Financial Adviser: 5 Business Lessons Everyone Can Learn from Julio Sy Jr., Founder and CEO of One World Deli

A food retail business does not begin with good ingredients alone. It also requires an understanding of how people shop, the right supplier relationships, and an experience that gives customers a reason to return. For Julio “Jun” Sy Jr., the opportunity to build such a business came after decades of experience across several industries.

As the founder of One World Deli and president of PYC Foods Corporation, Sy has helped build a food retail concept that combines specialty groceries, prepared food, and restaurant dining. His path to the business, however, began long before he opened his first deli.

Sy comes from a family with deep roots in Philippine business. His father, Julio O. Sy Sr., built enterprises across sugar milling, commodities, shipping, real estate, banking, and hospitality.

Rather than rely solely on the family’s established businesses, Sy developed his own entrepreneurial platform. In 1995, he founded Tao Corporation, which grew into a diversified business group with interests in commodities, distribution, wellness, food, and lifestyle.

His business philosophy combines management discipline with a belief that companies should serve a broader purpose. That perspective later shaped his move into food retail.

During the pandemic, Sy spent more time in the kitchen and discovered how difficult it could be to find good-quality ingredients in one place. That experience led him to create One World Deli, a specialty food market that brings together premium local and international ingredients under one roof.

The first store on Jupiter Street in Makati began operations in late 2021. One World Deli has since expanded to six branches across Metro Manila, with locations in Makati, San Juan, Pasay, Las Piñas, Quezon City, and Bonifacio Global City.

The concept has also evolved beyond specialty grocery retail. Sy wants One World Deli to become a more transparent food destination, where customers can find products that are traceable, responsibly produced, and aligned with a healthier lifestyle.

Through PYC Foods Corporation, Sy has also worked with chefs and industry partners to develop hospitality concepts such as Butchers and Pardon My French. The Tao Group’s broader food portfolio includes brands such as Nacho King, Gelato Manila, B Coffee, and Tsaa Laya, as well as premium seafood supplier SeaTrace International.

How did an entrepreneur with decades of business experience turn a personal interest in cooking into a food retail brand with a broader wellness mission? What can entrepreneurs learn from Sy’s journey into food retail and hospitality?

Here are five business lessons entrepreneurs can learn from Julio “Jun” Sy Jr., founder of One World Deli:

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A family business can provide valuable training and exposure to how businesses operate. But building something separate forces an entrepreneur to make decisions without relying entirely on the family name. It tests whether the family member can take risks and create value independently.

The next generation does not always have to replicate what the previous generation built. Starting an independent venture can also open the door to opportunities outside the family enterprise’s traditional focus.

Sy used the family business as a training ground. He accumulated operating experience before striking out on his own. He managed the dried fruit business for about three years and later ran the family’s sugar trading operation. By the time he started his own company, he was not starting as an inexperienced entrepreneur.

He also developed enough self-awareness to recognize that competence and passion were not the same thing. He could run the sugar trading business, but he did not want to spend his career there. Instead of remaining in the family enterprise simply because it was available to him, he identified the kind of opportunity he wanted to pursue himself.

Importantly, Sy did not leave impulsively. He first helped create a transition for the existing sugar trading business by proposing a partnership with another company. This reduced disruption for his father while giving him room to build something of his own.

The most important strategic move Sy made was that he stayed close to an industry he already understood but moved into an overlooked part of its value chain. Instead of competing directly in sugar trading, he focused on molasses, a byproduct that other traders considered unattractive. His advantage came from seeing commercial value where established players saw little opportunity.

Thia made his move less risky than entering a completely unfamiliar industry. He already understood the sugar ecosystem, but he chose a different product and a less crowded market. This allowed him to build independence without discarding the knowledge and relationships he had accumulated.

“I come from an entrepreneurial family, like typical Filipino-Chinese,” he says. “My father was a very successful business person. I was born in Dumaguete City. My father’s major business in Dumaguete was really trading. He was the biggest parang general commodities trader there and we had a store. Yun bang ano, you sell everything like cement, construction materials, food, everything. He started the business there, he and his brothers kasi owned the family corporation.

“I studied Business Management at Ateneo de Manila, and then when I graduated, I worked for a bank for about three months because my father asked me to go back to my hometown in Dumaguete. He had a dried fruit factory business there. Nage-export kami dati ng mga dried mangoes, dried pineapples, mga ganon.

“Walang GM yung business na yon, so parang in-offer nya sa akin to go there to help. Nung nandoon na ako sa Dumaguete, siya naman nagpunta dito sa Manila to start his own business. He and his partners bought some sugar mills at the time. This was after the EDSA Revolution, and he did very well in trading sugar.

“Sabi nya sakin, i-manage mo ito. So I managed it for a while. I think I ran it for about three years.  We were able to eventually slowly turn it around. At that time I was very young. It was not very highly profitable, but at least I was proud of the fact that we did not collapse.

“And then my father, he bought a sugar mill here. And then he had a mild stroke. So my mom told me na, ‘Jun if your father asks you to help him, you should not say no. You should go help.

“So one day, my father talked to me and said, ‘I think you have to come to Manila and help me with my sugar trading business, kasi I'm going to focus on the mill. I have no time for the trading, so you got to come to Manila and run this thing.’ So, syempre like a good son, I went to Manila and I ran the trading business for a number of years, but I was not as passionate about the business as my father was.

“I had other ideas, so one day I talked to my father and I said, ‘Dad, you know, you're really doing so well with your mill now. This trading business we have, sabi ko I really am not interested’. I felt like this is not something I want do forever.

“So I convinced him. Sabi ko, ‘Dad, you know there's a company that wants to do a partnership with us. They want to get into the sugar trading business heavily. Why don't we join them na lang? And then the other people in the team I will absorb and I'll start a business of my own.’

“At that time, I noticed that nobody was really focusing on molasses. Molasses is a byproduct of sugar and everybody says garbage lang yan. Wala kang kikitain dyan. I thought may market naman siya. Ginagamit yan pang-produce ng vetsin, at saka alcohol. At that time, I was thinking like how do you turn garbage into gold. I like to take on things that nobody likes. So I started trading molasses. I became the biggest molasses trader in the country before. That’s how I started my company, Tao.”

Growth can create opportunities for a business, but it can also introduce new risks. As a company expands, it may take on more debt, enter unfamiliar markets or pursue opportunities that stretch its resources and management capacity.

Discipline helps ensure that expansion remains supported by the company’s finances, capabilities and internal controls. As the organization becomes more complex, clear controls are also needed to prevent errors, misuse of resources and abuse.

Knowing when to pursue an opportunity and when to say no is therefore only one part of sustainable growth; the business must also strengthen its systems and controls as it expands.

At first, Sy’s growth had a built-in discipline because expansion was earned. P&G gave Sy a small area, the operation performed well, and only then did the company receive additional territories. Growth was incremental, with each new area coming after proof that the existing model worked.

That structure changed once Sy became a recognized distributor. The company no longer had to search hard for opportunities because opportunities began to come to it. Large principals wanted Sy to distribute their products, while banks were willing to provide financing. The challenge therefore shifted from finding opportunities to deciding which ones were worth pursuing.

He eventually moved beyond consumer distribution and commodities into areas such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, while the company handled major brands across very different categories. Even if each opportunity looked attractive individually, the combined organization became harder to manage.

Every additional business required more people, systems, controls and capital. As the organization became larger and more complex, the risks from any weak control environment also became harder to contain.

“Eventually we went into distribution,” Sy says. “We became quite famous for distribution. I was offered by Procter & Gamble. At that time, they had 40-plus distributors in the country. And they were looking for professional distributors. Because a lot of these distributors were more of mom-and-pop style and they wanted to consolidate. So I was the first to apply for a small area. They gave me a small area in Malabon. And then, because I was running our sugar business, I asked a friend of mine to be a partner. And then we hired a professional to run it. The professional ran it well, P&G liked it.

“They started giving us more and more areas. Until eventually, after 20 plus years of doing it. From 40 plus, naging six na lang ang distributors sa Pilipinas, and I was the biggest of the six. We were servicing mga 300,000 sari-sari stores nationwide.

“Then, because we became well known as a really good distributor-operator, everybody started coming to me. At one point, we became a major distirbutor of Philip Morris. We were also the major distributor for Nokia, Apple, LG Electronics, and a lot of companies.

“Then I launched together with two other partners Kopiko in the Philippines. That became our biggest success. In 15 years, we became the number one coffee in the market. We were before very big and mostly focused on consumer distribution and a bit of trading of commodities. Then we ventured also into healthcare and pharma company. Because everybody wanted us to be a distributor here, we became well known as a world-class distributor.

“That was the way I saw business. And over time, we became very successful in distribution. Nadala ako dun sa wealth accumulation. Yun yung you start measuring yourself, how big you are. People were already telling me, ‘Oh, mag-IPO ka. Magiging taipan ka,’ ganyan-ganyan. So umabot sa ulo ko yun eh.

“When I started my business, I wanted to have a business that would really serve people. It was really a purpose-driven company, that's why I called it Tao. I chose that name kasi it was very philosophical, pero nawala yung original purpose. I was very obsessed about expanding left and right, mindlessly, because banks were offering me credit facilities. Principals wanted me to carry their products.

“And in the process, parang I lost the very mission that we had started. Doon ako muntik na bumagsak. Doon ako nadali. One day I woke up, our auditor told me, sir parang, something's wrong here.

“So when that happened, I had no choice but to downsize. I had to sell assets to pay my loans and my losses. So we went through a very difficult time, but we were able to recover din later. My father taught me to make sure that your reputation is more important than anything else, so I had to make sure that I clean up, you know, all my debts. So we were able to settle with everybody and come out clean

“We became a much smaller business and it was personally very difficult for me. I went through my own mental health issues. I suffered depression and I really had no interest anymore to continue to grow my business.”

Having a clear purpose provides direction beyond the pursuit of financial success. It helps define the problem the business wants to solve, the people it wants to serve and the kind of value it wants to create.

Purpose in business can also serve as a guide when opportunities arise. Instead of pursuing every chance to expand or increase revenue, an entrepreneur can focus on opportunities that support the company’s mission and long-term direction.

But purpose alone cannot sustain a business. An entrepreneur must still develop a profitable business model that can fund operations and support future growth. When purpose and financial sustainability work together, the business has a better chance of creating lasting value for both its customers and its owners.

Sy changed the starting point of entrepreneurship. His first question became, “What is the purpose of this business?” followed by “What is the big problem that I want to solve?”

This changed the way he evaluated opportunities. Instead of beginning with market size, margins or growth potential, Sy first looked for a genuine problem worth solving. Only after identifying that problem did he consider whether the solution could become financially sustainable.

This does not mean that he stopped caring about profit. He actually says that entrepreneurs must use their skills to make the idea financially sustainable. His model therefore has two tests: Is the problem worth solving? And can the solution support itself financially?

His idea for One World Deli came from his own experience as a consumer. As he became more interested in cooking, he found it difficult to buy quality ingredients in one place. This inconvenience revealed a market gap and led him to create a concept that brought quality products, retail, café dining and “paluto” together under one roof.

One World Deli could have remained simply a premium grocery concept. But Sy continued investigating where food came from and how it was produced. This changed his understanding of the problem.

Initially, the problem was access: consumers had difficulty finding good ingredients. Then it became sourcing: how were those ingredients produced?

Eventually, it became health, sustainability and transparency: could consumers trust that the food they purchased had been produced according to certain standards?

This shows that purpose does not necessarily arrive fully formed when a company starts. A business can discover a deeper purpose as it gains knowledge about customers, suppliers and the industry.

Sy also translated purpose into operating decisions. Rather than treat it as a mission statement, he changed how products were sourced by raising his own chicken, working with pork cooperatives under specific protocols and tracing how beef and produce were grown or raised.

This made the business more demanding to operate, but it ensured that sourcing standards supported the company’s purpose rather than simply the lowest cost.

“This happened before the pandemic, in 2016,” Sy says. “At that time, I went through a sort of a self-discovery. I was encouraged to look for therapy so that I can manage, and cooking became my therapy.

“Kasi nga walang ginagawa, nasa bahay lang. I decided to learn how to cook and I read a book. I became so interested in it, that for a period of one year, wala na akong ginagawa. I would just be buying books from Amazon. Reading about food and everything. I must have accumulated mga 350 books during that period. Buying a lot of cooking equipment, testing all kinds of things.

“I started feeling better. When I cook food and I serve it to my family and friends, parang they would always tell me na, ‘Wow, ang sarap naman nito.’

“So, it became therapy and I became well. One day I just woke up and I told my wife, ‘I think I am OK na’ After that sabi ko, ginanahan na naman ako to start businesses again. Bumalik yung gana ko, yung entrepreneurial spirit.

“So sabi okay, from now on I promise that whatever I do for the future, It must start with a question: what is the purpose of this business? It shouldn't start with, how am I gonna make money out of it? It should start with, what is the big problem that I want to solve?

“And then from there, you have to use your entrepreneurial skills to make sure it's financially sustainable. Because how can you continue to do good if you can't make a financial sustainable model out of it?

“I remember I had this vision kasi when I was cooking, I had to go to many places to buy the good-quality ingredients I wanted. And I said, what if I created a space where people who like to cook or are passionate about food can go and experience, and buy in one place, everything they need?

“Then they can also experience it with paluto. So it became a café grocery idea, which was One World Deli. Our first store was in Jupiter.

“That was the first idea. And then we also ventured into sustainable seafood. Kasi when you become very passionate about food, you have to try to look at supply chains. How do you source products?

“And then the more I researched about supply chains, I realized that what makes a product better than another is the way it is produced. How you source it? So a product that is raised, grown, or produced without shortcuts will always taste better than a product that is heavily processed or where you do tricks to preserve it for a long period of time.

“So that became a kind of transformative thing for me. And when I realized that most of our seafood in the Philippines is not really sourced properly, I decided to venture into sustainable seafood. So we became the first company to be certified for sustainable seafood sourcing.

“We invested in food companies. One is in rice, which is to help rice self-sufficiency and our farmers. This one, One World Deli, is about food for what we call a food-for-life store. We want to give people food that they need in order for them to experience life fully like being healthy and well and, you know, your body healing itself.

“Kasi when we started this store, we started supplying quality products for people who love to cook, and ingredients from all over the place, so that they could find in one space.

“And then, as we were getting more and more entrenched in learning how food is made and all that, where it's coming from, we realized that we can even evolve one step further into really coming up with food that truly transforms a person's life.

“It's not enough that you enjoy your food. We are also responsible for the food that you eat. We want to make sure that whatever you buy in this store, hindi makakasama sa katawan mo. In other words, now kasi it's no longer a trend, but there’s a big awareness of health and wellness. And people are realizing now that food actually is the main determinant of your health and wellness. In fact, more and more studies are showing that 80 percent of a person's health is from the food that they eat. That's why they say, tell me what food you eat and I'll tell you who you are, or what your health issues are.

“You cannot exercise your way to being healthy. You determine maybe 20 percent of your general health, but 70 to 80 percent is really your food. We started first with proteins: meats, seafood. All our proteins here have no hormones, no antibiotics. And some of it we even grow ourselves because we were not happy with what we found.

“So our chicken is all grown by ourselves in Mindoro. Our pork, we work with two cooperatives who grow the pork based on a certain protocol we tell them.

“Our beef comes from Australia and the US. We know exactly who the farmer is, how they raise the cattle, and what feed they use. So what we guarantee to our consumers is, when you buy things here, you're sure that they will not have any bad effects to your body.

“Now we're going into our fresh produce. So we're starting to also certify our producers na walang artificial, walang insecticide, walang ganon. And possibly, as much as possible kung kaya organic, organic. Kung hindi, tutulungan namin yung suppliers namin to do more regenerative farming, more natural farming, and not use synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Because what you feed to the plant or to an animal, it ends up in the final product.

“Nature, you know the Tao thing, you have to be one with nature. Actually, in a sense, it's true eh. What the plant takes or what the animal takes will end up in the final product. How you process your food also ends up in the final product that people ingest. So the idea is to be a transparent place where people trust us to be their partner of choice if they want intentional food.”

When customers feel connected to a brand through shared values and experiences, the relationship can become stronger than a simple buyer and seller transaction. A sense of community can make customers feel that they are part of something they believe in, which can deepen their attachment to the brand.

For a business, this can lead to stronger customer loyalty and repeat business. When customers trust the brand and feel connected to what it represents, they may be more willing to stay with it even when competitors offer similar products or lower prices.

Sy’s strategy is to build the brand around a community with shared beliefs. He was very specific about the people the business wants to serve, who are consumers who believe food plays an important role in wellness and who care about traceability and sustainability.

This creates a different approach to customer acquisition. Instead of trying to appeal to everyone, the business concentrates on consumers who already share its philosophy. The relationship can become deeper because customers are not simply choosing between competing grocery stores. They are choosing a business that reflects something they already believe.

This can also increase lifetime customer value. Customers who trust the brand and identify with its values may be more likely to return, buy across more product categories and stay with the business for a longer period. The product may attract the customer initially, but the shared belief can give that customer a stronger reason to remain loyal.

The free nutritionists add education to the customer experience. Sy wants customers to understand why certain food choices may be better, not simply buy what the store recommends. As customers learn more about sourcing, traceability and processing, they may begin evaluating products on these factors rather than price alone, which can strengthen trust and loyalty to the brand.

“What I wanted to do is create a community,” he says. “Our customers are people who believe that their choice of food is key to regaining their wellness, right? Food has to be the foundation of that. And we think that's an emerging trend, especially for younger people.

“So we're setting this up for a new community of consumers, a community of people who believe that traceable food and sustainable food are a way for you to regain the wellness of your body, right? And so, of course, it's where will you go to? Right now, their options are very limited, so we want to be, you know, a trusted name for people, na we're very transparent.

“We don't use marketing to make ourselves healthy or anything. It's through word-of-mouth. It's through sharing. It's through people. Most of our business is really recommendations by family and friends.

“So we want to be a very community-based store that believes in a particular lifestyle. We're taking food to a very deep level, whereby we want our food to be like, when you start eating our food, buying from us and bringing it home and eating it, you will see a difference.

“You'll see a difference in how you feel, you know. You'll be able to enjoy the natural freshness of our products.

“Second, we hope that through eating less processed food and more natural food, you will see a transformation. Meaning, you will lose cravings for certain things. You'll be able to sleep better. You'll be able to have more energy.

“There's very strong findings now that a lot of mental health issues, like anxiety and depression, all of those are on account of the food that we eat, by not having a healthy gut, no. Kasi yung dito natin is connected to our brain eh.

“You need to regenerate your gut. Kasi as we grow, as we get older, nawawala yung maraming bacteria natin dito, what they call beneficial bacteria. We're born with a microbiome. So as we get older, because we take antibiotics, we take a lot of ultra-processed food, unti-unti namamatay yung gut, yung healthy bacteria.

“So that's why later on, inflammation, so yun ang cost ng lahat ng sakit. So our idea is ire-populate namin yung gut mo back to its healthy state.

“So our store will give you a 30-day special diet. We will provide you all the food for 30 days lang at a certain affordable price. And in that process, mapi-feel mo yung difference. You will sleep better, mawawala yung mood disorders mo. Yung skin mo gaganda, yung belly mo liliit.

“Tapos yung craving mo ng pagkain, yung gusto mong kumain palagi? Mawawala. If you have a healthy gut kasi, it releases the happy hormones in your brain. The problem is, if you don't have a healthy gut, it doesn't release that. You tend to eat highly processed food to give you that rush to make you feel good.

“The more important thing in our approach is to make people feel different. Kasi it's very hard for me to convince a person to eat healthier or to eat better food unless they have a real feeling in their bodies.

“We also provide the services of our nutritionists in the store free of charge. So you can call the nutritionist and have a one-on-one sit-down, and then talk about expanding your knowledge about things. Because we don't want you to buy just because I'm saying it.

“At the end of the day kasi, we always say na what is the purpose of our business? What is the purpose of this business. If I make money here selling a lot of expensive things or good things, and then at the end of the day, it doesn't change your life, it just makes you sicker and sicker…what is the value in that, right? But if I can make you enjoy your food, I can teach you why this food is better, and then you will enjoy it.”

An entrepreneur who defines success only by wealth may find that the target keeps moving. As the business grows, expectations can rise with it, which can encourage greater risk and decisions driven more by status than by what the business actually needs.

Defining success by more than financial wealth provides a more meaningful way to measure progress. Profit and financial security remain important, but success can also include building a stable company, treating employees well and creating value for customers.

This perspective can help an entrepreneur remain grounded as the business becomes more successful. It keeps growth in perspective rather than allowing size and wealth to become the primary measures of success.

Sy stopped using scale, wealth and status as the main scorecards. Instead, he began looking at what his success allowed him to accomplish for others. He developed a different set of measures for judging whether he was succeeding as an entrepreneur.

Sy’s regret about ignoring his father also helps explain why his definition changed. His father warned him not to overexpand and not to borrow too much, but Sy admits that part of his motivation was to prove his father wrong. That means some business decisions were tied not only to economics but also to ego.

This is a useful insight because ambition can sometimes disguise itself as strategy. An entrepreneur may believe that another acquisition, expansion or new business is necessary when part of the motivation is actually to prove something to other people. Sy appears to recognize this only in hindsight.

Sy believed that if an entrepreneur has no definition of “enough,” then every level of success can become temporary. This moving benchmark can influence business decisions. As personal expectations rise, the entrepreneur may feel pressure to keep expanding the company just to satisfy an ever higher definition of success.

Sy’s point is not that entrepreneurs should stop striving. It is that they should distinguish between growth that serves a meaningful objective and growth that merely raises the score.

“For me, this whole experience has made me a more spiritual person,” he says. “Parang, to me, everything is all about what purpose does God want me to fulfill. It goes back to this idea that I don't measure myself anymore by how rich I am, but it is about what difference am I going to make in this world.

“Maybe my purpose is not to be measured in terms of bigness or being part of the Forbes rich list or whatever. I don't feel envious if somebody else has a beautiful car, a beautiful whatever, a nicer house. I don't care about those things, you know what I mean?

“I care about whether I can pay my debts. Makakabayad ba ako sa utang ko? Can I leave my children something that will give them enough naman? Can I pay my employees well, especially those who have sacrificed because they believe in my dream?

“Can I make a meaningful impact for our consumers and our suppliers? That's all there is, di ba?

“When I was in distribution, my father would always tell me, ‘What? Another business?’ And he would always tell me, ‘You have to be careful. Don't overexpand things. Don't borrow too much money.’

“But I wouldn't listen to him, which is my biggest regret, and he would sometimes talk to me na lang through his friends. Sometimes his friends would ask me to have coffee, and then they would say, ‘Oh, Jun, kumusta ka na?’ And then they would say, ‘Oh, mag-ingat ka ha.’

“And I knew it's my father who was asking them to speak to me. But I didn't listen. My biggest mistake was that I wanted to prove my father wrong. That was my mistake. I should have listened to him. I think my father was proud of me. He was proud of the fact siguro that maybe I was very much like him.

“I learned that you have to find something purposeful for you to do in this life, right? I mean, if you have only one life to live, you must make sure that it counts for something. It means something, right?

“You also got to surround yourself with very good people. You cannot do things by yourself. The people that you surround yourself with are sometimes people who may not look very impressive or sound so impressive. But they're the ones who stay with you through thick and thin. And they're the ones you can rely on because they're the ones who share the same mission as you, right? Not the ones who just come and go with very impressive resumes. These are real people who believe in what you're doing. These are the ones you can rely upon. Sometimes we often forget eh.

“And then once we get successful, we tend to want to get people with a more impressive resume. It's better for you to always promote from within, so you have a strong foundation.

“And I think the third lesson is contentment. I think you should already figure out what it is that will make you contented, and don't change.

“Because we always change our levels of contentment when we have more, right? Actually, it doesn't cost much to be contented. What does that mean? If I told you today, let's just say that you are a young person just starting with life, would you be contented if you have a nice house? Or you can eat anything you want? You can travel anywhere you want? Is that gonna make you contented? I'm sure, you’ll say yes, right? If you have nothing, you say, ‘Yeah, that would be a dream life,’ And if you put it into a number, it is not a really insane number. You don't have to be a billionaire to have that.

“You don't have to. The problem is, as human beings, we have this weakness that you can never be contented. Let’s say you may actually already have these in 10 years, and when I ask you 10 years from now, ‘Are you contented?’ I'm sure you will talk about a different thing as your level of contentment.

“Now, it's not just a house. You will say I want to have a house here, I wanna have a house in Punta Fuego. You know what I mean? Oh, I want to travel, pero I'm not gonna travel business class. I want first class palagi. I want to own a yacht. I want to own this or that or this or that. You know what I mean? And that's where it all goes wrong.

“If that happens, you still haven't found your level of contentment. So that's siguro my own thing lang, na parang live a purpose-driven life. Because at the end of the day, it's more meaningful and fulfilling when you don't measure yourself against others. You should have the right perspective about things.

“You will most likely gain more than what makes you contented, and when you have that, don't change. All those extras are just icing on the cake. They don't define who you are.”

Henry Ong, RFP, is an entrepreneur, financial planning advocate and business advisor. Email Henry for business advice [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @henryong888