Life is pretty crazy, isn’t it? Life often throws us curve balls. God often leads in mysterious ways. The things God calls us to sometimes do not make sense. IT’S CRAZY!
Adding on to the craziness of life, we are confronted with the fact that things work very differently in the topsy-turvy Kingdom of God: It is more blessed to give than to receive. You have to die to self, in order to truly live. IT’S CRAZY!
How do you follow God when life doesn't make sense?
This unique 2-in-1 book brings together the amazing real-life journey of 'crazy' entrepreneur Edward Ong, and the instructive insights on life, calling and leadership by his long-time mentor of over 20 years, Rev Edmund Chan.
Edward Ong tells of the twists and turns of his turmultuous roller-coaster journey with disarming honesty, humour and candour, while Edmund Chan sums up the C.R.A.Z.Y. principles that anchor the entrepreneurial life, with characteristic clarity and conciseness.
Whether you are leading in the marketplace or in the church, there is always a need for courageous, faith-directed leadership. This book will inform, instruct, and inspire you to follow God and experience His signature of grace upon your life.
Life is pretty crazy, isn’t it? Life often throws us curve balls. God often leads in mysterious ways. The things God calls us to sometimes do not make sense. IT’S CRAZY!
Adding on to the craziness of life, we are confronted with the fact that things work very differently in the topsy-turvy Kingdom of God: It is more blessed to give than to receive. You have to die to self, in order to truly live. IT’S CRAZY!
How do you follow God when life doesn't make sense?
This unique 2-in-1 book brings together the amazing real-life journey of 'crazy' entrepreneur Edward Ong, and the instructive insights on life, calling and leadership by his long-time mentor of over 20 years, Rev Edmund Chan.
Edward Ong tells of the twists and turns of his turmultuous roller-coaster journey with disarming honesty, humour and candour, while Edmund Chan sums up the C.R.A.Z.Y. principles that anchor the entrepreneurial life, with characteristic clarity and conciseness.
Whether you are leading in the marketplace or in the church, there is always a need for courageous, faith-directed leadership. This book will inform, instruct, and inspire you to follow God and experience His signature of grace upon your life.
I was only 44, and already, I had attained a rarefied status that many people can only dream about. I was on F.I.R.E. — I was Financially Independent and ready to Retire Early.
This happened right after I completed the Adelphi Hotel project in Singapore.
To my delight, Singapore’s largest real estate developer purchased the entire development from me. I quickly took the opportunity to sell the other assets that we held in Singapore as well.
I realised by now that construction was (and is) a highly competitive business with low margins and high risks. Main contractors like us tended to end up as the unsecured creditor.
It was a raw deal, and I just wanted out.
I executed my exit plan, and now I was completely debt free!
I had enough money in the bank to enjoy the rest of my life — free from stress, budget constraints and completion deadlines.
What an enviable place to be!
I looked forward to sailing into the sunset, quite literally. I commissioned the building of a 57-metre luxury yacht. I loved the sea, and my plan was to sail around the world.
But God had other ideas.
A mere six months into my early retirement, I started to feel antsy and restless. I chalked it down to an annoying twitch; an occupational hazard.
Yes, I was a ‘project boy’ by nature.
I relished the thrill of taking on a new project, rolling up my sleeves, getting my hands dirty, getting down to the ground, pushing against the impossible odds — and then experiencing the high of completing the challenge on time and within budget.
There was always something addictive about the rush of adrenaline that came with pulling off yet another project while defying the odds and exceeding expectations.
But now I was living life at a different pace.
I was coasting along in calm waters, and the last thing I wanted to do was to rock the boat.
In an attempt to scratch the itch, I decided to toy around with an easy, bite-sized project in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
There was an opportunity to develop some condominiums and townhouses (known today as Grace Ville). It was very doable; the scale of the project was well within my financial capacity and my comfort zone.
Now I could indulge my passion for property development without taking any risks that might require me to trust God.
What an appealing idea! What could be more perfect than that?
Opposite my new bite-sized pet project sat a large tract of swamp land. It was dirty, marshy and smelly.
Now this was not some small swamp by the wayside. The swamp was huge, stretching across some 384 acres of land.
In other words, it was an enormous eyesore.
I thought it was a real shame, because the swamp land was right along the flight path. The marshy mess was clearly visible when planes take off and land at the Kota Kinabalu airport.
I could not help but be bothered by it. The more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.
One day, as my flight was approaching the Kota Kinabalu airport, I looked out of the airplane window and there it was — that unsightly site of swampland. This time though, in my mind’s eye, I saw an outline drawn around it.
At the same time, the words “from ash to beauty” echoed in my spirit. I received this like a download, as if it was air-dropped into my spirit as a clue.
I looked up the phrase and found it in Isaiah 61:3.
Could God be calling me to turn this marsh land into a place of beauty? Tried as I might, I couldn’t shake off this notion.
From that time on, what began as a faint inkling of my calling became clearer. I started to see what God wanted me to do in this season of my life.
I began to understand that:
- God had given me a passion for construction
- However, the purpose of property development wasn’t to make me wealthy
- He wanted me to build projects that would reflect His beauty, His ways and His glory
- I was to bring something from a state of ashes (abandoned, broken down or in disrepair) to a state of beauty (made whole, restored and flourishing).
Yet clearly, this undertaking was too large for comfort.
To transform 384 acres of swamp land was no small task. There was no way I could take on such a mammoth project while coasting along at cruise speed.
Something on this scale would surely jettison my plans for early retirement, and for sailing around the world in my yet-to-be-delivered yacht.
Clearly, I couldn’t stick to my plan, and God’s, at the same time. The two were diametrically opposite.
It was either my way, or His.
And so it was that I found myself standing at a crossroads. Do I turn left or right? Should I choose comfort or calling? Would convention or conviction win?
This conundrum troubled me so much that I decided to fast for seven days.
As a young believer without much experience in discerning the will of God, I put in an earnest request: “Is this really You, God? Is this what I am to do? If so, You’ll have to confirm it. Please give me a sign to show that You are in this.”
For good measure, I added: “And I don’t want just another ordinary sign or prophecy; please give me an extraordinary sign… like an actual physical sign! I really want to know Your heart. Is it true that You want me to do this?”
Over the next two days, I would experience not one but two extraordinary signs to nudge me forward.
First, on Saturday, I scored a hole-in-one, also known as an eagle, while playing golf. That’s when a ball hit from a tee to start a hole finishes in the cup. This had never happened to me before. The chances of that happening to an average golfer is apparently one in 12,500!
What made this so extraordinary is that I was no ordinary golfer — I was an atrocious one, and I had the statistics to prove it too! (An average golfer with a handicap of 24 would usually finish a game in 96 strokes or less. But it took me a grand total of 118 strokes to finish that game.)
Even the club captain, who had to verify my extraordinary achievement (so that my name could be added to the hole-in-one honour roll of the club), couldn’t believe his eyes.
It was probably his one and only time verifying a hole-in-one by a golfer with 118 strokes!
Here’s another measure of what extraordinary a sign it was: My three fellow golfers on my flight were stunned by my hole-in-one.
Golfing tradition dictates that all three would have to gift me a dozen golf balls each, and a congratulatory gift of $500.
One of my fellow golfers was pretty good at his game, and yet he had never scored a hole-in-one. He felt so indignant at my utterly undeserved stroke of good fortune that he threw down his $500 — and stormed off the golf course in a huff. (He still remembers the incident to this day, and we always have a good laugh over it.)
It is also golfing tradition for the hole-in-one golfer to celebrate by buying a round of drinks for everyone in the clubhouse, and so that’s what I did.
The bill for the drinks came up to a few thousand dollars, and was covered by my golfing insurance. (Isn’t that nice? They think of everything!)
I had gotten my extraordinary sign from God.
But that was not all.
The next day was a Sunday, and inexplicably, a bird of paradise flew into my condominium in downtown Singapore.
This is a rare bird, usually found in Eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. They certainly aren’t found flying around an urban city like Singapore, and definitely not in the heart of town!
I had asked God for an extraordinary sign, and now I had been given not one, but two rare phenomena that I could not refute.
God had answered my prayer; I now knew for certain that God wanted me to embark on this mammoth project.
Nonetheless, despite my earnest request, I was still a very young believer at this juncture. I still thought of myself as a capable, self-made man. I professed to trust in God, but really, deep down I trusted in my own abilities and resources.
Life was great as long as I was in control.
Little did I know that through this next project, I would learn that I wasn’t self-made, capable or rich — nor in control. All this was just an illusion. I was His child, completely reliant on Him and His resources.
I had thought I would retire and call it quits.
Little did I know that my journey had only just begun.
It's C.R.A.Z.Y.!: Mentoring Paradigms for Entrepreneurial Leadership by Edward Ong and Edmund Chan is a book about one man's journey of leadership and provides leaders inspirational and instructional advice as they ride the roller coaster of life.
Ong takes the lead in parts one and two, documenting his 70+ years on this planet with the majority of them being a successful entrepreneur. He credits his experiences, mentors and God with his variety of successes over the years, though they didn't come with numerous hardships along the way. Ong's portions are heartfelt and well-written, but I couldn't help feeling like I was being preached to by a billionaire about his "struggles", while he lived in his luxury hotel and was met with challenges as he went through life throwing millions of dollars around. I'm a firm believer that everyone's story is valid, and while Ong does have moments of humility and firmly credits his faith in God for his successes, his portions at a certain point have the potential to alienate readers.
Chan's portion, the last in the book, did a much better job of giving the everyman clear motivation on how to similarly live a C.R.A.Z.Y. (I won't spoil the book's acronym) life, no matter what financial state they may be in. At first glance, It's C.R.A.Z.Y.!: Mentoring Paradigms for Entrepreneurial Leadership looks like a business-oriented leadership book, however it's made crystal clear from the very beginning that the intended audience for this book is for believers in God, if not flat out Evangelical Christians. While this isn't a dig at the book, I do think the author's could have done a better job of clearly defining the audience, instead of making assumptions that everyone picking this book up is a God-fearing, Bible-believing individual.
While slightly tone deaf at times but offering some solid advice for leaders with an entrepreneurial spirit (and a belief in God), It's C.R.A.Z.Y.!: Mentoring Paradigms for Entrepreneurial Leadership, while not for me, could be just the type of book that a certain sector of readers could find helpful.