Life Lessons to Learn From Self-Made Billionaire Nix Nolledo

How does one become a self-made billionaire? For Nico Jose “Nix” Nolledo, co-founder and CEO of mobile content provider Xurpas Inc., it didn’t come in a wrapped up box with golden ribbons tied on it. Instead, it looked like how most self-made billionaires have done it—a lot of dedication and belief in your product, failing countless of times, and trying again and again.

As a business management graduate from Ateneo de Manila University back in 1998, Nix had a tough time looking for a job because of the aftermath of the Asian Financial crisis that erupted year before. He combed every office building in Ayala, submitted his resumes to every company, and eventually got hired as an assistant manager at a fast-food chain.

“I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur someday, so I thought ‘why not work in a food company or a restaurant?’ And so I applied to all the quick service restaurant companies,” recalled Nix. He took the job offer at KFC because of their good management trainee program, and it was there where he learned the ropes on how to operate a company. This was also the same time where he became interested and inspired by the stories of international technology companies.

He saw a great potential of the internet. Nix has gone a long way since then. And although he didn’t become a restaurant entrepreneur as originally planned, he became the next best thing—one of the Philippines’ most successful technopreneur. And we’re talking about 20 plus companies under his belt.  It didn’t come easy. There were failures–and lots of them–that Nix and his team had to face. But as cliché as it may sound, failures are only stepping stones to success. So if you want to become successful, not just on money matters but also on realizing your life goals, here are three advices from Nix that’ll hopefully give you a little push to achieve that.

 1. Ask yourself, ‘What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?’ and then do that.  

“I would always ask myself this question every day. It is a way for me to remind myself to always create or build something because that’s what I want to do,” says Nix.

Most of us have some kind of dream trapped within us that has somehow become stifled by the fear of failure. Figuring out what to do with your life is a hot topic. But if you were to answer this hypothetical question, what would you do What excites you? What makes you get up in the morning if time and money were no object? What’s bothering you? What problem would you like to fix? If you’re able to get an answer, then next is to start doing things that will help make that answer into a reality.

2. Know your vision, and think long term.

 “If you play a game of chess, the best players are usually the ones who think 20 moves ahead.” Have a clear personal vision of yourself, so that every opportunity that you’ll take is going to be a stepping stone to where you want your personal life to go,” advices Nix. “It’s very easy to make mistakes early on, but if you don’t know how you want to design your life in the long term, you will make a lot of unnecessary mistakes. And time is the ultimate resource here. The more wisely you spend time, the more returns you’ll have for yourself,” he adds.

3. Don’t lose sight of who you are.

As humans, we are distinct individual voyagers, traveling at our own pace toward our own unique destination. And in that pursuit, it is rather easy to be caught in the web of the madness of the world.  Try to not lose sight of who you are, what your values are, and what your vision is because that’s what will keep you grounded and focused on your goals. “It should be very clear to know who you are, whether there is success or failure,” says Nix adding that success and failure goes hand in hand and that you will never truly experience success if you haven’t failed several times.

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