James Chan interview
Think of Sun Tzu’s Art of War and you might think about strategy on a grand scale, applied to either a large army or a large corporation. However, the book is also applicable to a small company, even if it is a company of one person. According to our honored guest, Dr. James Chan, this one person would rather be a captain of his or her own dinghy than a junior officer on the Titanic. If you are an entrepreneur or want to become one, it would be to your benefit to read on.
James Chan is the author of “Spare Room Tycoon: Succeeding Independently, the 70 Lessons of Sane Self-Employment.” The book tells the real-life stories and hard-won wisdom of how 40 men and women including James Chan have turned their personal passion into successful businesses.
Dr. Chan is founder and principal of Asia Marketing and Management (AMM), a Philadelphia-based consultancy specialized in advising U.S. firms on doing business in China and on entrepreneurship.
Since he founded his practice in 1983, James Chan has helped more than 100 U.S. companies expand their businesses in Asia. His clients include Kodak, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Nationwide Insurance, and many others.
An experienced, animated public speaker in three languages English, Mandarin Chinese, and the Cantonese dialect, James Chan offers a customized seminar, “Taking the China Market by the Horns” designed to help U.S. firms and trade associations do business effectively in the China market.
Born in Guangzhou, China in 1949, Dr. Chan received his Ph.D. in geography in 1977 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; M.A. in 1973 from the University of Chicago, and B.A. in 1970 from the University of Hong Kong. A naturalized citizen of the United States, James Chan lives and works in Philadelphia. His website is AsiaMarketingManagement.com.
Below is our interview with Dr. James Chan. Enjoy!
Sonshi.com: You work with both American and Chinese companies and their executives. From your experience, how familiar are they to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and do you think the book is being actively applied in business competition?
Chan: I believe that businesspeople in China and America are very familiar with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Many know of it and I’m sure many have read and benefited from book.
I think that the book is actively applied by businesspeople subconsciously. Executives focus on the day-to-day and the momentary. They may be eager to discuss the book in a seminar situation. But they won’t think about the book when they are taking action.
People who actively apply The Art of War don’t talk about it. During a business encounter, people who want to compete and win want to make us feel that they are our allies, rather than being our adversaries as they are trying to sell us “the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Sonshi.com: Now let’s talk about your book, “Spare Room Tycoon: Succeeding Independently, The Seventy Lessons of Sane Self-Employment.” One of our members (along with numerous reviewers on Amazon) raved about it. How can entrepreneurs benefit from reading your book?
Chan: People benefit from getting affirmation for what they do and getting inspired along the way.
Entrepreneurs need affirmation. I’ve found that people who respond deeply to the book read it when they feel “down.” They’re trying hard to make the business go but the phone is not ringing. Not enough clients or customers are throwing money at them. This happens in the early years of entrepreneurship. Those feelings are mentally and emotionally taxing. It is hard to vent and find succor. Spare Room Tycoon seems to be able to calm people down and help people pick up their spirits.
Entrepreneurs want inspiration. Spare Room Tycoon documents the real-life stories of how 40 men and women, including myself, have succeeded in turning personal ideals into profitable businesses. There is something inspirational about telling one’s stories and listening to those of other people. Even though we spare room tycoons are a diverse group of people and our professions and expertise can’t be more different from one another, our passion, tactics, methods and strategies in making something out of nothing are universally transferable.
How Alan Kaplan (an executive recruiter in the book) made use of an association to gain visibility in his industry and therefore gaining clients is a strategy that can be applied by other people in other business situations. Mike McGrail (a management consultant) found a client at a church while learning how to be a lector. Mike had the courage to tell a potential client that he didn’t read a book that even he thought he should have read. He gained his client’s respect and later, business. This type of courage to tell-it-like-it-is can inspire all of us. Rick Schilling (a professional staffing consultant) learned how to think fast on his feet and succeeded in turning a “failing” business into a very profitable new enterprise. His skill was to stay silent long enough to let the potential client told him what she needed. Christina Pirello (a professional macrobiotic chef and TV celebrity) turned her “terminal illness” into a successful TV show. Mariann E. Schick (a lawyer) expresses so hauntingly the “six anxieties” that attack entrepreneurs daily like the vulture pecks at Prometheus. Yet we all survived our ordeals to tell our stories.
There is something uplifting about prevailing at the end. I learned so much in interviewing with entrepreneurs as they gave me their personal stories on “crossing the Rubicon.” Their stories inspire us and help us to regain the willpower that is critical to winning the war, despite losing a few battles.
Sonshi.com: What is the most difficult problem you find entrepreneurs encounter when they make the jump from the corporate world? How can they resolve it?
Chan: The most difficult problem in transitioning from a corporate job to entrepreneurship is the inevitable realization that ideal and reality are two separate things. Before they make the jump, the would-be spare room tycoons romanticized his or her impending success and glory. After the jump, they find themselves in the dumps.
The thing that is hard to take for just about all entrepreneurs is that being talented and well equipped is no guarantee that money will follow. When the phone doesn’t ring and clients are not showing up, we still have to pay our bills and eat.
People resolve this issue of ideal versus reality in any one of two ways. Those who are passionate suffer in silence and find ways to muddle through the early years. Their belief in their ideal is so strong they will mortgage everything and try every means possible to survive the initial years.
The founder of one of my clients took five years before he got his first break. Before then, the wife left him because he was unwilling to go back into the corporate life. He had no money to pay for food. He sent his sons to his neighbor at dinner time to be fed. He posed as a Greek mythological figure for a sculptor just to make money.
Stan Gross (the marketing guru in the book) used to sell vinyl sidings as a telemarketer while teaching at a community college to support himself and his family. It took him many years before he got Coca-Cola and Dupont as his clients. Before he made it, he used to sell his advertising and marketing services to businesses run by Amish families in Pennsylvania. He advised them how to label and package their apple sauces and fruit jam. Stan Gross told me that he invented the TV advertisement with the baby in the tire for Michelin. But before he could get Michelin as a client, he had to take on many small and odd jobs.
The other group of spare room tycoons including myself tried to prepare for the “jump” by reading relevant books and getting advice from friends, colleagues and family. I couldn’t have started my independent consulting business in May 1983 without having read the book “How to Succeed As An Independent Consultant” by Herman Holtz. Several months before I planned to quit my corporate job in New York City, I had discovered the book at a bookstore across the street from my Fortune 500 company employer.
I hope that my book, Spare Room Tycoon, will help entrepreneurs more effectively prepare or sustain their personal journeys toward professional and personal self realization. Unlike Mr. Holtz’s book, which is filled with practical advice on how to charge, how to write a proposal and how to market your services; my book focuses on the overall mental, psychological and emotional pre-requisites for success. My book does mention how we charge, promote and dress. But it is more of a “How-to-be” book than a “How-To-Do” book. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War does not teach people how to make weaponry. Spare Room Tycoon is a book on the art of self employment, namely, the role played by Self Knowledge, Passion, Action, Realization and Evolution (SPARE) in the course of a person’s business life.
Sonshi.com: Would you share with our readers one inspiring or humorous story from your book?
Chan: Yes, I’d love to share a real-life story that has tremendous mass appeal, a chapter in the book I called “Waking to Opportunity” (pages 79 to 81).
Waking to opportunity
When you’re trying to generate business, there are plenty of times when nothing seems to work. You have a prospective client who seems really to need what you do. You prepare yourself for the meeting, and you feel that you’re incisive, and eloquent, and worth every penny you’re asking. You even feel that you have established a rapport with the prospective client. Yet, even though you’ve done everything right, nothing happens. On those occasions when it feels like you can’t win, it’s worth remembering those times when everything went right despite what you did.
I hope that I’ll never mess up worse than I did one morning when I had been in business for less than a year. One of the companies that responded to a mailing was a company located in Connecticut, about three hours by train from my base in Philadelphia. I didn’t entirely understand what they did, but I heard the enthusiasm in the caller’s voice, and I arranged a mid-morning appointment the following week. As long as I could make the 6:40 am train from Thirtieth Street Station, everything would be fine.
The day before I was to go, I received a very welcome call. A good friend with whom I had worked in New York was in the Philadelphia area, interviewing for a job. She had been out of work for a while, so this was really great news. I invited her to come to dinner and to stay the night. By the time she arrived, the news was even better. She had been offered the job. That called for a celebration. We opened a bottle of something, then a bottle of something else. We chattered on about old times, gossiped about our old co-workers, speculated about where she might live. We went on for hours and hours and then even more hours. By the time I finally went to bed, it was clear I was going to get only about four hours’ sleep, at best.
Fortunately I was able to catnap on the train, but when I arrived in Greenwich I was still in a fog. The president of the company greeted me personally, and took me back to headquarters, where he seated me in front of a computer monitor and demonstrated his product. I stared at the monitor uncomprehendingly as he droned on.
Then I did something that terrified me: I woke up. As I was suddenly startled into consciousness, and figured out where I was, I realized that I had actually drifted off to sleep as the company president was talking to me. Things like this happen to me in nightmares, but usually I can escape them by waking up. Not this time. To this day, I don’t know how long I had dozed. I assume I didn’t snore.
Yet, as I shocked myself into alertness, I realized that the president seemed not to have noticed, or at least chose to ignore, that I had been sleeping through his pronouncements. Indeed, he seemed more to be selling me on doing work for his company than evaluating whether I was the right person to do the job. I stayed awake long enough to let him know I’d be happy to do the project he had in mind. This led in turn to a year’s retainer, and a trip to China with the president. I never asked him whether he had noticed that I had missed most of our first meeting.
This is not a success story I ever hope to repeat, and I’ve made sure that I have never done so. I am still embarrassed at my behavior that morning. Still, it offers a lesson that took me many years to learn: When people want you, they’ll find a reason to value you. But when you’re trying to sell your services to people who are not ready to use it, you’ll never win regardless of how logical, useful, valuable, or perfect you are. I had proved to myself that the cliche is true: Nothing beats being at the right place at the right time even if you’re asleep when you get there.
Sonshi.com: What motivated you to first sit down to write Spare Room Tycoon and what interesting feedback have you received so far?
Chan: Fifteen years after I had set up my consulting practice, I found myself fighting a “war” with myself. A long-term client still wanted to nickel and dime me with my consulting fees. I had worked with that client for so long. I took him to China. I helped him create a joint venture magazine that introduced American standards in China. And yet, I found that he was still trying not to pay me what I believed I was worth. I felt resentful. My resentment led me to feel insecure about myself and what I did. I began to question if I was a success. I began to have self doubts.
I was furious with this client and with myself. I did not want to drop the client because I helped invent the work and the work was personally meaningful to me. I hated having to justify my consulting rates on an hourly and often minute-by-minute basis.
I was so wrought up in my self-imposed misery I felt like I was behaving like the mythological snake, Ouroboros, chasing its own tail and wanting to self destruct. I was lucky to have my friend, Thomas Hine beside me. Tom is the author of Populuxe and many other titles published by America’s most prestigious publishing houses (see his website: ThomasHine.com).
Tom saw my rage and said to me: “Why fight a war with yourself? Why not write a book? I can help you.” A divine light came over me. I instantly felt that it was something I’d love to do and something that would be worth doing for myself and for all the people who, for one reason or another, will behave like Ouroboros to share the lessons on how to stay sane while running a business on one’s own. Without Tom’s help, I couldn’t have found the literary agent and the publisher and got editorial and professional help from him.
Spare Room Tycoon was published in early 2000. Over the years, I have received letters from readers from all over the world. In addition to those that readers can view by looking up the book on Amazon.com, those who wrote me told me that the book gives them succor. They said the book makes them feel validated. It helps them pick up the spirit to go on. It renews their enthusiasm. Quite a number said that they post some of the lessons on the wall to use as inspirational sayings. A number of them wrote me letters on real paper and written long hand as if we were long lost friends wanting to share and affirm our private thoughts. These letters make me feel deeply grateful and happy.
The book has given me not only true friends and comrades-in-arm but also clients, even though I didn’t have high hopes of the book as a promotional tool for my China consulting business.
Sonshi.com: You have mentioned your overall mission in life is to “help pull China and America closer together.” Would you mind explaining further?
Chan: Until I was about 33 years old, I never thought of being self employed. I had no idea what consulting was all about as a profession. After I had received my Ph.D. degree in geography from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1977, I started teaching courses in World Geography and China at Boston University.
After being a college professor for a few months, I realized that academic teaching was not my passion. But I didn’t know what else to do to make a living. All I wanted was to live a meaningful life.
Circumstances helped me find myself and later a profession which I was about to create, as shown in the following excerpt from Spare Room Tycoon, “A Myth of My Own” (pages 104-106).
A myth of my own
I have my own founding myth. It predates my decision to go into business for myself by several years. But it remains the bedrock of my career. It is a wellspring of my passion and my enterprise, the ultimate explanation of all I have done.
It took place when I was engaged in what I believed to be a struggle for survival. After finishing my bachelor’s degree at the University of Hong Kong, I moved to the US and earned degrees at the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan. I had decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the US. The problem was that my visas had expired, and I was supposed to leave. When I didn’t go, I became, officially, an illegal alien.
I knew others in my situation who got around the problem by entering into fictitious marriages. I didn’t want to do that. I was determined to be legal and above board, and I spent $20,000 more money than I had on fees to a lawyer to figure out how. After running up his charges, he told me that my situation was, essentially, hopeless. Meanwhile, China was opening itself to business from the West, and several large companies offered me jobs. They withdrew the offers when they learned of my immigration status. I felt as if a golden opportunity was opening to me, and at the same time being snatched away.
I borrowed some money from friends and an uncle. Another friend gave me food, a place to stay, and emotional support. I sat in his apartment day after day and typed up more than 1000 job application letters until the typewriter broke.
One day, near despair, I walked into Philadelphia’s Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. I’m not a Catholic. I’m not even a Christian. I don’t really know what to do in a church. But that somber, lofty, baroque-style edifice seemed to be a place where I needed to be. I knelt in the pew and silently addressed God. “If you can let me stay in this country legally,” I proposed. “I promise to help pull China and America closer together.” (I figured that this was something God would want my help on, though I can’t tell you exactly why.)
Later, I found out that I was doing what psychologists call “bargaining,” and that it’s a stage people go through on the road to accepting the death of a loved one or a cherished dream. It’s assumed to be futile, some even think it is self-destructive. Fortunately, I didn’t know that then.
What my bargaining did was make me look deep within myself to find something of great importance to which I was singularly equipped to make a contribution. I found a reason for me to be on this earth. I had discovered a story of which I could be the hero. I had forged my own myth.
Not long after, my prayer was answered. Some would argue that it was because I found a highly skilled lawyer who was committed to my case. I don’t presume, however, to know the means by which God might realize His will.
As my fortunes changed, I realized that I would not have promised God to do something I really didn’t want to do. In a troubled moment, I discovered a vocation, an identity, a reason for my existence, a focus for my energy.
I think those of us who work on our own must have our own personal myths, visions of our lives as we would like to live them, visions of the world as we would like to leave it. And if you make a vow, as I did, you keep it. We should keep such vows because they define the core of our being the things that set us apart from those who are just in it for the money.
Sonshi.com: What is the next big challenge for China and the United States?
Chan: The immediate challenge is our trade deficit with China. It exceeded $200 billion in 2005 and it will continue to deepen.
The next big challenge for China and the U.S. is the slow but steady realization between these two nations that their values are fundamentally very different.
The U.S. is a modern democracy and it values individualism and the rule of law. China is an ancient culture that has always been government-run, patriarchal, and deeply suspicious of individual autonomy.
The two cultures will insist that each is normal and strive to impose itself on the other. Pulling the two culturally disparate cultures together has turned out to be a Herculean task indeed.
Sonshi.com: Are you thinking of writing another book on small business and/or entrepreneurship? If so, please give us a preview.
Chan: I don’t have any current plans to write another book. I’d like to continue to promote and support Spare Room Tycoon. I don’t think that enough people have discovered it. The book is now out-of-print. But it can be purchased online from various online retailers. I bought quite a number of copies from my publisher and I’d be glad to supply it at $23.00 ($20 plus $3 for postage) from my entrepreneurial garage:
James Chan, Ph.D., President Asia Marketing and Management (AMM) 2014 Naudain Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146-1317 USA Tel: (215) 735-7670 Fax: (215) 735-9661
[End of interview]
James Chan is the author of “Spare Room Tycoon: Succeeding Independently, the 70 Lessons of Sane Self-Employment.” The book tells the real-life stories and hard-won wisdom of how 40 men and women including James Chan have turned their personal passion into successful businesses.
Dr. Chan is founder and principal of Asia Marketing and Management (AMM), a Philadelphia-based consultancy specialized in advising U.S. firms on doing business in China and on entrepreneurship.
Since he founded his practice in 1983, James Chan has helped more than 100 U.S. companies expand their businesses in Asia. His clients include Kodak, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Nationwide Insurance, and many others.
An experienced, animated public speaker in three languages English, Mandarin Chinese, and the Cantonese dialect, James Chan offers a customized seminar, “Taking the China Market by the Horns” designed to help U.S. firms and trade associations do business effectively in the China market.
Born in Guangzhou, China in 1949, Dr. Chan received his Ph.D. in geography in 1977 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; M.A. in 1973 from the University of Chicago, and B.A. in 1970 from the University of Hong Kong. A naturalized citizen of the United States, James Chan lives and works in Philadelphia. His website is AsiaMarketingManagement.com.
Below is our interview with Dr. James Chan. Enjoy!
Sonshi.com: You work with both American and Chinese companies and their executives. From your experience, how familiar are they to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and do you think the book is being actively applied in business competition?
Chan: I believe that businesspeople in China and America are very familiar with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Many know of it and I’m sure many have read and benefited from book.
I think that the book is actively applied by businesspeople subconsciously. Executives focus on the day-to-day and the momentary. They may be eager to discuss the book in a seminar situation. But they won’t think about the book when they are taking action.
People who actively apply The Art of War don’t talk about it. During a business encounter, people who want to compete and win want to make us feel that they are our allies, rather than being our adversaries as they are trying to sell us “the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Sonshi.com: Now let’s talk about your book, “Spare Room Tycoon: Succeeding Independently, The Seventy Lessons of Sane Self-Employment.” One of our members (along with numerous reviewers on Amazon) raved about it. How can entrepreneurs benefit from reading your book?
Chan: People benefit from getting affirmation for what they do and getting inspired along the way.
Entrepreneurs need affirmation. I’ve found that people who respond deeply to the book read it when they feel “down.” They’re trying hard to make the business go but the phone is not ringing. Not enough clients or customers are throwing money at them. This happens in the early years of entrepreneurship. Those feelings are mentally and emotionally taxing. It is hard to vent and find succor. Spare Room Tycoon seems to be able to calm people down and help people pick up their spirits.
Entrepreneurs want inspiration. Spare Room Tycoon documents the real-life stories of how 40 men and women, including myself, have succeeded in turning personal ideals into profitable businesses. There is something inspirational about telling one’s stories and listening to those of other people. Even though we spare room tycoons are a diverse group of people and our professions and expertise can’t be more different from one another, our passion, tactics, methods and strategies in making something out of nothing are universally transferable.
How Alan Kaplan (an executive recruiter in the book) made use of an association to gain visibility in his industry and therefore gaining clients is a strategy that can be applied by other people in other business situations. Mike McGrail (a management consultant) found a client at a church while learning how to be a lector. Mike had the courage to tell a potential client that he didn’t read a book that even he thought he should have read. He gained his client’s respect and later, business. This type of courage to tell-it-like-it-is can inspire all of us. Rick Schilling (a professional staffing consultant) learned how to think fast on his feet and succeeded in turning a “failing” business into a very profitable new enterprise. His skill was to stay silent long enough to let the potential client told him what she needed. Christina Pirello (a professional macrobiotic chef and TV celebrity) turned her “terminal illness” into a successful TV show. Mariann E. Schick (a lawyer) expresses so hauntingly the “six anxieties” that attack entrepreneurs daily like the vulture pecks at Prometheus. Yet we all survived our ordeals to tell our stories.
There is something uplifting about prevailing at the end. I learned so much in interviewing with entrepreneurs as they gave me their personal stories on “crossing the Rubicon.” Their stories inspire us and help us to regain the willpower that is critical to winning the war, despite losing a few battles.
Sonshi.com: What is the most difficult problem you find entrepreneurs encounter when they make the jump from the corporate world? How can they resolve it?
Chan: The most difficult problem in transitioning from a corporate job to entrepreneurship is the inevitable realization that ideal and reality are two separate things. Before they make the jump, the would-be spare room tycoons romanticized his or her impending success and glory. After the jump, they find themselves in the dumps.
The thing that is hard to take for just about all entrepreneurs is that being talented and well equipped is no guarantee that money will follow. When the phone doesn’t ring and clients are not showing up, we still have to pay our bills and eat.
People resolve this issue of ideal versus reality in any one of two ways. Those who are passionate suffer in silence and find ways to muddle through the early years. Their belief in their ideal is so strong they will mortgage everything and try every means possible to survive the initial years.
The founder of one of my clients took five years before he got his first break. Before then, the wife left him because he was unwilling to go back into the corporate life. He had no money to pay for food. He sent his sons to his neighbor at dinner time to be fed. He posed as a Greek mythological figure for a sculptor just to make money.
Stan Gross (the marketing guru in the book) used to sell vinyl sidings as a telemarketer while teaching at a community college to support himself and his family. It took him many years before he got Coca-Cola and Dupont as his clients. Before he made it, he used to sell his advertising and marketing services to businesses run by Amish families in Pennsylvania. He advised them how to label and package their apple sauces and fruit jam. Stan Gross told me that he invented the TV advertisement with the baby in the tire for Michelin. But before he could get Michelin as a client, he had to take on many small and odd jobs.
The other group of spare room tycoons including myself tried to prepare for the “jump” by reading relevant books and getting advice from friends, colleagues and family. I couldn’t have started my independent consulting business in May 1983 without having read the book “How to Succeed As An Independent Consultant” by Herman Holtz. Several months before I planned to quit my corporate job in New York City, I had discovered the book at a bookstore across the street from my Fortune 500 company employer.
I hope that my book, Spare Room Tycoon, will help entrepreneurs more effectively prepare or sustain their personal journeys toward professional and personal self realization. Unlike Mr. Holtz’s book, which is filled with practical advice on how to charge, how to write a proposal and how to market your services; my book focuses on the overall mental, psychological and emotional pre-requisites for success. My book does mention how we charge, promote and dress. But it is more of a “How-to-be” book than a “How-To-Do” book. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War does not teach people how to make weaponry. Spare Room Tycoon is a book on the art of self employment, namely, the role played by Self Knowledge, Passion, Action, Realization and Evolution (SPARE) in the course of a person’s business life.
Sonshi.com: Would you share with our readers one inspiring or humorous story from your book?
Chan: Yes, I’d love to share a real-life story that has tremendous mass appeal, a chapter in the book I called “Waking to Opportunity” (pages 79 to 81).
Waking to opportunity
When you’re trying to generate business, there are plenty of times when nothing seems to work. You have a prospective client who seems really to need what you do. You prepare yourself for the meeting, and you feel that you’re incisive, and eloquent, and worth every penny you’re asking. You even feel that you have established a rapport with the prospective client. Yet, even though you’ve done everything right, nothing happens. On those occasions when it feels like you can’t win, it’s worth remembering those times when everything went right despite what you did.
I hope that I’ll never mess up worse than I did one morning when I had been in business for less than a year. One of the companies that responded to a mailing was a company located in Connecticut, about three hours by train from my base in Philadelphia. I didn’t entirely understand what they did, but I heard the enthusiasm in the caller’s voice, and I arranged a mid-morning appointment the following week. As long as I could make the 6:40 am train from Thirtieth Street Station, everything would be fine.
The day before I was to go, I received a very welcome call. A good friend with whom I had worked in New York was in the Philadelphia area, interviewing for a job. She had been out of work for a while, so this was really great news. I invited her to come to dinner and to stay the night. By the time she arrived, the news was even better. She had been offered the job. That called for a celebration. We opened a bottle of something, then a bottle of something else. We chattered on about old times, gossiped about our old co-workers, speculated about where she might live. We went on for hours and hours and then even more hours. By the time I finally went to bed, it was clear I was going to get only about four hours’ sleep, at best.
Fortunately I was able to catnap on the train, but when I arrived in Greenwich I was still in a fog. The president of the company greeted me personally, and took me back to headquarters, where he seated me in front of a computer monitor and demonstrated his product. I stared at the monitor uncomprehendingly as he droned on.
Then I did something that terrified me: I woke up. As I was suddenly startled into consciousness, and figured out where I was, I realized that I had actually drifted off to sleep as the company president was talking to me. Things like this happen to me in nightmares, but usually I can escape them by waking up. Not this time. To this day, I don’t know how long I had dozed. I assume I didn’t snore.
Yet, as I shocked myself into alertness, I realized that the president seemed not to have noticed, or at least chose to ignore, that I had been sleeping through his pronouncements. Indeed, he seemed more to be selling me on doing work for his company than evaluating whether I was the right person to do the job. I stayed awake long enough to let him know I’d be happy to do the project he had in mind. This led in turn to a year’s retainer, and a trip to China with the president. I never asked him whether he had noticed that I had missed most of our first meeting.
This is not a success story I ever hope to repeat, and I’ve made sure that I have never done so. I am still embarrassed at my behavior that morning. Still, it offers a lesson that took me many years to learn: When people want you, they’ll find a reason to value you. But when you’re trying to sell your services to people who are not ready to use it, you’ll never win regardless of how logical, useful, valuable, or perfect you are. I had proved to myself that the cliche is true: Nothing beats being at the right place at the right time even if you’re asleep when you get there.
Sonshi.com: What motivated you to first sit down to write Spare Room Tycoon and what interesting feedback have you received so far?
Chan: Fifteen years after I had set up my consulting practice, I found myself fighting a “war” with myself. A long-term client still wanted to nickel and dime me with my consulting fees. I had worked with that client for so long. I took him to China. I helped him create a joint venture magazine that introduced American standards in China. And yet, I found that he was still trying not to pay me what I believed I was worth. I felt resentful. My resentment led me to feel insecure about myself and what I did. I began to question if I was a success. I began to have self doubts.
I was furious with this client and with myself. I did not want to drop the client because I helped invent the work and the work was personally meaningful to me. I hated having to justify my consulting rates on an hourly and often minute-by-minute basis.
I was so wrought up in my self-imposed misery I felt like I was behaving like the mythological snake, Ouroboros, chasing its own tail and wanting to self destruct. I was lucky to have my friend, Thomas Hine beside me. Tom is the author of Populuxe and many other titles published by America’s most prestigious publishing houses (see his website: ThomasHine.com).
Tom saw my rage and said to me: “Why fight a war with yourself? Why not write a book? I can help you.” A divine light came over me. I instantly felt that it was something I’d love to do and something that would be worth doing for myself and for all the people who, for one reason or another, will behave like Ouroboros to share the lessons on how to stay sane while running a business on one’s own. Without Tom’s help, I couldn’t have found the literary agent and the publisher and got editorial and professional help from him.
Spare Room Tycoon was published in early 2000. Over the years, I have received letters from readers from all over the world. In addition to those that readers can view by looking up the book on Amazon.com, those who wrote me told me that the book gives them succor. They said the book makes them feel validated. It helps them pick up the spirit to go on. It renews their enthusiasm. Quite a number said that they post some of the lessons on the wall to use as inspirational sayings. A number of them wrote me letters on real paper and written long hand as if we were long lost friends wanting to share and affirm our private thoughts. These letters make me feel deeply grateful and happy.
The book has given me not only true friends and comrades-in-arm but also clients, even though I didn’t have high hopes of the book as a promotional tool for my China consulting business.
Sonshi.com: You have mentioned your overall mission in life is to “help pull China and America closer together.” Would you mind explaining further?
Chan: Until I was about 33 years old, I never thought of being self employed. I had no idea what consulting was all about as a profession. After I had received my Ph.D. degree in geography from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1977, I started teaching courses in World Geography and China at Boston University.
After being a college professor for a few months, I realized that academic teaching was not my passion. But I didn’t know what else to do to make a living. All I wanted was to live a meaningful life.
Circumstances helped me find myself and later a profession which I was about to create, as shown in the following excerpt from Spare Room Tycoon, “A Myth of My Own” (pages 104-106).
A myth of my own
I have my own founding myth. It predates my decision to go into business for myself by several years. But it remains the bedrock of my career. It is a wellspring of my passion and my enterprise, the ultimate explanation of all I have done.
It took place when I was engaged in what I believed to be a struggle for survival. After finishing my bachelor’s degree at the University of Hong Kong, I moved to the US and earned degrees at the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan. I had decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the US. The problem was that my visas had expired, and I was supposed to leave. When I didn’t go, I became, officially, an illegal alien.
I knew others in my situation who got around the problem by entering into fictitious marriages. I didn’t want to do that. I was determined to be legal and above board, and I spent $20,000 more money than I had on fees to a lawyer to figure out how. After running up his charges, he told me that my situation was, essentially, hopeless. Meanwhile, China was opening itself to business from the West, and several large companies offered me jobs. They withdrew the offers when they learned of my immigration status. I felt as if a golden opportunity was opening to me, and at the same time being snatched away.
I borrowed some money from friends and an uncle. Another friend gave me food, a place to stay, and emotional support. I sat in his apartment day after day and typed up more than 1000 job application letters until the typewriter broke.
One day, near despair, I walked into Philadelphia’s Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. I’m not a Catholic. I’m not even a Christian. I don’t really know what to do in a church. But that somber, lofty, baroque-style edifice seemed to be a place where I needed to be. I knelt in the pew and silently addressed God. “If you can let me stay in this country legally,” I proposed. “I promise to help pull China and America closer together.” (I figured that this was something God would want my help on, though I can’t tell you exactly why.)
Later, I found out that I was doing what psychologists call “bargaining,” and that it’s a stage people go through on the road to accepting the death of a loved one or a cherished dream. It’s assumed to be futile, some even think it is self-destructive. Fortunately, I didn’t know that then.
What my bargaining did was make me look deep within myself to find something of great importance to which I was singularly equipped to make a contribution. I found a reason for me to be on this earth. I had discovered a story of which I could be the hero. I had forged my own myth.
Not long after, my prayer was answered. Some would argue that it was because I found a highly skilled lawyer who was committed to my case. I don’t presume, however, to know the means by which God might realize His will.
As my fortunes changed, I realized that I would not have promised God to do something I really didn’t want to do. In a troubled moment, I discovered a vocation, an identity, a reason for my existence, a focus for my energy.
I think those of us who work on our own must have our own personal myths, visions of our lives as we would like to live them, visions of the world as we would like to leave it. And if you make a vow, as I did, you keep it. We should keep such vows because they define the core of our being the things that set us apart from those who are just in it for the money.
Sonshi.com: What is the next big challenge for China and the United States?
Chan: The immediate challenge is our trade deficit with China. It exceeded $200 billion in 2005 and it will continue to deepen.
The next big challenge for China and the U.S. is the slow but steady realization between these two nations that their values are fundamentally very different.
The U.S. is a modern democracy and it values individualism and the rule of law. China is an ancient culture that has always been government-run, patriarchal, and deeply suspicious of individual autonomy.
The two cultures will insist that each is normal and strive to impose itself on the other. Pulling the two culturally disparate cultures together has turned out to be a Herculean task indeed.
Sonshi.com: Are you thinking of writing another book on small business and/or entrepreneurship? If so, please give us a preview.
Chan: I don’t have any current plans to write another book. I’d like to continue to promote and support Spare Room Tycoon. I don’t think that enough people have discovered it. The book is now out-of-print. But it can be purchased online from various online retailers. I bought quite a number of copies from my publisher and I’d be glad to supply it at $23.00 ($20 plus $3 for postage) from my entrepreneurial garage:
James Chan, Ph.D., President Asia Marketing and Management (AMM) 2014 Naudain Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146-1317 USA Tel: (215) 735-7670 Fax: (215) 735-9661
[End of interview]