(This is reproduced from the posting I made on my Facebook Page on 8th November 2024.)

Most entrepreneurs would know how to project their vision into the foreseeable future. Business sustainability is after all a perpetual struggle to maintain relevance and survival. However, I’m not getting any younger and that means I’m only taking up projects with shorter gestation periods. I’m full of envy when my ex classmates, mostly retirees by now, put photos in our group chat of themselves chatting in coffeehops or doing their other laid back activities.

I think a new initiative’s ideal gestation timeline is 2 to 3 years, or a maximum of 5 years. Showing profits or completing the task beyond that milestone would reduce it less attractive, even off putting. Some friends recently asked me if I would like to co-invest in a fledgling aviation business, and with no pun intended, I said no thanks, because I only have a short runway.

Also, for my property development’s gameplan, I have considered going into joint ventures to build huge townships. While tempting, their sheer size could take up to 20 to 30 years to complete. I would therefore leave it to my successors or the next generation to work on undertakings of such massive scale and lengthy timeframe.

I believe my peers in my same age group would share the same thinking and the same priorities – that of harvesting the lower lying fruits in the last lap of our corporate journey. Age does have a way of forcing us into a whole new perspective and dimension. However, the beauty of it is it gives us the ability to increasingly appreciate the precious time we have left.