister mm-hmm. That meant something to them. Mm-hmm. And this becames like stories that they would talk about in the family. And so since young you hear a lot of stories among the family that like things are not doing very well, family is very poor, we do not have enough money and stuff like that.

Ling Yah: Didn't your dad used to say money isn't important?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes. So, because my dad went through a bankruptcy and he has gone through so much. And you know how when you're doing well, a lot of people are your friends, but at the moment you go bankrupt, friends start moving away, keeping a distance from you.

And how it was like for him was that he learned that at the moment you have no money. People that even helped before will not help you back. They wouldn't even care. It's not their problem. And so my dad always say this thing, ultimately money is not too important. What's more important, life is relationship.

And so I kind of grew up with that saying. So I always thought that money is not too important. As long as you have enough, you can spend a bit, you can eat well, it's fine. Yeah. That's how we think when I was younger. Yeah.

Ling Yah: So, speaking of relationships, what was it like within your family? Cuz you mentioned eldest sister, but you had an elder brother you never met before.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes. Yeah. I've only seen his pictures. So. A brief history about the Yong family. Let's go in depth. Yeah. So my mom and dad had a huge age gap. Yeah. Yeah. When my mom married my dad, he was starting to go bankrupt. Yeah. Things weren't doing very well in the company. Yeah. And after they got a kid, you know, and stuff like that.

But my mom only wanted two child. So there was the elder brother and my elder sister. And what happened was my oldest brother at the age of 12, he went swimming with his friends and my cousin in the mining pool. That time mining pool was still like the thing around. You wouldn't have seen Sunway pyramid.

Pyramid was actually a mining pool as well during that time. So they went in to Sungai Way there and they swam and what happened was that most of them drowned except one kid. And the story was this kid, after he got outta the pool, he went home and he was so afraid that the parents will scold him. So he didn't say anything.

He only waited until dinner time when everyone started calling and asked, where are my kids? They played together, where are my kids? Oh my God. They started crying. They say that only I got out. So by night when they all went to the pool, all of them were drowned. Oh no. Yeah. So it was a devastating time for my mom, for my dad.

And they kind of took a break off and dad. Made his business went even further down the drain. Mm-hmm. And that's one of the reason they, they moved down to Kaju at the time cuz they wanted to leave this place to give themself a break. And at the same time the business wasn't doing well and things are winding up already.

So they decided, you know, let's just leave this place and go somewhere else. Yeah. But you still came into the picture. Yes. So what happened was after that incident they decided that they wanna get another son, right. So they tried and they got my sister and they said they didn't get a son. So they say, let's try again.

Yeah. And they got me. So I grew up with this story knowing that I had an elder brother who passed away. Mm. And my mom always say that we gave birth to you because we wanted a son, someone to carry on the Yong surname So that was something that I always grew up with. Yeah. So since young I knew very well one thing try not to die because you are the only Yong left and they already had a son who passed away.

Yeah. So it's gonna be devastating. And the second thing is that you are replacement, right? Yeah. You are here to replace another son.

Ling Yah: That must have affected how you felt about yourself as well.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Oh yeah. So, so since young, I grew up with very low self-esteem. So here's where one thing differs, right?

A lot of people say like, Peter, you're so full of confidence. Right? Man, you don't know the things I've been through man. Like, when I was young, it's really bad in terms of confidence. I never had the confidence.

I mean, the very simple fact is that whenever your friends talk about family, everything, number one, your family is already poorer than people.

Number two, your only reason of existence that you know of is to be a replacement son. Yeah. I mean, my parents is fantastic. My mom treated me so well, but it's just these little words that accumulated to became something that mattered to me and she didn't know that, right? She's wonderful mother.

Yeah. Yeah. Just to put it out there. Wonderful mother, wonderful father, right?

Yeah. didn't have access the kind of parenting manuals and guides we have now.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and my dad was odd, I tell you. So what happened then? Okay, so this I didn't tell you earlier.

Ling Yah: Okay. Share it now.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So actually my dad was a very inspiring figure, right? Yeah. He was 68 when he passed away at 14. So he went through the World War II period. Wow. Yeah, he worked for the Japanese at the age of four years old, tying up ropes on the boat and his story is one sad story, right?

He never go to school. He was working at four years old to support the family and because his mother hated him favored the elder brother better. So the other brother did work before he had to work and stuff like that. Okay. But to cut the whole story shot, he grew up being kind of like a gangster.

And he was well known as a gangster but he was also those MCA chairperson for a local place. And, you know, you know, during the sixties, fifties, the gangster thing and the politic things are very much tied together. Mm-hmm. So he was doing those times.

He actually went to jail in Singapore for killing someone over self-defense. Oh, wow. Yes. So he is known to be a guy that you don't mess with in the gangster world. And he has a gun. He has a handgun. Okay. He has a handgun. I grew up at like five years old washing a handgun. Okay. Yeah. I know how to clean a gun.

I know how to unload a gun. You were trusted with a handgun. Okay. This shouldn't go out, right? I mean, it's so, so far, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean so much in the past. Right? Wow. So he, he would show me how to clean a handgun. We had a shotgun and for me it was like toy, right? It's so fun. You gotta play with a handgun who gets to play a handgun.

As I grew up, I learned that actually it means a lot to have a handgun. I mean, only thre get handgun or tato three get handgun. Okay. Yeah. And even-

Ling Yah: am I a secret tan Sri son?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so whenever he goes out, when he holds the gun, some people think that you are super rich, right? And I recall we go and eat in this ba shop last time where what happened was this guy would buy us dinner because he would say that like, your dad used to come to our BA shop.

And he would talk to the gangsters because they have gangs, right? Rivalry gangs. And he would throw talk. He would just slam the gun on the table and everyone would be just so silent. So he thought they were so heroic. So every time we go there, Macan, he would pay for a meal, right.

But my point is that my dad is very, very unique way of teaching his kids.

So when I was young, I got bullied in school. Mm. I have this getting bullied face, right? Oh yeah. I always get bullied. And somehow so I got bullied in school. I went back and told my dad and mom and usually our parents would be like, Hey, you know, let me do something about it and stuff. Like my dad school let me, my dad called at me like, he shouted at me.

He say, how can you allow anyone to bully you if you don't step up and fight back? Don't call me your father. Yeah. That's literally why I cried in a car. I still remember how old are you? I was like nine years old. Oh, no. But, but very loving dad is just Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tough love. Tough love. Yeah. And, and that was his way when he grew up, right?

You have to protect yourself. So he felt that that's that need to teach me that. Yeah. But unfortunately I wasn't very strong. So when I hurt that, I immediately felt that, like, I don't think my dad loves me.

Ling Yah: So you didn't figure out how to beat the bullies?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: No. No. Oh no.

I don't how to survive with bullies.

Okay. But I, I did not win the hot approach and fight back. Yeah. But I learned to just play around, go with it so that I become kind of like a friend, but not too much of a friend as well. Mm. Yeah. So you just get bullied slightly lesser. Mm. Yeah.

Ling Yah: So your dad sounds like this larger than live character and he passed away when you were 14, so Yes.

That must have had a huge impact on you.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Unfortunately during that time, no. But now whenever I look back, especially now I have kids. Mm-hmm. It, there's much more feelings and emotions about it. But when I was during that time, no, I, when he passed away, in fact the first thought that came into my mind was, oh, well I'm free.

Maybe the family need to spend less money. Oh, very practical. Yeah. Because cuz what happened was that my, my dad enjoyed playing my junk and he smokes a lot. So my mom used to complain that like, Hey, he's spending too much money on that. Yeah. So somehow, immediately my thoughts were, you know, like, oh, since it's like that Yeah.

We save more money. That immediately came to my mind and remember the incident I told you. So that made me feel that my dad probably didn't love me too much, so I also wasn't too affected by it. Yeah. So I was very much more closer to my mom. But for my sisters it was devastating.

And when I grew up older, when I was 18 years old, 19 years old, 20, I started to understand things better. So about 21, that was the first time that I cried for him. Yeah. That when I looked at that whole incident back again and I started crying so hard because for the first time I felt that I lost him.

Yeah. But during that time when he passed, until I was older, it is just May.

Ling Yah: Yeah. Is there a reason why at 21 you felt that?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So at, at that age, actually I started going to church. I became a Christian. So, you know, there's all these Christian camps and I had to look into you. Yeah. So he started doing all this whole searching kind of thing, and then they, they talked about relationship with family.

So it was a one week camp that, whoa, that's intense. That, that really focuses on your mind, your perspective of things and where it came out from. And, and that day they just brought the topic about parents. My goodness. I stopped for like two hours. Oh no. Yeah. And, and now being a dad, I can understand what, what he went through.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ling Yah: When you cried for the first time, do you feel like there was a burden that lifted off you, that you looked at life a little bit different?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It felt good. I think it kind of like there was a combination of forgiving what he have said before or what has happened.

And at the same time, Also this acknowledgement that I, I was loved. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I miss that opportunity to hang out with him.

And this was when you at Daja University?

So this was when I was in UPM already. Mm-hmm. I was studying in a university. Yeah. So there was this, like camps and stuff like that.

Ling Yah: And did you have an idea what you wanted to do with your life at that point?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: I think I was one of those intense child back in university I did.

So in terms of career choices, think it's about right. A lot of people like to have this idea that I should know what am I supposed to be doing with my life?

Well, we have to choose something. Yes. Yes. And, and we are so afraid that we choose something wrong. Right? Yeah. I mean, I've gone through that. I recall in my final year in university, I cried. You won't know how much I've cried. Yeah. So I cried a lot actually, right.

So I was talking to my juniors about like where things are gonna be. I, I cried because, it was just a lot of pressure and there was this whole question about will I be able to do well, you know, and stuff like that, even if I choose the path and am I in the right place and stuff. But coming today, I've kind of realized that there's no such thing as one version of yourself that can do well.

You just need to, you just need so true life. But you need still three in a more conscious manner. Mm-hmm. And at that point, I've always wanted, I still recall at that time I've always wanted to go into Accenture as a consultant. I, I always thought that I wanna do something strategic because cooler, right.

You always watch movie, you hear people talk about it. Yes. Right. 4,000, 5,000 at least. Very, very good. But unfortunately, I don't think I'm smart enough. So I sent in some application and things like that I couldn't get in.

Eventually I an offer into Genting.

Mm. It was my first job interview. I was recruited on the spot. Then I got in and I became a HR in organization and development. But in just three to six months, I left the job. Yeah.

Ling Yah: I mean, when you entered, you were talking about wanting to be a management consultant, and that's also because you had a mindset shift around money.

At the time you thought money is evil. And then you changed that thought, right? Yes. What happened there?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Okay. So as I was mentioning when I was younger, yeah. I, I've gone through a childhood where I understand the lack of money, how and I understood certain principles in money. Like, for example, at one point, remember I tell my dad from, was from gangster background, right?

Yeah. So at one point when the family was very poor.

There was one night they actually went out about 11 something of this very intense conversation with a group of people somewhere a little bit further down from our house. And apparently it was some gangs who came over and they, they wanted my dad to help out in some illegal business.

Oh, wow. And it involves prostitution. Yeah. And it was good money. Yeah. So my dad came in, he didn't tell us anything, but he told my mom Yeah. And he said that, no, I can't do that, even though he earns money because it's, it's, it's just not right. Yeah. So ever since young as well, I got implanted with some good values.

Right. But nonetheless, I still feel that money is all evil. Yeah. And mainly one thing I realized why I feel money was evil later was I just had no money and I didn't know how to get it. So I felt it was evil. So it's more of a sour grape situation, right? Yeah. Yeah. So as I grew up, I wanted to do NGO, NPO, I wanted to do more greater works for the humanity kind of thing.

That doesn't include money. But somehow I got into UPM and I got this course that is business management and human development. Basically. It's, it's a combination of social science and business. But the name of the course was Human Development Management. So I thought it was psychology. So yeah.

Yeah. I'm not very smart. I can tell you I fail in my studies, I would have known what, yeah, it says human develop management, right? So I thought like, oh, sounds psychology ish. Right. And I was just telling my mom I will never do a business course.

But because of our family background, the only rule is you go into public u, cause there's no money, is send you to any other universities.

And they always said that to you, right? So you knew. Yes. Since young, since at a very young age. My mom always say, complete your studies. Go to a public university, preferably UPM because it's nearer and easy or either right. So just choose whoever that allows you get in. So when I was in form five, when all my friends are busy deciding what to do in life, I was super relaxed.

Yo I was just thinking about what to play next. Cause the path was already laid down for me. I already know where to go next. Not in a very good way, right? In a way. But, didn't have a worry, you know? For me it was just whatever university control me. Just go. so I always come from a very, very lack of resource, mindset.

You can see there. It's very scaring mindset, right? It's just whatever thrown to me. Just survive. Just do it, right. So when I went there so when I pick up this particular course, the first day they told me that I need to pick my courses in the business faculty. I was like, huh, business faculty, I thought I chose human development.

They say, oh no, the management means business management. So I was like, oh, now I get it. Okay, la nevermind. No choosers how you got the castle. Let's go on with it. Yeah. And surprisingly, when I started reading up about businesses, when I started studying about all these things, I, I realized that it is actually quite fun.

It is not what I thought it was. Mm-hmm. I always thought that business is all about money. Yeah. I always thought that business is all about making money, being earn as much as you can then, but at the moment I realized that no , it's actually a skillset and it's up to you to decide what you wanna do with that money.

So I start to look at money in a more, more unemotional manner. I start to disassociate money with my values to a certain extent. Like, I just see money as money and my values as my values that determines what I do with my money. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I did pretty well actually. In fact, I almost got a first class to graduate.

Yeah. But the only reason I didn't got my first class was my mathematics subjects. Three of them I got. B minus and C,

Ling Yah: the fact that you can still remember after all this time?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes. Cause if only I retook those subjects, I wouldn't have near paid my ptp dn.

Ling Yah: Wow. So I'm surprised you end up doing hr. Why wouldn't you go and take some kind of business development role?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Actually at that point, because I recall at the moment I left university. Yeah. I always thought that like, okay, I need to quickly get a job. I probably need to do one thing. I wanna get married the time I had a good friend. Mm-hmm. So I thought, okay, I want get married. Yeah. Right. Next thing is I gotta take care of my family because my mom already said, at the moment, you start working, start paying for household items.

Right. So each of us contribute a certain portion of our salary for household. Right. So I knew that I needed an income immediately, so I started calculating how much do I really need? I realized that living kl, in order to get married and just have a. Very normal, simple life with family, you need probably about 15,000 mm-hmm.

With your own house. And you were earning 2005. Yeah, I was earning like, like yeah. And so I started looking at a different job. I applied for Honeywell Crafts. I still remember Accenture. I tried to apply for Shell, definitely no response and all these

Ling Yah: brands.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah. And and eventually when I, and was like, Genting was the first to call me and I got in and the rest start calling me.

I already took up a job offer, so I I can't even attend your interview anymore cuz it would look bad, right? Yeah. So I just stayed on that and why did I, hu did human resource was because I was just trying. And, but what happened is that the role that they specifically put me in was organization development.

And I knew that OD was more of a strategic position in hr. So I thought to myself that if I'm not gonna be as good as other people from BCG and so on into business strategy, why not pick something that you have a higher chance of being good at, right? Mm-hmm. So it's kind of like the Malcolm Gladwell theory of a big fish in small pond, small fish in a big pond car thing, right?

Yeah. So I thought, hey, maybe, maybe if I, if I just go into this, at least it gives me a specialization. I can work my way up and be better in one site rather than competing with all the brightest mind out there. Yeah. Yeah.

Ling Yah: But you mentioned 15,000 earlier. You actually had a plan to six at your income in six years.

What was the

plan?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So so what happened is that when I was there, I, the first thing that I did, I still remember I knew that it's very important to have good relationship with bosses. So what I did is actually interviewed a friend. Yeah, yeah. I went there. I straight away called up a friend of mine who actually worked there as a senior, and I asked her house live there.

So I just wanna understand, will it be an environment that I'll enjoy? Will the role be some kind of thing I enjoy? And she gave me a pretty good perspective of it. Now, now that I think back, she, she was also trying to tell me what's not so good about it, but I didn't really get it. Yeah. So I'm not that smart.

Right. Wasn't aware of the manager. So she'll try to tell me Hi, me, but I I didn't quite get it. Yeah. Yeah. So I went in and I, I built a good relationship, all my colleagues and the nature of me being from a business background helped me to tie up a lot of details With profit, I can understand bigger picture better.

So I noticed that some of my friends who are psychology graduates or just accountant graduates, they were more like, like siloed with the way they think about things. Mm. So naturally I was considered the slightly better I'm the better performer there. Mm. And one thing I did very often is I always talk to my senior colleagues to ask them, What is the income raise that can come in, what you should look for in the next five years.

And you being, now that you gonna ask it if you're a senior, it's very sensitive. Right. But when you're a fresh grad asking that it's not considered sensitive. Yeah. So I also took the risk. I was like, you know what, the only time that I can really answer this question is as a junior right now, as a fresh grad.

Cause no one, you'll get angry at you, so better us now. So I started asking everyone. Yeah. And to my surprise, I that, that time was a surprise that it's impossible to get 15,000 after five years.

Ling Yah: What were we looking at instead?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: You are probably gonna be looking at five to 6,000. Yeah. That would be average not one year.

Yeah. Yeah. But if, yes, there are cases where you get to jump to 15, but it requires you to keep jumping company. Yes. And, and I noticed that it is not just a skillset thing Yeah. But also a, a networking thing. You gotta be good at that. Yeah. And, and as a fresh grad, the chances of you doing that is unless you have a very specialized skill or you work in a very, very big m c that is known to be good at something.

So put it this way, it's like if you go to Unilever and Unilever is known to be the marketing company for FMCG, then whether you're good or bad, you're from there, people can find you. Yeah. You, you know, you get what I mean? since I'm not in that position, I'll likely end up at the average. Yeah.

So, I mean, that company wasn't known as a great HR company. Yeah. He wasn't known as anything. Yeah. It was just a Chinaman company. Yeah. So you are not likely gonna get their car salary. Yeah. So that actually got me really agitated, annoyed, and I started figuring out stuff. And at the point I started reading a lot more.

I started reading and reading and reading and I realized that the only way that you can do well probably, or earn a little bit more money that's fully in your control is you do business. Yeah. Unless, like I say, you are professional. Like, let's say you're a lawyer, you're a doctor or something like that.

Yeah, yeah. You have a, you have a more clearer pathway or, or your first job is already in consultancy. You have a more clearer pathway. You get there. But if you are a generalist like me at the point, you won't be able to get that. It's gonna be hard. It's gonna be really hard. So then maybe doing business will be a better choice.

So I started asking myself this question, can I be a businessman? And when I was reading through a lot of biographies, I, I, I always reflect and I ask myself, yeah, these guys are willing to start, like, like Steve Job have maybe borrowing 10 K or 20 K for his parents and then starting a, a computer in his garage.

Right. I'm thinking myself, like, if I have 10, will I actually dare to do that? I, I probably don't dare, I mean, number one, I don't even have the skill to build a computer, but I probably don't even dare because you come from a background where, The first answer to everything is no money. Yeah. Yeah. So the chances are you won't, you won't be able to deal with the car, mental stress.

So at that point I was approached by insurance agents as usual. Then they start telling me how good the business model is. And I talk to myself. I, well, ever since I was younger, all the part times I've done I did well in the selling part. As much as I hate myself being able to talk. Cuz people always see people talk a lot as annoying.

Mm. So I, I didn't like that part about myself, but yeah, somehow that's the thing that I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I've trained myself over the years to be good at so why not just leverage on that strength? Yeah. I can't be as smart as if I go to Accenture. I can't be the best accountant or business consultant. So since that shows some promising thing, maybe I should try that.

And I did a calculation of if I were to just follow the system, do A, B, C, D, E, how much money will I make? And true enough, in six years, yeah. I'll be earning 15 to 20 over K. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a projection that I got and I decided that, you know what, let's just give it a go, man. Yeah. You may end up losing your friends, but at least you make something in your life. Yeah. Yeah. Because I, I still recall that what the most important thing at that point was when I was in that company. I actually, actually went to the hospital. I was admitted to hospital because I was working from eight or went to 1130 like that.

Yeah. So somehow I, I attempted a weak body maybe. So I just went to hospital. It was bad. I met her for one week and my mom came and I recall at the time I looked at her, I was, and, and I was just a little bit shocked, right. She, she was much older than I remember. And I told myself that if I'm gonna continue this, I probably won't have the choice to decide when I wanna look at her.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I was like, screw it. I think nothing's more important than that. Let us, let me just give this a try. Yeah. And, and so I, I put my ego aside. I mean, it's the most ego consuming job. I dunno what I'm saying. It's the most humiliating job to be in, right? Yeah. And, yeah. But I decided to do that, and it worked out.

Yeah.

Ling Yah: Why would you say humiliating?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: I think sales is one of the most humiliating job in the world. The reason being is because, I mean, just think about it. If you get a call from a friend Yeah. Out of blue, What's the first thing I think about? He wanna sell me insurance or mlm. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is one of those jobs where you would just avoid that guy.

Right? Yeah. Regardless, you can be the best friend to him and the fellow will just avoid you after that. And, and it's real, like when I started doing insurance, they are friends that I'm very, very close with. They are friends that I've helped before. They're friends who tell you stuff like, you know, we are good friends one day I'll help you back.

Okay. Everyone they know you're agent to walk off immediately stay. They got so busy that they can never pick up your call. Yeah. And even, okay. I have to say my approach was not the, like, I always tell people upfront that, Hey, I would like to meet you. I won't talk about insurance. Mm-hmm. Are you okay? But if you're not okay, please tell me it's not okay.

Mm-hmm. And we won't talk about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I'm very upfront about that. Yeah. Yeah. So, but even then, people still avoid you and, and it's not their fault. It's not their fault. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's very humiliating. But again, when you do well, people will all be your friends again. Yeah. So you kind of learn that life is just like that.

Ling Yah: Hey, STIMIES!

Interrupting this just to say I've left law and this is essentially my year of yes, to meet, to explore, to see what's really out there beyond the world of law. While, of course, also doing the STIMY, which comes out every single Sunday. Now the thing is I've started to also help other people to build their personal brand.

I've spent the past three years essentially digging deep to the lives of Olympians, C-Suite executives, four Star Generals, and now YouTuber and Viral TikTok is as well. And what I've learned is that LinkedIn is an amazing platform to allow me to tell these stories, to allow other people to share their stories, what they're passionate about.

What they're trying to do to change the people, to change the community, the world around them. So if you are interested in also learning how to build a LinkedIn personal brand, do, reach out cuz that's what I'm helping people do right now.

Just drop me an email at, [email protected] and let's get started.

And if you're not sure what that looks like, just head over to my profile, look me up Ling Yah. And you'll see what I'm doing so far, snippets past guests and also what it takes to be a great storyteller. All right, now let's get back to this episode with Mr. MoneyTV.

Yeah. How did you figure out to do well? Because you end up earning what, 250,000 a year? You drove a BMW so clearly you were thriving.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Even though everyone was avoiding you, I had a small agency. I wouldn't say everyone was avoiding me at a point. Yeah. But it, it does, the insurance business made me learn who are friends and who are acquaintances.

Yeah. Yeah. It made me learn that. And they are very good friends that stood by me. And like, for example, Frankie, he's still my friend. He never bought a single policy from me, but he never avoided me. So he just sat through your whole pitch? He, he just tell me a friend. He's not interested. Yeah. I say, I'm not interested.

Listen to your pitch. But even have a coffee. Let's grab a coffee. So we just grab a coffee, huh? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's honest. Yeah. It is non, non humiliating because he never did that. Like Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's not walking off. Yeah. Probably he said something in the bag with some friends making some jokes sometimes.

Right. But they don't make me feel like an outcast. Yeah. Yeah. So I have friends like that. And my, my method of doing well in insurance was very simple. Just be very sincere, be much more knowledgeable than anyone else. Mm-hmm. So, unlike other insurance agent, very often they do not know anything except insurance.

I, I made effort to learn a lot from stocks to everything else. Right. Because I felt that. It is about learning financial literacy. Only with financial literacy. You will be interested in buying an insurance, right. So if you understand financial literacy, you don't even need me. Sell it to you. You will look for me.

So I always believe in that idea. So that's why I went into that, that way of selling. And I was just very honest. Whenever I meet people, I tell them very upfront that, look, when I meet you, I wanna talk about this. If you're not comfortable, please tell me you're not comfortable. You're always stop me. And so most people were okay.

That approach will end up meeting me. We still maintain a friendship. They either buy or don't buy. And it's just a numbers game. Yeah. Ultimately you meet 20 people, there'll be one or two Dubai. Yeah. So the question is, how do you get 20 people to meet you? Mm-hmm. That, that was the only thing. You just need get 20 people meet you and your job is done.

So just 20 20, 20 20, 20 20. And you just repeat that. So how, how do you get 20 people to meet you? I do a lot of referrals. Yeah. Yeah. So the first thing is that when I meet a friend, I tell them to pitch and then I just tell them a friend that look, whether not it doesn't matter, but do you think that there is something worth for someone else to know?

Mm-hmm. Right? And if you don't think my approach is annoying, you think it's okay, could you gimme a few referrals? Right. So they will always gimme to a tree. So have this whole book right, where it's almost 90% filled up. I, I'm not sure if I still kept the book, but the other day I just still saw it still saw it of Black book.

My Little, it was a white book, but yeah, it, it was that little book and, and that, that was where I got a lot of contacts. That's where I end up making a lot of friends. Yeah. That's where it helped me to build my insurance business.

Ling Yah: Wow. What was the secret to convincing?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: I think that when it comes to convincing someone, a lot of people think that it's a lot about you talking, actually, it's very little about you talking.

It is more about you listening. People will only listen to you when they know that you care and you see them for who they are not, not the see them for who they are. Nier, they can't. Yes. Like they kind of like likeable, I feel seen. You care about me. I feel seen. I feel care. Right. Yeah. Then you just need to say the right words at the right time.

Yeah. It just, that's why a lot of people have this perception. Selling is about I don't talking. Then they have this thing, oh, you're good in selling because you know, thought. Right. Yeah. It's not true. People are good listeners are the good salespeople and influential people. Yeah. It is not people who know talk, and that is also one of the reason I don't like myself talking too much, even though I talk a lot.

Ling Yah: Since you were doing so well, did you think I wanna start my own agency?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes. So I started my own agency. Yeah. It was okay. I was one of the younger managers I still remember. And, but after about two years, I, I realized it wasn't really my thing. How come? I think for one being an agent, you need to really make sure that people are always motivated to sell more.

And that's why you see a lot of agents end up buying big cars and everything. Cuz when they desire more, they're more one motivation life. Yeah. They're more motivated to sell more. But I, I tend to take a very weird approach where I like to tell people this, right? When, when you join the career, you, you want to design the kind of life that you wanna live.

And so you need to ask yourself a very serious question. Is your life all about chasing better realistic things or living a flexible life? Having financial freedom, if later is the choice, then you should spend less. Or you should ask yourself this question, what do I really want? And only spend on those things that you want.

Now then after a year plus I realize that this is a clash with a philosophy of, of building an agency. Yeah. Cause People who are not working with me under me, they end up telling me this thing, Hey Peter, you're such a good coach. You know, you actually helped me a lot in figuring out what I want and the rest why I want is not money.

And I was like, oh, wow. Great. But now I got a problem. Damn. You made me realize money is not too important. Actually, it's more important. I live a life that I'm happy. Mm-hmm. And then they become less productive in the insurance market. Cause they're less motivator now, right? So then I'm like, oh no, I, I have a huge problem.

I have a huge problem. It seems like I'm just, it's probably a selection issue or the nurturing issue and everything. Right? And, and I figured that, I think I have to change my style to be much more the typical kind, rah, you need more. You need more. And I started asking myself these question, is that really, really what I want in life?

Because remember I said that when I start off, I only wanted about 15,000. That's enough for me to live a good life. Right? And in the past actually, I, I never thought about making a lot of money. I always thought that I just wanted to live a happy life, that's all. And if I wanted to work for government, the only reason I'm not with government is because when I graduated, they closed the application.

So they say for one year we are not gonna hire in 2000 and 12 or something, a change of government or something. So I was like, Okay, then I got no choice, so let's do something else. Right. When I did insurance, it was also because I just calculated, I realized that if I don't have that, it's very hard to survive.

Yeah. And so I asked myself this, now that I have this money, I am earning this income. Is this really, really, really what I want? So I start having this midlife this quarter life crisis, right? Yeah. And I started asking myself, what part do I really enjoy and what part do I not? And I realized that what motivates me and what makes me happy in that whole work is the ability to educate people, to coach people to, to talk to them about their situation, to listen to them, to, to see their eyes go, wow, actually I can look at things from this perspective.

And those things excite me. Mm-hmm. I feel like those things fuel me to live on another day. What I hated was the fact that I need to make sure that they buy or make sure that they gimme another referral so that I can, I can go on another time, you know, and stuff like that. Yeah. And so I thought to myself at that point, if I don't do that, what else can I do?

What else can be on this path? And that's when I started toying with the idea of doing something else. And the first offer that came true was a friend asking me to start an advisory firm. So I thought as advisory, at least you don't have to. Sells so hard, but I was wrong. Yeah. And definitely that was my first step into my own business in a sense, and I learned a lot.

The business didn't pull through. I lost some money there. Yeah. And at the end of it, my friend he was my insurance manager who stepped out together. Me he told me that, Hey, Peter, you're good at talking. No, you're good at this whole presenting thing. You're good at training. Why not? You start putting up videos online.

I see people start putting up videos on YouTube and sharing it on Facebook. Maybe you can use that to sell people something. Maybe you can use that to grow the insurance business and unitrust business and advisory business. Right. Then when he told me that, I was like, oh, it looks like that has what I want.

Yeah. And what I don't want, I don't have to deal with it. Right. But can this make money? So I started watching more YouTube stuff and I noticed that there's a bunch of influencer in the us like Graham, Stephan, those kind of things. Right? Like they actually can survive just doing that. And I, I don't mind doing that, but is it really gonna happen in Malaysia?

I wasn't too sure, but I think eventually it will because I started seeing the time people started engaging influencers for lifestyle stuff and so on. So maybe there's a need for finance. But ultimately what I really wanted at the point was I wanted to do a FinTech company. Yeah. But I realized that I'm just bad at programming.

I tried to learn it, but it's definitely not my forte and I don't have that kind of time to actually learn it. Cuz I just got my first child on the way at the point. You have to survive. I just lost a business and I lost about 50, over 60,000. I just got married, which I spent about 60,000 as well. So basically a hundred over thousand out the window.

Yeah. So it was a difficult time. You Yeah. And I need speed. So I thought to myself, if I can't start FinTech, but if I can do marketing really well, the worst that can happen is either have a media company that runs this whole thing as an influencer, that would be the worst. Right. And worst someone is I just go back and selling insurance.

Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. Why

was selling insurance a second option rather than the first given your situation? I mean, me, people would normally just go, let's just stick to something I know I'm good at. I just need to double

down. Okay. This is the thing, right. That time I was 20, I think I was about 30 years old.

Mm-hmm. Probably about 30 years old. Eh? Is it 30 or 32? 32. 2019. I was, I'm 36. So 32. 32.

Ling Yah: 34. Four. Four years

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: ago. Four years ago. Yeah. Correct. Two 19. And I had a kid, so the consideration was very simple. Right. When you are 30, you're nearing your peak. Mm-hmm. Your, your prime age is supposed to be at 40. Yeah.

Right. Once you pass that prime age 45, you, you better be very good at one thing. Yeah. You better be very, very good at one thing. Yeah. So I still got time to play. Mm-hmm. I'm already pretty good in insurance. Not the best, but good enough for me to make a good living. Yeah. I can always revert back anytime.

Yeah. And I already have a client base of 200 over clients to 300 clients. Right. But at this point, I am sitting at a position of opportunity. Yeah. Where Facebook started allowing video sharing YouTube start to gain more attention. Mm-hmm. There's no influencer in the market talking about money. There's too many unique opportunities.

But

Ling Yah: it wasn't guaranteed though. Yeah. It was Blue Ocean, but there was no

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: guarantee. That's right. So the idea was very simple. If I go back, I probably hit about 300 over to 400 over thousand if I do very well. But if I do this my first two years, I may suffer, but I can always hit way higher and sky is the limit for me.

Mm-hmm. I cannot building a business. And I could do something that really, really, really enjoy. Mm-hmm. Which is just teaching and educating people and don't need to sell. Right? Yeah. So that, that was the idea behind, yeah. I don't need depend on sales to survive. Right. So I thought if, let's say I end up earning half of this money, but I'm happy doing that, is it okay For me the answer is yes.

So let's do it. Let's do it. Yeah.

Ling Yah: But you didn't just let go of the insurance company, surely. Okay. So you must have tried to cushion that kind of risk as well out with odd jobs.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: That's right. That's right. So the, the good thing about the insurance business was that it gave me a five to six years of passive income, even though if I don't work on it, I had about three to four more years of passive income coming in from insurance.

And, and I would say that, here's where I have to say that insurance became a very good launch pad for anyone who wants to start a business later. Right. Because it gives you a buffer. I wasn't working, but I was still collecting clothes to five figure every month just from insurance. Wow. Even if I'm not working on it, yes, you can see dwindling, but it gives you a launch pad.

To work on. I don't have to worry about money too much. Yeah. I mean, I'm still worried I was still in debt. Right. But then it gives you time. So you start doing do do odd jobs and, because at the point I was already quite, I have friends and connection, so there are people who actually came to me and say like, Hey, why not you go and help me with my warehouse, this and that, run the business with me and stuff.

So one of the things that I did was that I would be selling some insurance. I would be recording video in the mornings, then halfway through I'll go out and drive Laurie. Yeah. So what happens, A friend will tell me, help out the warehouse. So he, he was giving a cut in the whole business.

So I started driving Lori's.

I would drive a two ton LA down to Kaja, pick up stock, stock up the warehouse, arrange things, and then I'll go back to meet someone for insurance. Then after that, I'll, I'll end up recording videos. The day just goes on like that. Wow. Yeah.

It was tough days. It was very, very difficult days because you, you will go through this moment where like you just try to grab everything.

Like drowning men. Yeah. Yeah. You just try to grab everything that comes into your sight, right? Yeah. Because you're so scared. And the point, Jo, Joanna, my wife wasn't even working. Right. So it was really, really hard. Until I remember one day I met a friend, right. And this friend of mine just came back from Taiwan and.

He looked at me when I had a conversation with him, and then he pus, he pulled me aside, you know, he told me that he's leaving. So I brought him to meet some friends and then he said, oh, I gotta go. Then when he left, he called me. He said, Hey Peter, can you come and help me in my car? Then when I went over and then he just quickly pulled me aside and he tell me, Peter, something is really, really wrong.

You, you are not the Peter that I used to know. You're so lost right now. Actually. What do you want? So I started telling him like, what do I see in Mr. Man tv? What do I think it can become? But my fears about it, and that's the reason why I'm grabbing every single opportunity I can find to stay afloat while waiting for Mr.

Mani to turn out to be something. Yeah. And he just looked at me and he just gave me that face and say, bro, that's not the way it should be. If you really believe that that's the thing to be, you believe that the potential of growing it, then you should spend every hour doing that. Because even if you're spending time doing it and you don't see any money coming in and results, it will compound into something.

Trust me, that is how it's gonna be. It will compound. Maybe you may meet a guy and you tell him about Mr. Man tv. You may not see anything, but maybe three months down the road, he'll recall someone who can help you and things will just start happening, you know? But you gotta spend every hour working on this particular project.

They really believe the potential in. Because if not, you are lost. You are so lost. You're no mother Peter that I used to know. Mm-hmm. And I just, I eyeball out in front of him and I start crying and I just went like, but it's so hard, you know? Like, I have a kid. My wife is not yet working, you know? Oh. Just so difficult.

And, and I went home. I told my wife and I said, I think he's right. I, I think he's right. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, let's go through this together. Let's be logical. Can you go out? Yeah. Since I, I think if I'm gonna focus on it, it's gonna be really difficult. Yes. So why not you try looking for a job? I always took a less than a year old.

Wow. Yeah. So and, and, and Joanna was very good. She it took a while for her to, to, to figure it out, but eventually she said, okay, you know what, I'm gonna go back and work. Yeah. And my mom was super supportive as well, where she helped us here and there. Back, back eventually we moved back, but in the earlier days we were staying with her, her family.

Yeah. And so she had a auntie who helped us. Yeah. So, and when she started working at MCO happened. Right. So but anyway, because of that, I, I started focusing on Mr. Man. I came back, I talked to CK and I was like, ck you know what? Screw it. I'm not gonna be driving Laurie anymore. I'm gonna be sitting down here and I'm gonna work on this as a full-time.

Let's see where this goes. At the moment, I sat down for the first meeting of him telling him about where things should be and stuff like that. Pitching my vision at that time, he haven't really accepted to be a co-founder yet. Yeah. So I was pitching my vision to him, telling him that this is where we are gonna be one day.

And we got a message from from a brand and the brand say, we love to work with you. And we just looked at each other and we are like, yeah, I think, I think this is where things are gonna go. So, and I started working on it full-time and I told him like, why don't you join me in the business? Yeah.

I've not, I have nothing to offer you, but you can be a co-founder. Mm. And I'll give you X amount of shares. Mm. And take this time. Go and work. Get some job, build up your own runway, then come back in the work. Yeah. Yeah. So he took on the offer and the rest is free. Yeah.

Ling Yah: What was that vision?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So the idea is I think Malaysians do not have good access to financial literacy.

And sometimes even if we have access to financial literacy, we don't have access to quality financial literacy. Mm-hmm. Why do I say that? A lot of people with teachers or talk about financial literacy, they themselves are not too literate about it. There's two sides to literacy. One is you understand what the theory is, you understand really how it works.

And the other side is the one who lives it, right? There are a lot of people who live it. Yeah. But not many of them really understand the logic behind it. Mm-hmm. It's just a habit. It's like, for example, your mom has been telling you save 10%, therefore you save 10% now. Yeah. Just going fdp. Yeah. And then, yeah, you're pretty good at managing money, but do you understand logic behind?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Do you know why you're buying stocks? Do you know how stocks works? Do you know how uni trusts works? Do you know how insurance work? All these technical details. Right. So, and a lot of people who actually teach us, they won't be able to look at a policy or look at investment product and tell you exactly what is inside because it's just more of a hunch and it's more of a habit that they build up.

Mm-hmm. Then it's not really financial literacy. Mm-hmm. It is just teaching you a habit. But yes, habit is part of a big part of it. Right. So that's why, I mean, right. That's why like a lot of people say teach financial literacy and so on in school and so on. But if the fellow doesn't even understand what is a PE ratio, what is the roi, what is the.

Capital return investment, it's gonna be hard. Right. The person who teaches it need to have both. It doesn't mean they need to be perfect, doesn't mean they need to be millionaire. But you need to understand the logic and be able to communicate the logic. And fortunately, unfortunately, people who are good in these are usually salespeople and they're usually selling something to you.

And because the commission is so lucrative, it doesn't make sense for them to move on to teaching. And so that's why when people move into teaching who are good in this, they end up becoming someone who will charge you $10,000 for a class because only then is worth my time. So no one is willing to bring down the pricing and say, let's do something about it.

Let's try get it out for free and let me work on another model that pays me. Yeah. And so that's what we did here. We tried to provide things as affordable and as free as we can, and we work another business model around it that, that we get paid for doing free stuff. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that's how we play the game.

And that's what made us unique. Like, so the, the idea was that when you do so much of that, eventually you'll be able to gather enough data and one day when we are ready, we can leap into technology.

Ling Yah: Did you think -but what gives me the right to be doing this?

Am I the right person? Wouldn't there be someone else, better place who has run a really successful famous company who people will look and say, I trust you. You are a figure of authority.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So over the years I came to realize that if you spend a lot of time wondering, am I really the right person? There's someone better than you.

There's always a man better than you. Just read all the biography that you can read. If that is gonna be the thing that stops you, you'll never achieve anything in your life. Mm-hmm. So don't bother thinking about it. That shouldn't be even a question. It's irrelevant. Yeah. So it's that practical.

Ling Yah: Once you decided, I'm gonna go into full-time, what were the immediate steps you took?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So, I remember at the moment, I go into full-time, the first thing that I did is I sit down with my wife, we look through our finances. Yeah. We drafted out a whole Excel sheet. Yeah. How much you earn, how much I earn, what are we gonna do?

And we project our finances where we can cut down. And we followed that, that, that particular Excel sheet as much as we can. We also set like what are some rewards and milestone like? What we can get along the way. And if, let's say we hit this, what are we gonna do? You know? Like for example, one of the things that we said, I still recall, if we can say if we have 30,000 minimum in savings, we would go for a trip.

But pandemic came, so I'm not going for a trip. Say even more. Yeah. So now it's just part of our emergency funds and everything. All right. Yeah. So, but that was the number one thing. And the number two thing is to communicate very, very clearly with my, my wife that things are gonna be really busy and I need your support.

Yeah. Things are gonna be really, really busy. I need both emotional support and also support of time. Which means that you are gonna help out to take on a lot more things than family. You're gonna bear with me and be a little bit more patient, but trust me, things will work out. And yes.

When you say trust me, it's very scary because you also do not know the answer.

Yeah. And you just have to have this crazy optimism to believe it. Yeah. Yeah. So these are the first two things that I did. And number three is actually just taking action work. I used to sit in the office.

I, I still recall, right? The other day I went to common ground to meet the guys from Endeavor. Right? Yeah. That's why I met them the other day. And it was just nostalgic to walk into common ground cuz I started our office there. I still recall, we took a, a space, not a room, but just one of the desks.

Fix that, and I would work there from eight o'clock and by 7.30, CK will come from his work. We'll continue working until two o'clock. Wow. Sometimes four o'clock, head home, come back to the office at about eight, nine o'clock. Work again day, just repeats like that.

It's just grind and grind and grind and grind and grind.

What kept you going? Was there ever a point where you thought maybe this should be an easier way.

And every day, every day I ask myself that question. Yeah. I think literally of a joke among ourselves, partners is this, man, if we just keep this operation a little bit smaller, all of us will be driving a Porsche.

Man. Yeah, yeah. Let's just drive a Porsche. You know what, why not next month, let's just drive a Porsche. So that's our joke. When you say drive a Porsche means that let's just cut down the numbers, just work on few things. Then we would drive a Porsche.

But Nola, there's not a plan.

So why not?

I think for me, starting this business, it's not all about money. Money is part of it. It's the reason being is because I always believe in helping people, but I don't believe in charity. I believe that you need to create a business that's social, but it shouldn't be a charity. What do I mean by that?

Is that you know how a lot business model works, right? They go with like asking for donations and stuff like that and raising money to actually help people.

It's a flaw model in my own opinion. That's why you have social enterprises. Yes. So I, I believe in a sustainable one.

In fact, I believe in a for-profit social enterprise. I don't believe in non-profit social enterprise, right? Mm-hmm. I just think that there needs to be a for-profit enterprise that is willing to distribute wealth more equally. Yeah. Because you will see a lot of for-profit enterprise, end of the day, it's just paying their people a little bit better than what the market is paying.

Or like the groups that are not doing very well, but just pay them a little bit more. Mm-hmm. Right? And that a little bit more is still not even, not even our kind of urban Put it this way, huh? And I, I disagree with that comment method. I, I believe that ultimately it's about co-sharing of wealth.

I don't need to be the richest person in the room. I just need to be getting a fairy what? that's why I believe. So I always tell people this. I'm not nice. I'm just fair. Yeah. I'm just fair. Yeah. So I don't need to maximize my wealth. We just need distributed equally and everyone is happy.

Yeah. So because of that concept I always believe that if you're social enter, if you see yourself as a sustainable social enterprise, the first place to work on is to create a great working environment, and that means paying them well. Mm-hmm. And so if I don't do that, then I'd rather not hire.

That's my belief.

Ling Yah: So I wanna talk about the whole hiring employee part later. Firstly, I wanna drill down more on you really wanting to give back to people. And I wonder where that comes from. Cause I feel like people haven't exactly given to you that much, right? I heard there was this story of this girl who you save her life and train.

Oh. Can you tell us a bit more?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think over the years I've become more skeptical about human beings. So I, I think if you watch one of my videos about brutal truths about business, I say this one thing, right?

The key is about staying sincere in a very insincere world because of the virtue of seeing what my dad has gone through.

Then I myself joining the insurance industry and then losing friends along the way and seeing things like that. I'm sure people were laughing at you and Yeah. Yeah. They were, they were. Even when I started Mr. MoneyTV mm-hmm. I was laughed out the door and I still recall, I was just telling people when I first started Mr. MoneyTV.

I went to many VC events and everything. I was used to tell people about my idea of how things could work here. They used to tell me that, I don't think it's gonna work out, dude. See you take care. Yeah. Uhuh and, and that time media wasn't the thing yet.

So I just tell them that it's gonna work. It's gonna work. And I got laughed out the door. People will be like, nah, you don't. Stuff like, and today I walk into those events, people will be like, Hey Peter, Mr. MoneyTV. You know? Yeah. So I get very skeptical about human beings. Yeah. But you still wanna give back.

Yeah. So let's talk about a training incident. Mm. I will forever remember that. Yeah. Not that is that person's fault again. So what happened was that one day I was in the train station mono reel this lady, she, she was like standing there and she looked very odd, right? And I hopped into the monorail and she didn't come in when everyone else came in.

She just took very near door and she just sudden almost like two times, just like lean towards the door from the outside. And the monorail was about to move very. So I just quickly hop out the monorail, hold her before she fell on the track or fell on the door and. Just ran down the tractor. Right. And apparently she didn't eat, eat breakfast, so she literally, if I don't pull her back, I think she would either be heavily injured.

Cause like at the moment the door was about close, the thing runs, she's just gonna lean herself on that, moving a multi train and it is not the ones with get kind. Right. Yeah. So I took care her, gave her my food, my breakfast for the day, I just give it to her and I got her number.

She said, oh, thank you very much, you know, and one day, let me just thank you. Okay. Buy your coffee and something like, yeah, sure, sure, no problem. Right. Then I just joined the insurance industry at that point. So I gave her a call. Subsequently, when I joined, about three weeks later, I say, Hey, do you remember me?

She said, yeah, she hasn't met me yet. Even after that day. Then I gave her a call. I say like, Hey I understand that it is a bit odd but since you wanna meet me up for coffee, you mentioned that. Can I meet you for coffee? But at the same time, I actually just joined the insurance industry. Do you think it's possible that I can just give you a sharing?

You don't have to buy anything from me, I just need to practice. Nope. And that's all right. Yeah. I've never heard from her again. Never see her again. Yeah. I mean, only said that once and yeah. I mean, when you help someone, you don't expect to be helped back. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But definitely it didn't felt very good.

Yeah. And it made me realize also that actually when you help someone, you don't expect anyone to help you back. Just don't expect that. And people live for themself. it's just like that. Yeah. Then now you have a choice.

If next time when someone is gonna fall onto a tracks, should you go and help the person or not?

Don't say that you wanna listen to me, my sales speech or not at the point. Right. But just say that you never even call me before to thank Mila. Put it this way. Right. Should I step out and help that person? Yeah. Next time my answer is still yes. Mm-hmm. Because it is not for that person's benefit, but for mine, because whenever I step out and help someone, it makes me a better person that has nothing to do with them thanking me or not.

That has nothing to do with helping them. It is about me being better person. So that is always my philosophy, and that's why in doing this whole Mr Money thing, the expectation is not. That my audience will thank me for doing something. My own benchmark is I become a better person, that's all. Mm.

So they don't have to walk down the street and say, thank you very much Mr. Money, for willing to change the thing and do it like that, or, it's okay. In fact, I thank them because you're willing to let me experiment being a better person. And that perspective helped me to stay more sincere in the insincere world. Where even if people take advantage of you or anything, you just go, well, it's never about that.

It's about yourself.

And that was the end of episode 122.

The show notes and transcript can be found at, www.sothisismywhy.com/122. Now as mentioned earlier, this is only part one.

Part two delves even deeper into what it takes to run and build a seven big figure business. We talk further in depth as well about his visions and dreams for the future, including this thing called the Hershey City.

And also if you haven't done so already, please do subscribe to the weekly STIMY newsletters. This is where I essentially bring you even deeper into my world because let's face it, this episode comes up once a week. There's only so much you can learn.

But in this newsletter, I take you behind the scenes.

You'll learn about the things that didn't make the cut. What it's like for me, having since left law to essentially forge my own path. The kind of people I'm meeting, the lessons I'm learning.

There's so much that's happening. Every week is truly varied and unexpected, and I hope that you'll be interested too and you'd like to learn more.

So if you're intrigued, do head over to the show notes at www.sothisismywhy.com/122 and you'll find the subscription link to the newsletter.

And see you next Sunday.

**

STIMY 122 Part 2: I'm NOT Your Father! | Peter Yong [Mr Money TV]
===

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: You can't train people. That comes down to family education. But number one, once they have the discipline.

Then what we do is we motivate them by paying them more, but I also expect more from you.

So I hire five, but we work like we are 10 people and we pay them 8. So it becomes a win-win.

I don't have to pay you less. I can pay more than what the market is paying. But you are more than happy and willingly work more than you're supposed to.

And he doesn't mean the hours. He meant it by productivity level. So his mill with the same number of people, the productivity level is way higher than other mills. Their shift starts at eight, the people be there at 7.30 to prepare and start planning. And by 8, it's work. It's not planning. You start work. You start work.

And because of that, I tried to implement the same philosophy here. That's why I'm not your father. That's how it came about, right. I'm not a father because as a owner, as an employer, there's only that much I can do.

Ling Yah: Hey, STIMIES!

Welcome to episode 122, part two of the So This Is My Why podcast. I'm your host and producer, Ling Yah, and today we have Mr. Money TV aka Peter Yong, back on the pod. Now, if you haven't done so already, please do listen to part one, which came out last week. Just scroll through wherever you're listening to this podcast, whether it's Spotify, Apple podcast, Stitcher, even YouTube.

And you'll be able to find part one because that's where we start the journey of learning who Peter is. The kind of sacrifices that he made where he went from doing insurance and making 250,000 ring it a year to essentially giving it all up, selling his BMW just when his wife had given birth, to go all in into this thing called YouTube.

Now, in part two, we focus solely on the YouTube business. What is it like really to build from scratch the kind of people he encountered, the betrayals he suffered, how he finds his partners, especially his two co-founders as well, what is his hiring philosophy, which by the way, can summarize as hire five, work 10, pay like eight.

Why does he give a business advice of I am not your father, and also his dreams and hopes for the future? If you're interested in learning what it takes to build a seven figure YouTube content creation business in Malaysia, then this is the episode for you.

And by the way, STIMY also has a weekly newsletter.

So if you wanna know more about what it takes to run this podcast, the kind of people

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: and

Ling Yah: things that I'm learning, having quit my job as a lawyer, go to the show notes at www.sothisismywhy.com/122 to find out more, and click subscribe to the newsletter.

Now, are you ready to hear Mr. Money's story?

Let's go.

So I imagine people do wanna take advantage of you. Oh. As you start to build and be recognized. I mean, I remember when we had this Starbucks meeting, and then there was this guy who came out and was like, Mr. Money, and he was so happy. He wanted to take a picture with you and you were clearly not fazed.

It's clearly not your first time. So there's clearly recognition there. There must have been people who came and said, I want a slice of this.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah, they are. They are. Usually we are very careful with that. Over the years there are some people who come and find us and try to offer to take our business to the next level.

There are some sincere ones. There are some insincere ones. How do you evaluate In the past, I used to just trust everyone. But today I don't, I'm very much more careful. Yeah. How do we evaluate that? For me personally is when someone comes and approach us, the first thing I gauge is whether, does this person even talk to me about profits, about what do I get?

If anyone come to me today and they start telling me that they can help me, and they start asking me for what they can get out of this, I am a little bit more cautious already. But do I bring up the conversation? I do. I will bring up one. Because I don't believe that people should work for me for free.

So at the end of it, I always tell them, That, look, this is what I think you should be getting, or what do you think you should be getting? But if they very quickly want to jump on it, then it tells me that they have this element that they want to protect themself. It simply means that the trust level is not there. That's all.

So there are also certain people who will just come and be very greedy about things. Then you want to be just disassociate, like, my opinion is don't waste time. If someone comes over, if things doesn't click, then just don't waste time. Don't bother trying. Trust me.

When it comes to this part, 90% of the time your hunch about who you can click with is correct. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I I mean, you have been to parties and you've talked to people, right? And you, you go to events and you talk to people. There are certain people you're just like, yeah, there are. Interesting. But, but it's not the kind that revives you when you talk, but rather you feel tired of the talking, right?

Yeah. You feel like you need thing a lot. It's not that they're a good person, it's just wavelengths different wavelengths different. Right. Then, Just stay a bit away.

Ling Yah: So the wavelength must have been really on par for CK and Frankie. I mean, how did you even convince them to jump on board? CK was working with you till 2:00 AM 4:00 AM Doesn't sound fun.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Both of them share a common track when they came in, right? Yeah. They never ask questions. Yeah. They just worked. Like when I told them, where do I believe Mr. Money is gonna go? All they said is, okay, let's try it. They didn't ask me for anything. They just asked me, what time should I be here tomorrow?

That's all. Serious. Yeah. That's all they ask.

What time should I be here tomorrow? And I just go, you don't even know how much are you being paid? Not that I can pay you, but you don't know. No, no. It's okay.

Ling Yah: You must have asked them why they did that though.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes, I asked them. Yeah. They all have their answers. And definitely I think I shouldn't be telling their answers for them. Sure. But I can say one thing is that they, all believe in the same thing for sure. Which is they all believe that the financial literacy system in Malaysia is very broken and they believe that what we are doing here can change that.

Definitely. On the other hand, we are all also motivated by, a little bit of money. Right. In that sense. Do I have a stake in it and so on.

Like for example, Frankie Yes. It's very clear at the moment he came in. He made it clear that yes, I do want to have a stake but does he discuss with me how much a stake is?

No.

He just asked me the next thing, so should I be here tomorrow? What time? And that went on for six months. For six months. There was no conversation about what are you getting? There is no conversation about literally money or what's my future. It's just a pure trust. And does he get paid along that time, during that period?

Yeah, he does get some pay. Yeah. But it's not like the kind that is like, Hey, are you gonna pay me this much to work? No. No question about that. And one day there's not even a conversation about can we start having this conversation by when? Nope. Nothing.

Ling Yah: I mean, there's two ways to think about it, right. On one hand you'll be like, that's really dumb. Another is that's really amazing. How do you even find these people?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Mm.

So CK was an intern when I was working in the insurance industry. Yeah. So he was our intern back then from my manager. Yeah. And when I started Mr. Money TV, my manager actually told him about it and then introduced him again to me and like, oh yeah, I haven't seen him for a very long time.

Right. And he's like, yeah, I watched some video. I thought the content was good, but video quality suck. That was really frank. No, he didn't exactly say that. Right. He just say like, oh, it was really good, but I think you can, I can help you with the, the visuals and the audio, you know, like that. I was like, yeah, it sucked, man.

Like, I don't even have a DSLR right now, but if you think that you wanna help me out, please do. Yeah. Yeah. He said, yeah, sure. What time do I need to be here? And the others is how it goes, right? Yeah. And Frankie on the other hand, I've known him for many years, 14 years old, onwards.

I've really known him. He came one day and we have always talked about like finance. And when I started Mr. Man tv, he, he was telling that story that they tell, what the hell is this guy doing? Right? Laughed about it and stuff like that. But eventually when he got traction, then he started realizing that, hey, there could be a breach.

And I've always been telling him that. Look, one of the things that's really broken is because you guys who are investment banker are never willing to step out and tell the public how does it work. So what happened is that people who don't really know actually make those basic information, like some super pieces of masterclass, that that can be so super expensive and you guys are banker, make it as a pre requirement to even get into investment banking.

but you guys just don't say anything about it.

Yeah then he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how it goes. Then we will throw the idea. And one day when he, thought like, well, I, think my time with corporate is about there. You know what? We have been talking about this. Why not? Let's do it.

Yeah. Then I was like, oh, okay. Now we kind of have a name a little bit. So do you, do you wanna come in now? They is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then I say that, it's not like last time when I first started, you know, they is like, yeah, yeah, I know. I know, I know. Okay, then just come out office. Let's have a chat.

Right? Then he came up, have a conversation. He said, this is the kind of value that I think I can bring to this company. what do we do next? And we say, great, you know, let's do something. Okay, so what time do I need to be here? That's all right. Again, so we did lay down at first say that, okay, eventually this the direction to head to, you will have some equity.

Okay, no discussion. First let's just go into that. But you're right. Is it dumb or is it smart?

In my opinion for most people, they would think that like, if you do this, it's like a privilege. Maybe you already have a background. Maybe a what? For Frankie, he already has been working for a while. He has some savings.

For Chee Keat, no. he doesn't even have a runway. He was just fresh grad. He probably have 5,000, 6,000.

His bank account over the years of savings. Right. And he had to go back to work to save his own runway. So it's not a privilege in that sense. So is it smart or dumb? Now, in my opinion, this is where sometimes the luck part comes in. The luck part comes in.

When you wanna make a decision in your life, you can't run away from that 10% or 5% of probability. That's unexplainable. But you need to use every single drop of brain juice to figure out, is this really what you want first? And for them, the benefit of that period. It's kind of like a prototyping for them. Is this the life that I want?

And when I came in for one week, two weeks, you will kind of know is this a life that I want really? Then when you know that this is the life that I want, then you will have more answers or more evidence to support. Is this a way to go? But if you're not even willing, give that one week to try, then you will never know.

So that's why if you want to straight away go into something and then you want to say, I wanna get paid for even trying, then congratulations, you're looking for a job, then you will get a job. You'll never get a share. But if you come in with a attitude of trying for free, aim for something bigger.

But also you need to be smart to protect yourself. Like for example, for me, I try to be honest, like I can tell you, I try to be very honest with him. So we have a lot hard conversation up front. So I tell them up front that look, this is where we could go, but I'm not gonna have this conversation until then.

And when they're, then I'm so sorry, I got no answer for you. So there's no guessing room, but at least that's a target for everyone. Yes, that's right.

So I have to say that like very often, young people out there, if you're looking for a new job, you are thinking I want to try something, the best way is prototype it.

Go to that place. Give it a try. Ask this person, can I shadow you? Hop on you with this project for free for a while. What's a pay? No need. No need. Don't talk about pay. Let's just do it. Give it all you can to do. Because trust me, yes, you may be very busy and you're gonna be doing it and you'll be wondering yourself.

I don't have time for it.

If you're gonna go into it full-time doing it, you're gonna be living that life where it's no time and then you're gonna do it. So this is your best time to figure out when you are tired and you're still doing it, do you enjoy it? If you're tired and you're doing it, you don't enjoy it, you just don't enjoy it, then don't waste your time.

Figure out something else.

Ling Yah: Is there another example of someone who has also done the same thing and figured out what they wanna do?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: I would say, if you say within my office, yeah. I, I think Matt, right? I was just telling you about Matt. Right. So Matt is this school kid, right? When we first got a letter one day when we first started Mr. Money TV, 2020, I still recall. we moved into the office. We wanted to hire staff. He sent in an email saying that he's a 15 year old boy, and he right now is looking for part-time job. But the reason why he come and find us, because he saw a video, he likes it, and he believed that he can offer value in terms of his perspective towards Gen Z.

And we thought it was such a well-written mail, you see.

He just started editing. We saw the videos. Okay. It's not super great. Yeah. But we brought him in because it's just too interesting. Yeah. How can a 15 year old boy come and tell you this? Right. Yeah. Literally, I asked him like, okay, if I'm hire you, are you sure it's legal?

Is your parent really okay? Can you let a father meet me? And he's like, oh, yeah, sure. That's, so he asked his dad, he said saying, am I, I don't meet them. Just do whatever you like, you know? So I was like, okay uncle.

Sure man.

His dad's a professor by the way, and his brother is a genius who is on the scholarship in Singapore.

So he's considered not so smart one, but he's also a top scorer in his school. And that's the not so smart man.

I think the good thing about him is that being a young guy, he comes in without much of a pressure. He just wanna learn as much as he can.

Like literally, he just enjoys himself learning. So he tend to be in that attitude and because of that, he did very well with us. Now he started learning our editing style. He got better, better, better, better at it. For those who actually watch. And they start watching until like about 20, 21. It was still his video.

Then he left, went back and started for his SPM for one year. Then he came back recently and this time around when he came back, so different. He just went so much more mature.

Yeah. He doesn't sound like a 20 plus year old. Even, he sound almost like a almost 30 year old. But you can obviously see that experience gap in terms of life. But in terms of handling work, like senior, definitely. Yeah. And he's just so, giving everything, you know. Like you set a standard here and he would deliver something here.

Because his standard is not based on what you tell him, but what he believes he can do best. And maybe because he's young, right? So he doesn't have that like, oh, I'm only gonna do as much as I'm being paid for, or I got other things. Right. He's just, I enjoy doing all this. Let me have fun.

If I get paid, it's okay. So literally when he comes in, when we ask him this time round, like, he's just gonna be here for a while before he goes into his college, how much you won. He's like, well, anything man, anything. Then you're like, so zero. Then he laughed.

No lah. No lah. 800 can or not?

But in end we pay him a fresh grad salary.

Yeah. We, we pay him full time. Yeah. Cause I told him upfront that look. Yes. I think if I pay 2000, you'll be happy. But forget about it. For here, the standard is based on your work. Yep. So I think the best I can do for you at this point is a fresh grad. And also because this is a budget that I was supposed to use to hire someone else.

So I'm just gonna give it over the, so, that's the thing.

Ling Yah: Speaking of pay, you have this philosophy of hire five, work 10, pay eight.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes.

Ling Yah: What is that?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So this is a philosophy, not from me, but I, I read from a book called good to Great. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I would say that anyone wants to do business management or think about starting a business.

Read the book, man. It's one of the best books around classic Right. Written by researchers rather than gurus. So this story is because they talked about this particular steel mill in the US where their staff are all farmers. So, unlike normal steel mill that is built in other places, they purposely go to places where there's farmers.

Traditional industry is farmer. Cause they say that to get them to wake up with the discipline is not something that can be trained. You can't train people. That comes down to family education. But number one, once they have the discipline.

Then what we do is we motivate them by paying them more, but I also expect more from you.

So I hire five, but we work like we are 10 people and we pay them 8. So it becomes a win-win.

I don't have to pay you less. I can pay more than what the market is paying. But you are more than happy and willingly work more than you're supposed to.

And he doesn't mean the hours. He meant it by productivity level. So his mill with the same number of people, the productivity level is way higher than other mills. Their shift starts at eight, the people be there at 7.30 to prepare and start planning. And by 8, it's work. It's not planning. So it's like, you know how we all feature 10 o'clock or nine o'clock you have coffee, you makan, everything before you start.

Nope. You start work. You start work.

So that is how it goes there. And because of that, I tried to implement the same philosophy here where I tell all myself the same thing and I adopt the exact same thing. That's why I'm not your father. That's how it came about, right. I'm not a father because as a owner, as an employer, there's only that much I can do.

I can help you, I can give you a platform, but it's not my duty to teach you to wake up early. That is in your family to run. That's your education overall, to be polite, to be sociable.

All this is nothing do with me. My job is just to give you a platform and tell you what works, what doesn't. And if you fit, congratulations, you're gonna do well here.

It comes in a package. I'm not your father. Hire five work 10, pay 8. Right? Yeah. So that's the idea behind.

Ling Yah: How do you sieve through and find the right people? You have a very interesting and extensive hiring process.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes. To a certain extent. I think we are quite elaborated for a very small company, but it's important to get the right person.

So I always tell myself this one thing. We are just a platform. If you manage to work, if you manage to stay here, it is not because you're better than anyone else, it's just you're more fitting here. If you don't get to work here after a while where you have to leave or anything, it's again, not because you are not good, but because it's not fitting.

That's all. It's all about fitting. Mm-hmm. I always tell them that we are like a bus heading towards one direction. If it's the right direction, they're heading to you, hop on. If it's not, you hop off. Mm-hmm. My job is not to tell you where to go. My job is to drive to that direction. So if you like that direction, come along.

If you don't like a direction, Please get off. So that is the idea behind it. So for us, we have three stages of interview. Although we don't follow religiously sometimes but we used to follow very religiously. Yeah. As things got very busy and the hiring turnover faster, sometimes we don't.

But generally we do. And when we don't, we usually end up screwing up, like I can tell you that. Yeah. So we have a first phase where we give a phone call. Yeah. And that phone call, I'll talk nothing about work, I'll just talk about you. Mm-hmm. Where I want to find out why do I have a phone call.

The first thing is this, you can talk to me, then it shows that you can communicate. If you can't even talk, you need face to face that got problem. Means you do not communicate. So sorry. Yeah. Right. And in that conversation, we'll be talking a lot about them as a character. So that will be based on the kind of job that I wanna hire at a point, there's a generous set of kind of character that I'm looking for.

Like, for example, the person has to be spontaneous enough, the person has to be crazy enough, the person has to be daring enough, adventurous enough, that kind of thing. Right. Because if you yourself is not a spontaneous person, it's hard for you working a startup. Mm-hmm. You will want things to be rigid and I can't offer that at this level in my work.

So these are all the things that we want. Now number two, once you pass that, then we'll call you in for an, for an interview. We will say that the first part of the interview is I interview you. The next part is you interview us. So how does that work? The first part I'll be asking you a bunch of question.

We'll start dwelling in a little bit into work, how you manage and everything. All, look for the kind of cultural fit further. And then it's for you to ask any question and even interact with my staff for 10, 30 minutes. So when you interact with our staff, we leave you there. We don't disturb you, we don't stop you for answering any question.

We will just even walk off into our own meeting room and do our own things because you are gonna be working here. If I'm gonna stop you, It may not be a sincere conversation. So I want you to get wherever you want to get here. eventually you'll find out one. So if I'm really not on par, my company is not good.

Unless you, bye bye. That's all. If you after talk to myself, you realize something, you don't work here You know that I don't need waste time firing you also in future, ma, right. So that's the next part. And the last part is the part where we really go into a more in-depth interview where we really, really drill down into a lot of stuff.

So first part is, My selection for basic stuff. Second part is a mutual selection. Third part is I select you again.

Ling Yah: When did you decide I actually wanna hire stuff? Because it's very easier for YouTubers run their own little thing and it's very profitable. If they wanna shut it down, I can shut it down.

When you have a business, you have employees, that's a whole different ballgame.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah. So if you're thinking about it as a business, then it is not as easy like an influencer. Because an influencer, what you do is that you just hire a part-time production guy, hire a part-time videographer, then get a job done.

Actually, in fact, it's very good profit margin, way higher. Everything's better. I also dunno why we do this, but yeah. We end up doing this. Your Porsche is still waiting. Yeah. So we end up doing this. I have to say that for us, when we look at hiring, we don't simply hire, but we pay a lot of attention to workflow.

And we find out where in workflow we are stuck first. We try to solve it internally. If we can't solve it internally and accumulate to be a work that is enough for one person to handle, then we start hiring. Yeah. And that person if be able to handle this work. We also get our staff involved in the hiring journey in that sense.

Number one, getting them talk to them.

Number two, also, we ask our staff, do you need people? So very much unlike normal corporates, you ask anyone, they shouldn't say they need help one.

Here they won't. Why?

Because we have a profit sharing base. So we also teach them finance. Very simple. You need more people help you.

The work, you get less profit. So you decide lo.

So literally our staff are the one who will tell us like, please don't hire or hire. So if they tell us they hire, I just need to remind them again. You do realize that you're gonna get less, huh? And usually that's when they'll say no or Yes.

And when they say yes, it means that they know that they really can't handle. So I get them involved. That sense.

So you are fully transparent with the numbers, with all of your stuff?

Oh yeah.

They know how much the company makes. They know how much is each, each project. Wow. We don't hide.

We are very honest about it. Yeah. As much as we can. The numbers are clear. Every year we'll do a review. Every quarterly or so we do a review. You, and even if the roles are experimental and we are not sure whether it's gonna do well, we also tell out front that is experimenting right now, you're gonna be very lost, but bear with me, you know, it's like that.

Ling Yah: Would you ever go down the Ali Abdaal route and share your numbers in public on YouTube?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Not But I can, say that we are profitable from the start. We have been very profitable from start. The company has been. Growing by a hundred percent year on year.

Yeah. But that's like two years record, right? two to three years record.

We have crossed seven figures. Yeah. But it's just ya lah, in that few years from the growth. Yeah. It's very impressive. Cause everyone is like, oh no, I don't have enough money during the pandemic.

Yeah. Yeah. So then it, it grew up. But yeah. But are we rich? No la?

I think last year the bonus at the highest was couple of months. Right. Wow. Couple of months.

It's not the best in the whole world, but, it's pretty good for a startup, media startup especially.

Ling Yah: So I have to ask, how do you make money? How do you do so well?

It cannot be through AdSense because it doesn't pay well and most of your audience, I imagine would be Malaysians. So CPMs even lower than the US.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yes. Yeah. So yeah, if, you are only gonna depend on YouTube AdSense, you'd better just go to overseas.

Yeah. Their AdSense dollar is better. Here, it's like three times lower. You will die. Yeah. Singapore still can survive by the way. You will do very well. Just depending on AdSense.

Malaysia. No. Yeah. You are gonna suffer. So you need to have a good business model where it is more about content sponsorship and so on.

That's why time to time our audience will see us brands involved in some of our content. Because you don't pay me dude. Yeah. They have to pay for the bills. So there's gonna be ads simple as that.

Ling Yah: You interviewed Wei Choon recently from Woke Salaryman. Said the same thing to me.

They're like, we are just unapologetic. Hey, we need to pay ourselves. Yeah. So it's sponsored.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Correct.

Yeah. So that's why for a very long time we didn't really do classes. Cause we will only do classes if it's being sponsored by a bank Or any financial institution. Then we'll do classes cause they take half the fee and then we get our student to pay half the fee.

Mm-hmm And now we are starting to think about doing classes even without sponsorship.

And we also tell people upfront, there's no free lunch. I'm not a millionaire or multimillionaire that has made it in life. So I just wanna do some charity and help you by sharing my knowledge. I'm so sorry bro, I need to pay my bills, man.

Yeah. So I can teach, but I need to get my fair value out of teaching. That's all. Yeah. Right? Simple as that.

Ling Yah: How did you evaluate what's a priority during different stages of your company? What kind of product to focus on? What to create and give?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: It always goes down to this one thing, right?

Okay. Let me, I, I was just talking to this young entrepreneur the other day. Which I find that is something very common among people who just started their business. They have 1,000,001 ideas. They have 1,000,001 ways to make money.

When they tell you one thing, it tends to link up into another 10 million things.

So usually the problem is you have too many ways to make money. But I always believe that you need to be very practical. So one of the methods that I use that I also teach other people who does coaching with me. So I do run some small coaching for free.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. But I don't announce the word because free. It's just that now you just have, okay. Yeah. So yeah, you tell me. I may not, say yes to it la. I only have that much of time, right. And also because I'm experimenting on certain syllabuses that I'm, I'm thinking about doing. Yeah.

One of the methods that I use personally is number one, listing down what is my USP on my product.

So I will have this idea number morning, okay, I have this product, and I think this product, the best thing is to solve this problem. So who can use it then? Then that's where the problems start, right? Yeah. They'll go like this can use 1,000,001 people can use, and yeah, they will say their product is the best thing in the world that everyone can use, but truth is ah, is not.

So what you wanna do is to rank it in priorities. For your product, the best feature will be used by who? Who is the most sought after feature? That is that group of people that you wanna target first. And with that, you wanna ask yourself this question, out of this target group of people that you wanna target, what are the subgroup within?

So for example, that day, the guy, his business is providing some sort of e-com solution, So I asked him, who are the target market? There's only two people who will be interested in service number one e-com, brand owners, number two, accountants. Okay? So he wants to target accountants. But the truth is, people who are interested in this will likely be e-com owners.

And here's where I noticed a lot of entrepreneurs would die, die. One, to still go for that group that they believe that they wanna do things for. Right? Because it's the novelty of it.

The idea of it, right? The romanticism behind it. Now, I'm very, very practical person. When you list down these two, the people who are gonna come is from e-com entrepreneurs.

Then you should target e-commerce entrepreneurs because that's your number one reachable group. They're the number one group. They're willing pay. So there's this list that you need to play with like who are these people who can pay? Who are these people that is within your reach? Who are these people that are not within mortgage?

They rank them accordingly. They target that group first. You don't go with like, I must have a accountant. You sure die. Sure die. Sure loss one. Now, because once you target the entrepreneurs, an entrepreneur love your service. Mm-hmm. Guess who will come along later and say, Hey, let me use a service as well because I have a bunch of customer who need that.

The accountants because as they serve the entrepreneur, the entrepreneur will tell them, then these people come to you. So you don't need to be the super app on the first day. You need to get good at one thing. And I think along my journey, building Mr. Money from start until today I've met a lot of people who we started in the earlier days in common ground and some of them survive, some of them don't.

And I realize that many of them who didn't survive is because of this. They love the novelty of their business idea, but they don't understand that business is not about novelty. There's a lot more to do with that. You need to have a very clear analytic mind. Like for me, I told people this, if it requires for me to sweep the floor, that's what am I gonna do?

I'm just gonna sweep the floor. It's not that I'm all the way high up. So you need to have the practicality of understanding what your business is and what it fits your market. Because the definition of business is very simple. Are you solving a problem? Are you solving a problem? So if you forget that your business is about solving a problem, that's when you fall in love with your idea and that's when you fail.

Ling Yah: Hey, STIMIES!

Interrupting this just to say I've left law and this is essentially my year of yes, to meet, to explore, to see what's really out there beyond the world of law. While, of course, also doing the STIMY, which comes out every single Sunday. Now the thing is I've started to also help other people to build their personal brand.

I've spent the past three years essentially digging deep to the lives of Olympians, C-Suite executives, four Star Generals, and now YouTuber and Viral TikTok is as well. And what I've learned is that LinkedIn is an amazing platform to allow me to tell these stories, to allow other people to share their stories, what they're passionate about.

What they're trying to do to change the people, to change the community, the world around them. So if you are interested in also learning how to build a LinkedIn personal brand, do, reach out cuz that's what I'm helping people do right now.

Just drop me an email at, [email protected] and let's get started.

When people see that you're solving a problem and they think, Ooh, I could do that, I'm gonna copy you. So that's quite rampant. Colin and Samir talked about it recently on plagiarism. It's quite easy to reverse engineer what content creators do.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah. Yeah.

Ling Yah: How do you create a moat around yourself?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Okay. When it comes to that, I have to say that for content creating, it's one of the easiest barrier of entry. So definitely being a first mover gives you some sort of advantage. But number two, because of it being a content, there is also one part of it. There's very hard to be replaced.

Personality. But it's also the most risky part of this business. Yep. If you fall, if you're sick. That's right. Yeah. So for us, the moat is definitely not a very good one, which is personality. Mm-hmm. But on the other hand is how we handle things how we create a whole business model surrounding this.

Which is a bit of a not to say, very hard to enter, but it's not easy as well. It's kind of like when you [email protected]. Yeah. Is it hard to be where they are? No, but it's hard to get there to get there. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of years because you just somehow need the right skill, the right place at the right time, the right people, the right timing, the right projects.

And to a certain extent we are able to pull that off so far is because we have been also running businesses in the past. We have already had our own set of networks. Yeah. We already have our own way of thinking about things. We had real business experience where I was a sales guy, I understood how this marketing industry work.

So say, to put a mood around myself, I have to say that it is very difficult to really articulate that. And I'll be honest, even if I really can articulate it, do I really wanna tell it? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. So yeah, I have to say that I, I will not tell likely yes. Yeah. Because the truth is that I already know that is reverse engineerable already.

And so far I have, I have to say that it's not easy to do what we do. Yeah. But about there la, about there.

Ling Yah: I love that you talked about personality cuz that's the next thing I wanna talk about the Mr. Money brand. As I said to you before, when I look at you, the first name that comes to mind is Mr. Money. And I have to remind myself what he's actually called Peter. Like you have really got the brand down. How did you do it? I know you always tell me to read Donna Millers, but Okay. I know I'm reading it, but how have you implemented it such that it's just, so prevalent. I know my friends think of you as Mr. Money. It's not a name, it's Mr. Money.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So, so it's a very conscious decision. Yeah. When I first started I asked myself, should the name be Peter Young or something else? And I thought to myself that Peter Young would die. Mr. Money may not lie. It's color pr that face. Right? Yeah. Eventually it'll be known as the potato chips, right?

Yeah. And so that's the same idea there. Same thing, Colonel KFC, stuff like that. That's what I wanna build. Yeah. At the start definitely was a very simple and easy decision. Money is money, right? Yeah. When you hear the word Mr. Money no explanation needed, man. Yes. What else is there to explain, right?

Yeah. Just wait for Mrs. Money to come.

Yeah. Correct. So there not nothing much to talk about and Yeah. But yes, it's not a beautiful name. A lot of people want something more cliche and more nice. Right. But I'm a believer of the market is going to be more, more raw.

It's not like last time there you know, Ke Zu or something like that. People don't want that. Yeah. You know, man, well just tell me that, Mr. Cheese. Cheesecake. I'll remember that. Or like Pretzel house. Pop Bagel. It's very straightforward. Yeah, no guessing neither because people are getting more, more lazy, let's put it this way.

Yeah. So that's number one.

So how do I not building a brand is because you also stay aligned to the brand now. So to build a brand, ultimately it's a very conscious decision making journey. For example, we have made it a point to say that we will not do very expensive financial courses. And will I charge high sometimes?

Yes, I will.

Because if I've no bank sponsor, I'm not gonna charge low cause I need to make my money. But you also make it a profit that a a point or conscious purpose that you're not gonna be using very predatory reselling tactics. Like for example you know how you join student masterclass? They will start telling you that okay, these course is like that, you need a five more minute, that kind thing, right?

Yes.

So we also very consciously try our very best to avoid those kind of things. And we're very offended. Okay. Okay. Look, when I say that you come to my class, I'm gonna teach you, for example, when we did recent rounds of dividend investing workshop. I make sure My goal is that tomorrow when, when you finish my class, you can really buy a dividend stock.

Mm. I'll also tell you front the parameter is you only be able buy this kind of dividend stock. The reason being is because the other kind of dividend in stock, you need to understand a lot more things, which in these two hours I can't fit you. Yeah. So this two hour thing, it's okay, but trust me, you can go and buy already.

So that two hours is really about education. it has nothing to do. If I grew up in a poor family, I can make it today. You can make it as well, you know, come and commit with me, you know, motivational speaker, you know how it works, right? Yeah. Which I don't, I just tell you from other facts. And then yeah. Oh, after that tell you like, hey, moving ahead, what's next? You need to learn C D E F G. Yeah.

And I'm so sorry. C D E F G is a five day thing. So yeah. I'm gonna chat you, man. I'll just tell you up front. I'm gonna chat you money you want, you come, you don't want you. Bye-bye.

So it's also very straightforward about that.

And we try our very best to make prices at an affordable level. Yeah. so that's why like certain things I don't do like, one-to-one coaching. There are students who offers 20,000 for one-to-one coaching. Yeah. For like five session, 10 session. Oh wow. we have to consciously reject that.

Why?

Cause number one, I ask myself this question, do I think my time worth more than that? Yeah. I think I worth more than 20,000. That's number one. Number two, if I start taking that, it's gonna take away my time to do other things and I only start making money again with that. Then only start upselling people these kind of $20,000 courses, which is again, not the thing that I want.

So, You need to make this kind very conscious decisions to say, no, I'm gonna earn less money or forgo certain opportunities. I shouldn't say earn less money. I should just say forgo opportunities, short term opportunities for long term goals. Yes. To to stay true to the brand. Brand and do well in it.

So that is that kind of things that help with brand building. I mean, you just look at someone like, soimjenn, right? Yeah. She is one of the very few Female comedians around. Mm-hmm. And she stay true to it. You don't see her posting up stuff where she's at a beach showing bikinis, running around, dancing, funny stuff just to don't, she don't do that because that's not her, thing.

That's not her brand. Let's look at red. Right. Red's idea is I do art without painting and so on point coming out that book, right? Yes. And you won't see her paint stuff to a certain extent, right? If it has anything that has to do with painting, it will be more than just painting. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And so there is that branding part, right? That, requires you to be very conscious about every single decision that you're gonna make and that's the only thing that I can say about like how we built Mr. Money tv. Yeah. And so these days we are a bit happy because we are starting to go out in the streets and there are some people who will go like, Hey, you guys are from Mr. Money tv, you are that Mr. Money and you are the Frankie from Mr. Money, or you are the Peter from Mr. Money. So whenever I hear people calling me Peter from Mr. Money, I feel very happy and cause like yes, it's starting to be more like Pringels, you know? Yeah. That's the idea behind it then it becomes less about me, but more about the brand.

Because ultimately the idea is anyone can be Mr. Money. As long as you learn about finance, you can be Mr. Money. That's the idea.

Ling Yah: Do you think a further way forward is you need to bring more of your staff on so it's not just you and Frankie.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: We have been trying to convince our staff, some of them Yeah.

But, but work in progress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Most of 'em don't really want.

Ling Yah: That's fair enough. What about on a personal level? Because obviously when you go, you never know when you're gonna meet someone. Do you think, oh, I need to, even in my personal life, be on brand, whatever that looks like.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: So I made a very conscious decision to just be myself.

So a lot of people have said this, that if they see me in real life and they see me outside on the show and everything, it's the same. Yeah. Yeah. Because I figured that I'm not very good at lying. it is not that I don't lie, it's just that I'm not very good at lying.

Okay. So, so remember that I did that. I do what you're very good at. Yeah. I think I'm better at just being myself. so I just be myself. I don't curate a specific idea of how I am. What you see is what you got.

Ling Yah: What has been the lowest point for you? Didn't you say in the video that you almost closed at one point?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Oh, okay. That was a bit clickbaity la. Yeah.

Ling Yah: That's the next thing we're gotta talk about, but yes.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: In the Mr Money TV time. Yeah. I have to say Mr. Man tv. So far everything has been very good. The only time that things are bad is because I will be paranoid about things. So I'm a functional paranoia.

So what does that mean is you are always wondering about how things can go wrong and how you gonna go irrelevant, how things are gonna go bad and stuff like that. But it's not the kind that makes you depressed and don't move, but rather you are functionally thinking about solution and what to do next.

Mm-hmm. So they're quite functional, paranoid, is also very common trait for if you look at the book, good to Great, most of the leaders are like that. And in fact, I came to learn that even good content creators are like that. They often have these worry that they're gonna be irrelevant, that they're not gonna be doing well.

And because of that pressure, they keep pushing themselves to do better. Yeah. Yeah. That's all we don't really have a time that we are like, oh, everything's down. Right.

It's just a lot of play situation in my brain that like, then I'll stress them out. Then I'll tell them like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Things look good. You think you look good, but it's not, bro, let me show you this. Okay. Yeah. So this kind thing.

Ling Yah: You must have changed from the time you started this too now?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot. A lot.

I've become more cynical, more skeptical. Oh no.

But still helping people.

I, I, I think the cynicals skeptical part is part, right? Yeah. On the other hand I think one thing is I always think that the hardest thing is still soft skills. Mm-hmm. And, and on that part, I think I change a lot. I think one of the things is that in the part I would tell everything.

I would tell everything. Right. Until today, I still do tell quite a lot of stuff. I'm still pretty open about what I share with people. You're not telling us how much you're earning. Yeah. Cause a partner will be like . Yeah. Click bake title. So we, we, don't do that. Right. Yeah. But what am I trying to say is that like, for example, are certain things that you're not ready to do then don't tell her.

For example. Yeah. I used to be the kind of person where in the meeting, let's say, I'll tell you, okay, let's sit down here, let's talk. Okay. So next three months we are gonna do A, B, C. Then I will start going to F G H I J. So people feel very confused. But my logic is I need to you next three months, we are gonna do A, B, C.

Then three months later, we will explore I g H. Or sometimes it is in the meeting. I finish a meeting here after lunchtime, then I'll say, Hey, you know, as you are gonna do abc. Right. Do you know after that when you finish you can do Igh h. And they get so confused. And I always ask myself, what's wrong with you guys?

Did I just do it? Is what we're gonna do in the next three months? And I learned that no.

As a leader, your words have a lot more significant than you were an employee. For example, if you're an employee, even if you're a manager or something like that, or, or just a supervisor or your colleague, you can go like, Hey, but I thought ah, that day the boss said this, your friend won't be so moved one, you know.

He'll be just like, Laila, you thought, man, cause you're my colleague. But if your boss, he walks out and say, huh, why are you doing that? Huh? You will be a bit like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought yesterday he told me to do this, bro. Like, but actually your boss just wanted to say, why are you doing that? Because he just wanted to ask further some other question. He may not even questioning, you know, he just, but because you're a boss. So suddenly you realize that as a leader, you have to be very, very, very careful

with your words. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the one thing that I changed quite a bit in terms of what I reveal, what I tell.

Ling Yah: So a boss can never be friends with his colleagues?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: I think that there is always a small boundary at least. Yeah. No matter how close you are with your colleagues. Even here, my colleagues call me and sometimes my staff don't wanna call me. Right? Yeah. but the nature of you being a boss, no matter how close you are with them, they will still know that you're a boss.

And that is important. Yeah. That is to extent I feel regretful, but I think it's necessary because it also sets boundaries, Like one of the thing here is because we have three people, so I'm more relational, so I'll go down to the nitty gritty. Sometimes I even know like, what's happening in my staff's life.

Who do they, like, what's going on their dating life, they'll even tell me these kind of things. But then you become very, very close ma. So then sometimes with that, like for example, if I know about dating life, right? And then you broke up, I can't be so cruel and tomorrow tell you do something right.

Do work. You owe me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or like your performance drop then like, ah, it's okay because, so you see the complication there. Because if I didn't know, and I expect you to do, it's normal, but if I knew and I expect you to do, I'm not being a kind person. So those complications, so at least we have three people where we will all play a very different role.

Mm. Like CK is less, he doesn't wanna know what happened in your dating life. If you tell him he's not gonna answer, he's just gonna like . Blank face. Yeah. He just doesn't wanna respond to all kind of things. Right? So I'm the kind that I'll continue joking. I'll give advice or talk, I laugh. Frankie is just being Frankie.

He will have that surface talk with you, but maybe not go too deep right but it's useful. if I notice that if it hits a place where like, whoa, it's gonna get too personal, I will pull back also, I will just stop asking questions. I will stop going there and I will keep a bit of a distance.

But I will still come and say, look, I'm not a father. So that's when that thing comes in.

I'll say like I understand that you're going through a tough time but do understand that I'm not your father. Mm-hmm. So I think these the things that you need to do to get out of this situation. Yeah. But I'm not your therapist, so I'm not gonna do that.

Listen to you, prop you for question, you know, help you find your soul. You know, sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm not gonna do that. Cause I'm not a therapist, I'm not a father. But I can tell you from what I've observed, you need to do A, B, C, D, you like it or not. I'm telling you as a friend, a colleague, as someone who cares.

Then I'll just stop it there and I'll say, are you okay? Let's talk about work. So if this goes on, Then this will happen. Because I know you're going through this. If you need a break, please tell me. But if you don't need a break, then make sure you can deliver. So it's very clear expectations.

That's why I'm not a father.

Ling Yah: What if it's the more professional issue? For instance, hypothetically Mr. Money was facing issues. You might have to close in two, three months. To what extent do you tell your employees?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Right.

I will tell them even before we face that issue. But they do have access to your numbers.

Yep. Correct. I mean, they don't get all time access, but I'm very transparent once they ask or like if I think there's a need to inform.

Let me give you an example.

If I see our sales dropping, I would bring them in. I will tell them upfront like, look with these numbers in a year it will be this number.

Then I will need fire people. If you don't wanna get there, this is what we need to do. So are you on board or are you not? I get your consensus even before that happened. So I don't have to go there.

Ling Yah: But I imagine you can probably only do that when you are a small team.

Yes. If you really grow. That's right. A hundred, 200.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Nope.

You cannot do that. So that, that's why it's very important, your first 10 to 20 hires. Yeah. You are not hiring just people, you are hiring future leaders. And that's what you need to treat them to be. Because they are gonna be your voice to continue on the culture in the company.

If they can't follow that, it's better. Forget about it. That's why you tell them one year ahead. Why you tell them one year ahead, that if things go like that for three, it is very paranoid. Like, like just three months feels drop a bit and come on is hurry. You know, or like something like that. Right. but why do I do that?

Because if you get too jittery about it and you decide to quit, great. You are definitely not the leader quality here. Then I will tell you, congratulations, you found a better path for yourself. The door is there. And I'll celebrate for you because again, it's not that you're bad, but you don't fit.

Yeah. That's all.

Ling Yah: Speaking of future leaders, the future, and you also say A, B, C, F I J, I say the character,

what is X, Y, Z for Mr. Money tv?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yep. I have to say in a very vague manner, FGH h I forgot. Sorry, go on. I, I, I can't give you a very, very clear picture, la but it's just very, very vague, right?

Yeah. The reason why I can't give you a very, very clear picture, partially is because also I don't get a very clear clarity on that yet. know how visions are, right? Mm-hmm. So visions are always vague. The clarity part is just this to be the number one financial resource in Malaysia.

Yeah. That will be the, most clear part. So our mission is to make financial literacy accessible to people, but I think that, I'm still struggling to try to make people understand that financial literacy is more than just understanding money, but it's also understanding yourself. So there is more to life than money.

I dunno how to phrase that word, but the point is that there's more to that and a big part about it is how you live your life, your values, your perspective, how you design a life.

Because ultimately money is just a tool to make you happy. You shouldn't get so, so riled up, chasing it and forgetting about what makes you really happy.

So if your deal is to build a family to spend more time to raise your children, maybe an income of 20 to 30,000 as a family moving over to Kedah could be a good choice for you. Mm. money is just part of it. It's a lot about life designer, I would say.

Ling Yah: I heard from CK I should ask you about Hershey's world.

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Oh, that's why you know so much. Yeah. CK want to vomit already, right? Yeah. The other day he heard this podcast as well from this another And you cry, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And told me, yeah. So it I was like, wow, if you will listen to a podcaster, it must be quite good, because he will vomit if he hears my voice.

Hershey's town.

That is something that really inspired me. Yeah. Yeah. The, the story was this Hershey's chocolate. Instead of like making life difficult for their people, paying them less, what he did was that he bought a small town in this unknown place. He created a whole economy for them there.

It was during that time when there was no electricity. It was the first few times where electricity has warm water and stuff like that. Ultimately what he did is that whatever profit that goes to there helps to take care of the people as a trust fund. Right. So Hershey, until today's trust is a fact, it's it's run by a trust.

Right. And they even have orphanages, they have like children, school education and stuff like that. And ultimately that's what I you dream I I dream of. Yeah. But I know there's very too farfetched, so I don't talk about it too much. Again, you don't go too far because people will be like, what the hell do you wanna do, right? Mm-hmm.

But deep down within me, that's why my challenge is to always tell myself that it's okay that you don't drive a Porsche. It's okay, because ultimately you wanna make sure that whoever that's near you who will get impacted and that for me is more important than anything else.

And one of the reason why I'm willing to share a lot of things, I dangerously share sometimes is because sometimes I ask myself this question Yes. By not sharing, I may maintain that age, but if I share this and someone get benefited, right? And if he's genuine. He can do well and he can help a bunch of people. Will that be a better return than me just holding on an age?

Maybe. So I'm really risk it sometimes.

On the other hand is that idea that yes, I may not be able to build a Hershey's town, save a lot of people, help a lot of people and so on. But at least every single one who works with me or partners with me is my Hershey Town. That's my idea behind her.

Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes I end up, the other day I was just calling a few friends, telling them about like, Hey, you know, my client wanna get this few things right and I think you're a right person for it. And they start asking me, are you a agency? I'm like, bro, no man. I don't get a single dollar.

I'm just, I know that if go through agencies sometimes it's gonna take too long, and you get a cut and stuff like that, so might as well just introduce you directly then you get an earn more as well. I don't think A single dollar. Yala, that's the idea.

Ling Yah: Just before we wrap up, the biggest Hershey Town would be your 2 sons. How do you see them growing up to be, what kind of legacy do you leave for them?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: For me once again if I talk about my audience I don't really dwell on it too much because I don't wanna get too disappointed.

But in brief general, they remember me as the guy who inspire them that there's more than just money. And money is not that scary. If really it's personal about what I am looking at, it will be about my family and friends. Especially for my sons, I want to be remembered that I dare to pursue a dream.

That there's this courage to pursue a dream wherever you are in life. And when you do it, you don't do it in such a way where it's a sky in the castle, but there's practicality in it that you're doing it intelligently.

But in terms of audience, it's a very general one.

Ultimately, If I just stop producing video treatment, they'll forget me. I'll put it easily. Yeah. We are all human beings.

But for my children, for my family, for my partners, I want to be remembered as a guy who will not stop pursuing for what he really believes.

Ling Yah: I normally wrap up with the same questions. So the first is this, do you feel like you have found your why?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Yeah.

Ling Yah: And what kind of legacy you wanna leave behind?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: To be a person who live to his fullest and always pursuing for it. Mm-hmm. I think a lot of people have the idea that the why is a destination for me, the why is a process.

It is about a daily pursuing but yet at the same time contented. So that's the idea behind.

Ling Yah: And what are the most important qualities of a successful person?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: The ability to give. Or how many people around you that is impacted by your life. I think that's the most important qualities of a successful person.

Ling Yah: And where can people go to find out more about what you're doing, follow you, support you?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: Definitely our YouTube. Mr Money TV and Instagram. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok.

LinkedIn. Yeah. All this.

Okay.

Ling Yah: I would drop all the links in the show notes. Anything else you'd like to share?

Peter Yong [MrMoney]: I think for everyone here, if you are still wondering what is your why I don't think you're gonna figure it out. Sitting in the basement wondering about it. The best way is actually go out and try things.

And as you try new things, you learn to fall in love with the new thing, or it just picks your curiosity much more that makes you willing to spend more time on it, then it's worth pursuing. But as you pursue it, do remember that you will get bored. And that is very normal because just like learning piano or any music lessons, you'll notice that grade five, grade six time, it's a boring time where you are just gonna hone in your skillset even further.

And it's only gonna get exciting when you hit that grade eight, grade seven because that's when you start learning new things again. if you always give up when things are gonna be boring, then you will never ever find that why.

And that was the end of episode 122 part two. The show notes and transcript can be found at www.sothisismywhy.com/122.

This interview was recorded in person, so if you'd like to watch the YouTube version of this podcast and all the other episodes before it, just head over to YouTube and look for the So This Is My Why Podcast.

And do stick around for next Sunday because we'll be meeting the head of Metaverse at Decentraland. She happens to have a PhD in architecture and urbanism, fell into the world of XR tech, became a digital nomad, and found her way into the Web three space, working with some of the most famous fashion brands in the world, including Gucci, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, and Louis Vuitton.

So stick around, check out the other STIMY episodes. Subscribe if you haven't done so already, and see you next Sunday.