I turned twenty nine this week. The last time I’ll ever turn ‘twenty-something’.
I started the day feeling aware of how behind I am compared to the men and women I measure myself against — — The great thinkers and prime movers like Feynman, Luther King, King Jr, Aurelius, Arc, Bonaparte, Rand, Mises, Gandhi, Faraday, Lovelace, Beethoven, Seneca, Jobs, Sun-Tzu, Marx, or Ying Zheng.
Realizing that my time to be alive would soon pass forced me to contemplate on the timeless qualities of our human spirit. These great individuals all shared a sacred inner fire that powered them through immense adversity to become legendary.
Rather then pursue comfort, family, security, or survival itself, they recognized that principles like truth, justice, knowledge, and human dignity are the real goods that people ought to seek to grow. Be it through warfare for their people’s sovereignty, scientific experimentation to glean insights from the universe, or in the subtle battle for the moral philosophy of tomorrow’s youth, these individuals had a vision of what they were working towards. It was this inner fire that drove them to keep going when others gave up.
Indeed I was reminded that I should be happy to live my whole life effort trying to shape the world even if it meant dying alone in obscurity as a failure without any visible measure of success. Perhaps you’ll understand my sense of audacity after I share the funny but painful experience of when I hit rock bottom.
As a naive sheep in my early years I was brutally attacked by a patent troll who had a network of giants behind him. At the time my team of volunteer scientists were trying to democratic neuroscience by building open-source low-cost brain computer interfaces that used infrared light and ultrasound to image the brain. I eventually buried my enemy and absolved the threats, but the legal war killed our community project as I ended up broke, homeless and stuck with a feeling of despair and aggression against people in general. I lived in a car for a year and lost 30lb trying to figure out my come back move. That was the funniest moment in my life.
It was jokes because I realized that if I wanted to succeed as a wartime tech CEO operating in the new space of biometrics and artificial intelligence, I had to go the extra mile to keep pushing forward and learning with humility to become a better version of myself…. even though the roof was leaking and I was shivering to sleep like a wet jackass. I would sit alone and contemplate for weeks in the mountains with my rifle, my campfire, and the warm meat of the ruffed grouse I’d shot.
Yes it was cheap to live in the bush but I stayed because it enriched my soul. I was able to cut out all the unnecessary bullshit in my life and was inspired to pioneer a combative new branch of game theory called “evolutionary business model generation” — — where one predicts how companies and industries that don’t yet exist will evolve in response to new technologies you invent and take to market — — and then deploy strategies that secure an indomitable edge which neutralizes my potential enemies before they arise.
I needed to figure out how to stay balanced in a dynamic equilibrium where the rules are not known and everyone is always trying to kill you and your team. I had to give my future firms an edge that gets sharper and more unbreakable over time. Rather then control my enemies, I needed to control the playing field of my industry.
It feels like a lifetime ago when I hit rock bottom but I learned that it also does not matter what religion you are from or how you try to understand the universe — — the deepest secrets of God are only revealed to those who happily commit everything they have and readily accept all the challenges and pains in their chosen pursuits of perfection.
Today I remind myself that your true worth as a human is not tied to your past accomplishments and certainly not tied to what other people think of you. That your true worth is found in what you live to accomplish with your life. Just as the artist can appreciate the art before it is painted or sung, it is as if destiny had written itself in my soul so that I may enjoy the fruit of my labour before it is ripe and take deep pleasure in my work even while I toil hard to forge it into existence. I believe this how you become truly happy and derive strength from your work — — when you find your meaning in life your work becomes play and the journey becomes the reward.
Consider crude iron ore and a well crafted steel chisel. They both begin as a boring rock that nature randomly vomited on the ground. The chisel was forged through heat and time by an purposeful mind until it became fit for duty. The rock had potential but remained as useless as the day it was born. Who do you want to be on the day of your death? The rock that did nothing or a tool that was used for good in the world?
This choice, or lack of choice, will reflect how you live every single day of your life, whether it is a living heaven, a living hell, or a meaningless purgatory where you exist and survive, but never tasting the glory of your true potential. It does not matter what form your calling takes. At one point or another you have to draw a line in the sand and say “This is it. This is worth fighting for, this is worth dying for, this is worth living for”.
Why should you listen to my technical poetry? Well these very same philosophies have helped me overcome immense hardship and reach a greater version of myself and achieve things that I am very proud of today. I am now only 29 but I’ve created jobs for over 60 brilliant minds in Canada and USA. Although not all of the are still with me today, most went on to do much bigger things after their time at our firms.
I no longer struggle with rent as many of my peers do. In fact I’ve bought pristine real estate for myself and even given land ownership to my current employees. I’ve formed deep relationships with world class people who have invested in me and my teams whether it’s directly with capital or more importantly with their time, wisdom and mentorship — — this list includes billionaire tycoons, renowned scientists, visionary asset managers, nation state leaders, and even tech giants that I very much looked up to in my early years, except that now we collaborate on cool projects to save the world.
I’m also honored to pay it forward as a number of talented young CEOs have reached to me in turn for mentorship and have become my ‘proteges’. I’ll do my best to turn them into ruthless spiritual warriors that conquer and solve the biggest problems for the betterment of humanity.
After establishing NeuroTechVan as Western Canada’s largest neurotechnology community I will continue to spread the vision of brain computer interfaces to thousands of minds and connect them with the resources, network, and tools to succeed independently. I’m equally pleased with the private community of 130 rising entrepreneurs I’ve built in Vancouver. When I started this group I was lonely and simply wanted other people with ambition to hang out with. Today CEOs in the group often tell me that they have grown exponentially by networking at our casual dinners where we share cross-industrial deal flow: our entrepreneurs collectively pull in over 8 figures a year! And we’re all millenials!
The most exciting and biggest thing I take pride in today is the team that works with me at Rizound and Pangaea and the culture of excellence, humanity, comradery that we share. Just wait and see. Our team will positively impact the world like a hammer smashing an ice cube.
But arrogance is toxic and before my own hot-air lifts me off the floor as I type, let me ground this by getting back to the punch line. I want you to know that many of today’s young entrepreneurs, aspiring artists and budding scientists feel a sense of inadequacy, isolation, depression. It is extremely hard for creatives to share their wild and awesome vision when most people just call them crazy or far fetched. If you are a creative it is your own responsibility to believe in yourself.
Our young generation is like fine wine — — sour to start, yet capable of perfection with time and the right culture. The youth are tasked to solve the biggest problems in the future and if this message resounds with you, do invest in yourself to grow a character that can persevere through adversity. Trust me, it is worth it: You have to be willing to make mistakes and learn as fast as you can. If you can endure extreme losses you will have a real chance to taste extreme wins. You must always do the very best you can, the very best you know how. Until the end.
No matter the result.
The journey is the reward.
My name is Ben Tam and I’m playing the greatest game of them all.
*** In Jan 2019 our new media team is launching a youtube channel and you can bet that we are going to create tons of useful content for you! In addition to video interviews with other high impact leaders, our channel will document our team’s adventures as we launch the Pangaea project to provide affordable next-gen housing for Vancouverites as well as evolve Rizound to solve the education problem by mapping the sum of human knowledge and deploying automated teaching engines that personalize and gamify academic learning with adaptive video games that react to your emotions. Follow our journey as we’re just getting started!
