Recently my grandmother had a heart attack. I only have one grandparent left. My 94 year old maternal grandmother. That’s it. My maternal grandfather passed away during the pandemic. He was 94 years old as well. My paternal grandparents passed on when I was a lot younger. My paternal grandfather when I was 19 years old and my paternal grandmother when I was 24 years old. Both of heart conditions. Which is one of the reasons why I choose to live as healthy a lifestyle as I can. To put things into context, I was always the favoured one among all my grandparents. Perhaps because I was the eldest grandchild. On both sides of the family.

My grandparents, all four of them, were hardworking people. As are many people during their generation when Singapore was so much less developed. For this blog article, I am focusing on what I picked up from my maternal grandparents. I believe that I learned so much from them and it made me who I am today. My entrepreneurial spirit emanated from them. My parents were salaried employees. The whole of their lives. My grandparents, they ran a business running school bookshops. The business name was Peng Peng Educational Supplies. If any of my cousins are reading this, do you even remember this name? They had four children. All four of the childrens’ names had the name “Peng” and hence that was how they named the business. During school holidays I would help out at the bookshops. I usually worked at the school bookshop at Serangoon Gardens Secondary School. Our family had two other bookshops. They were located in Yio Chu Kang Secondary School and Guangyang Secondary School. If you were studying at these schools during the 1980s and 1990s, you might have seen me packing and serving you when you came to purchase your school textbooks.

 

The first lesson I learned was to be comfortable handling money. And also the responsibility that comes with it.

When I was about 12 years old, I vividly remember my grandparents asking me to count all the notes and then putting it in a bag and going with them to the bank to bank the money into the business’ bank account. They made me carry the bag with all the notes and told me to keep a watchful eye over that money. I think it was on purpose but I remember one of them stopping to buy something while I held on to that huge bag of cash. I was so afraid that some robber would just run by and snatch that bag of cash off me. At times there were in excess of ten thousand dollars in the bag.

It made me really understand the responsibility of keeping a watchful eye over other people’s money. If there ever was a situation where my misstep could cause other people to lose their money, I would be extremely careful and often have a sense of anxiety attached to that responsibility. In fact, I have had people asking me to invest their monies for them. I do not do that anymore. I do not want to shoulder that responsibility so liberally. This is why I decided to pen my advice in my blog (I have a blog where I write about investing).

 

The next lesson is to always think out of the box.

Selling textbooks in secondary school bookshops is a very traditional business. Students are given a book list and they show up during the school holidays to purchase their books. It is that simple. If you do not want certain items, you cross them out and we will not pick them out for you.

The busiest period was when the secondary one students got their posting to the school. In the past, you needed to collect your posting from your primary school and head off to your secondary school for further instructions. At your secondary school, you would be given your booklist for secondary one. The bookshop would be open and students and parents would come by to purchase their books on that day or the next few days.

If you wanted everything on the booklist, we had them packed into bundles. You came and you paid us the price for the full set and off you went. My grandparents created two queues. One for customers who wanted the full set and one for customers who did not. I saw that the queue for the full set was moving just marginally faster. This was because there was only one person collecting monies. My grandparents asked me to think of a way to make this differentiation even wider. We wanted customers to purchase the full set from us as it not only saved us time and effort, it increased our revenue.

I devised a more efficient payment system. If the full set of books were say $218.50, customers would typically give us five $50 notes and we would have to rummage through the cash register to return them $31.50. I prepared $31.50 in small ziplock bags and put up a sign that if you are here to purchase a full set and have five $50 notes or $250 to be exact, join my queue. The ziplock bags with the change were stapled to the bag containing all the books. It was very efficient. All I needed to do at the end of the day was to divide the total monies I collected by $250 and I would know how many full sets I sold. This queue was so efficient that there were some who did not want the full set but say how efficient my queue was and came over to buy the full set. It helped that the only space that the school gave us were two small classrooms to do our selling (Not as though we had a choice. I remembered us asking for a more conducive area but were rejected). The room was crowded and warm and I believe some just wanted to purchase and get out of the classroom.

That year the revenue went up. My grandparents recorded everything. I got a warm buzz of satisfaction knowing that I contributed to my family’s business. This same warm buzz accompanies me whenever I see my idea working for my own businesses which I run today.

 

Knowing how to keep and read accounts is important

Accounting is the language of business. My grandparents are not educated people. However, they knew the importance of keeping proper accounts and records of all monies collected and spent. Over time, they did grasp some basic accounting concepts. I only realised this when I was studying accounting subjects in the university. I realised that they segregated costs of goods and capital expenditures albeit that they named it differently. It was at that moment that I realised what was before me was important if I wanted to be a good businessman. My grandparents knew what they were dealing with and how to categorise their revenue and expenses so that they could see where to improve and which aspects of the business needed to be relinquished.

I started a restaurant with a secondary school classmate a few years ago. This categorisation and segregation was what I did when I wanted to know what aspect of the business was working and which aspect was not. I segregated the revenue into revenue from mains, sides, drinks (non-alcoholic, non-coffee), drinks (alcoholic), drinks (coffee), desserts. I realised that our revenue from drinks (coffee) was very low yet this was the category with the most issues as the machine constantly needed servicing. We decided to remove this from the menu and sell off the machine to recoup some monies. I did the same for the mains by breaking them up into various categories and realised that certain mains provided very little revenue. We removed those as well. Ironically, these were one of the lowest value items and when we removed them, customers selected higher value items instead.

This is just one of the examples of how I implemented what I learned from my grandparents to what I am doing currently. There are so many lessons I learned from dealing with the business. I intend to have my own law practice in the future. Law is essentially still a business. I will use these same principles to run my future practice.

 

Keep learning

My grandparents were not well versed in English when they first started the business. However, they had easy access to secondary school textbooks. I often saw them browsing through those textbooks. I realised that they were picking up how to read and speak English. They had been doing it since day one. So much so that by the time I had joined them to help with the business, they had a decent command of English.

Today, at the age of 94, my grandmother still speaks to me with a good mixture of English and Chinese. When I speak to my relatives, cousins, nephews and nieces in English, she can understand what I am telling them. She is even able to tell the doctor about her medical condition. You know the heart attack she suffered recently? She called the ambulance by herself. When she was brought to the hospital, she told the doctor that she wanted stents inserted instead of going for a heart bypass. I was actually impressed that my grandmother knew what procedures her options entailed. She told me that she went to learn about the procedures and asked around people who have undergone such procedures.

 

Try to be on good terms with as many people as possible. You will never know when you need their help.

My grandparents were on very good terms with everyone in the schools at which their bookshops were located in. Every time they walked onto the school compound, students, teachers and school staff would greet them. My grandmother, in particular, brought me around to meet the various teachers and school staff. I never saw the point. I thought that she was showing me off to the rest of the school. Well I am guessing she was proud of me and was showing off her eldest grandson but what she did benefitted me later.

After completing my A-levels and waiting to enter the army to do my national service, I wanted to try out relief teaching. My grandmother made a call to Serangoon Gardens Secondary School and essentially the conversation was something like “remember my grandson? The one I introduced to you? He would like to do relief teaching.” That was it. I got the job. I covered for an art teacher that was on maternity leave. I got loads of help from other art teachers in preparing lessons because they had seen me grow up.

I practice this in the company that I run currently. I manage a team of 9 people in my company. A company with a business which I began just before law school. I always stress to everyone in my office. Pick up the phone and call the client. Save everyone’s birthday in our company calendar so that we can wish them happy birthday on their birthday. If our client has a new office or branch (we have quite a few F&B clients), send flowers congratulating them. In a short space of 4-5 years, I managed to grow the company portfolio to over 300 clients. A lot of how I managed to do this is with the soft skills I learned from my grandparents.

 

Look out for the less fortunate

My eldest uncle has cerebral palsy. He has been in this state since the day he was born and my grandmother has been caring for him ever since. I believe it has been about 70 years. I believe this is why she can empathise with the less fortunate. Looking at myself, I am extremely fit and healthy. I truly empathise with my uncle’s situation. To not be able to even walk normally, much less do all the things that I take or granted on a daily basis. Run, swim, hike, cycle, play football, rugby, carry my daughter, play computer games, or merely doing simple daily activities like cooking or writing. I think I would go crazy. My uncle taught me how to play chess and checkers. Yes, my handicapped uncle. Much more admirable, my grandparents looked after him since the day he was born. My grandmother told me that she is trying to live as long as she can so that she can take care of my uncle. They have a helper but after my grandfather passed on, only my grandmother lives with my uncle.

While we were running the school bookshops, we gave out free textbooks to the needy. There were some who abused the system. I saw people driving up to the school in a Mercedes car to pick up free textbooks. I remarked to my grandparents that there were people who may be abusing the system. They told me that if we truly wanted to help people, the system cannot weed out everyone who attempts to take advantage of the system. While we can refine the system to try to minimise abuse, the focus has to be on how we can help more people. This made so much sense. This is how I see whatever I do when it comes to community work. My grandmother often asks me whether I am doing community work. When I tell her about any community work that I organise and ran, I can sense that she has a feeling of pride for the work I am doing.

 

Focus on your health

You have no idea how important this is. My grandmother had stroke twice and recovered fully on both occasions. On both occasions her movement were impaired but she stuck to her therapy and maintained a healthy diet to ensure that she recovered fully. You should see her diet. It is clean, deliberate and well planned. She eats sufficient and focuses on nutrient dense foods. While I was in my early 30s, my health was very poor. I had mild hypertension and ate very unhealthily. I live life very differently now. I take inspiration from my grandmother, and my grandfather from when he was alive, that if I take care of myself, I can take care of my family longer. My parents never taught me the importance of eating healthy. Our household typically ate little fruits and vegetables, often indulged in snacks and foods high in sugar and salt content as well as processed food. I am perhaps the odd one out because I took part in sports. When I look back, I think my confidence to stick through a healthy diet plan could be because of my exposure to my grandparents. My immediate family, while highly educated, had no idea how to eat healthily. I saw how my grandparents lived their life and I felt that if they can be so disciplined with their health, I could too.

 

I remember all four of my grandparents fondly. This is despite the fact that my mother is on poor terms with just about all of them (oh yes, my family is not harmonious). Sadly, I only have one grandparent left. I hope to show her my SUSS School of Law degree as soon as I receive it. She told me that she can see that I am going to be a “big lawyer” (this is a direct translation from what she said in Chinese) and that I will be one that will do something big in a positive manner in time to come. I will not be the only one in my family who is practicing law. There are three before me although I will be the oldest and latest to enter the profession. My grandmother often tells me that I am very good at making money and that I must remember to give back to the community. I always remind her that me being good at making money is because I work hard and am passionate in whatever I do. I believe her remarks are always to remind me that I have to contribute to the community. I can sense her joy when I tell her about the type of things I do while volunteering at the meet-the-peoples session. She often reminds me that there are a lot of people who are very “cham” (in a bad state. loosely translated from Hokkien I believe. pardon my dialect.)

When I first entered NUS more than 2 decades ago. My grandmother was so proud of me getting into the local university. She gave me $1,000 as a reward. She knew I wanted to build my dream bicycle and she wanted to be a part of it.

This was the bicycle I built. That beautiful M5 Specialized S-Works frame cost a cool $1,000.

Were it not for this bicycle, I would not have gone on to develop such a passion for cycling. I, together with two other friends, founded the NUS Cycling Club during my time in NUS. Through that club, I got to build many connections that would come in helpful later in life (that is a story for another day). Were it not for that $1,000, a lot of good would not have ensued. Trust me, I applied the “but for” causation test before coming to that assertion.

You know what is so beautiful about what I just shared? These are lessons you cannot find even in institutes of higher learning. You do not get them in textbooks and you have to extract the essence from experiences. I am fortunate to have such experiences and have benefitted greatly for them.

As for my grandmother, or “por por” as I call her, she is back on her feet and can even cook, albeit at a slower pace with less gusto. I pray for her good health.

Yours sincerely,

Daryl