For Khanh, creating success requires foundations — pillars. In today’s world, Khanh believes we need 4 pillars to build our success:

1. Burning desire

Everything starts with our desire. In the best book of the last 100 years, Napoleon Hill’s “THINK AND GROW RICH”, chapter 1 is about desire. Everything — every dream, every achievement — starts from our own longing, our own burning desire. It is something we are born with.

As children we have so many dreams. We dream of flying to the moon. We dream of being the most beautiful, famous, or a great singer. We dream of doing this and achieving that. That is a gift from heaven. But as we grow up in different environments, we gradually lose those ideas — we lose that desire.

Look at a houseplant placed near a window: it always turns toward the sunlight. That is its nature. We are not plants — we have awareness and consciousness. We are born with the desire to achieve this and that. But in today’s world the meaning of desire has been diluted. So what we say we want no longer comes from a true, honest desire within us.

Khanh hears many people say they want more income, want to retire early, want to travel the world, want to start a business, want to repay their parents, and so on. Notice how the word “want” waters down the meaning of desire. We only “want” these things — we don’t truly burn to achieve them. We think we have great desires, but they are only wishes, illusions. Remember: persistence appears only after we have real desire.

2. Direction

Often we want to succeed or start a business — or we already have — but we have no clear direction for 1, 2, 3, 10 or even 20 years. We only see what is right in front of us. That makes us want quick results, quick wealth, quick success. So we do a bit of this and a bit of that, a step forward and a step back — and in the end we are standing still.

Remember, everyone: the best time to get a map is before you walk into the forest. When we start a business and invest on the way to success, we need a clear, firm, long-term direction. None of us would walk out the door, get in the car and just drive around all day. Every time we get in the car we have a route and a destination, and we know whether the drive is 30 minutes, 2 hours or 8 hours. If we jump in and drive in circles, at some point we run out of time and gas and get stuck somewhere we never wanted to be. Then we give up, quit, blame this and that, and become very negative.

3. Discipline

Khanh often says “discipline brings freedom.” Do you know something you need to do but never finish? You know you should save money but never manage to. You know you need yoga but feel lazy today. You want to build a YouTube channel or fan page but quit after a month. You know you should email someone to connect, but you say next week, after the pandemic, after Tết — and keep postponing. In the end everything piles up and you don’t know where to begin.

To be free in any area, you need discipline in that area. Want freedom of time? Be disciplined with your time. Want financial freedom? Be disciplined with your personal finances. Want freedom in your work and career? Be disciplined with yourself — master yourself, manage everything, and focus on building your business. Only then will you have the freedom in your work or career to retire early. You have to be willing to do what you don’t feel like doing. Without discipline, everything Khanh shares here — and everything you read in books — is just nice-sounding philosophy with no value.

4. Focus

Today, focus matters more than knowledge — if we aren’t careful, we are easily distracted. Last week Khanh received an email from someone complaining that they had written more than 6 days earlier and still had no reply. Khanh explained that he spends only 30 minutes a day answering 20–25 emails. He works by a schedule: when he wakes up each day, he must focus on what he needs to do. He can’t let email, YouTube, Facebook or comments stress him out — if that happened, he would never reach his goals.

With today’s technology, if you give just 5 years — no idling, no laziness — 5 years of focus on your project and your career, you will hold the world in the palm of your hand. Khanh wishes you success, and remember: “Today is the beginning of anything you want.”

— Khanh Ngo