According to Mickey Lim, which is the father recently shared a story that is both humorous and revealing about his young son’s entrepreneurial spirit. It all started on the eighth day of the Lunar New Year when he took his son to a friend’s open house. The celebration was lively and full of energy with everyone participating in traditional rituals, offering prayers to the heavens, watching lion dances, and enjoying a buffet that was abundant and festive. The day was so bustling that it hardly felt like the start of a normal day. Amid the fun, before leaving the friend’s home, the boy grabbed three cans of soda. Curious about his motives, the father asked why he had taken so many. The boy explained his plan to sell them at school. He intended to charge his friends RM2.50 per can and sell the remaining ones to other students for RM4 each, hoping to make some profit.
The father tried to guide his son, suggesting that he could simply drink the sodas himself or even give them to friends as a gesture of kindness. He emphasized that relationships are far more valuable than a few ringgit and that generosity often brings more lasting rewards than money ever could. Despite this advice, the son went ahead with his plan. At school, he managed to sell two cans while keeping one for himself, earning RM5 in total. However, his business venture did not go unnoticed. A teacher discovered what he was doing, returned the money to the buyers, and sent a formal warning to the father.
When the boy came home, he was disappointed, lamenting that he had “lost money.” The father laughed and reminded him that school is a place for learning and not for conducting business, joking about how the school canteen already handles all sales. Reflecting on the incident, the father noted that some of life’s most important lessons are about giving rather than profiting. Small financial gains are fleeting, while acts of generosity and the goodwill earned from friends last a lifetime. The story revealed that his son has a natural business mindset, but the timing and approach were clearly inappropriate. It served as both a funny anecdote and a meaningful lesson about balancing ambition with ethics and consideration for others.
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