Rayfil Wong and Galen Yuen

Dear Mommy,

As a full time entrepreneur, I sometimes get into a rut. Just tired, slightly confused and frustrated.

But just when I am about to hit the wall, God bless me with someone to fill my inspirational juices.

Hip hopping around Borders Café, I ran into Galen Yuen.
Galen Yuen is a character and the refined definition of metro sexual.

Growing up, I did not have any entrepreneur mentors so when I fist met Galen Yuen at a wine bar five years ago, I instantly gravitated toward him. At that time, he had started and sold uber yuppie Spa Bar in San Francisco.

Lessons learned from Galen Yuen

1:: Elephant. Yes, we can eat an elephant. How? Elephant is so large in size. Lesson: We may not reach our goals in one day, or with one swing, but if we “eat” a piece of the elephant everyday, we can. My version I tell aspiring entrepreneurs is to jab daily, don’t aim for the knock out.

2:: Pond. Galen is successful and influential. You’ll find him among San Francisco’s elite parties and people, yet he teaches me to be learning and teaching daily. The teacher/disciple relationship. A pond simply has algae since the water is recycled and never flows out. So don’t be a pond, but exercise learning and teaching daily.

3:: Say not yet, not NO! When we believe we can’t do something, we can’t. No, I am not able to start my own business. When we believe that NO has conquered us, end of story. But saying and thinking “not yet” allows us to examine the different strategies and options that will help us achieve our goals.

4:: Mentors. We live in a busy world. At times, we may not be able to find “official” mentors that we can met up every week. Galen advises me that mentors are simply people we can learn and extract life lessons from.

5:: Struggles. Welcome it! The harder it gets, the less competitors will enter the game. There is no birth without pain + walls are only there to weed out those who don’t want it enough.
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Galen Yuen is founder of PureVentures and former owner of SpaBar.