We had the good fortune of connecting with Hai Truong and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hai, what is the most important factor behind your success?
One of the most impoartant factors behind my success is hard work. I know how cliche that sounds, but you will never really know how hard you can and will work when it’s for your own business. I came from a career in VIP Hospitality, for 16 years. At one point, I was working as the General Manager for a fine dining restaurant in South Florida. I was putting in 112-116 hours a week for months at a time. I only had Sundays off, which I spent sleeping most times. And, I thought that was “hard work”. It wasn’t until I had my own company a few years later, that I realized what hard work really was. Hard work for me is spending countless hours a day, running the company as efficiently as possible. As a fishing guide, I’ve learned to be a jack of all trades and always in the process of mastering all aspects of the company. I’ve learned to juggle various positions from travel agent to accounting, and eveything between. Aside from the decades of knowledge put forth into the guiding itself. I found that the hard work really starts after all this. My obsessions on and off the waters are second to none. I use the word obsession for lack of a better word. I think hard work and putting your heart and soul into a company, goes hand-in-hand with success. The fishing should be the easy part of guiding once you know how to run a business successfully. And, none of that comes with ease. In fact, I focused so much on the fishing and the guiding in the beginning. I forgot to run a proper business. You’ll begin to see where more of your time and energy is needed after a while. Addressing these issues is crucial in order to manage your time well. There is only so much time in a business day. Then, the real work begins for me. I often lay awake each night thinking of things to make my small business better. I often wake up the next morning in mid thought of the last idea. The real hard work is put in when no one is looking. And, at the end of the day. I still ask myself what can I improve?

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I think what sets me apart from other people is my tenacity for hard work. And, my guiding came out of public demand from social medias. Which I wanted nothing to do with it after working in hospitality throughout south Florida for so many years prior. The transitioning from Myspace to Facebook and other current platforms, allowed me to inadvertantly showcase not only my fishing skills. But, also my unique photography and eventually my writing style. All have contributed to my success, along with my continuous thirst for knowledge, has led me to where I am today.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The Florida Everglades should be the 8th Wonder of the World, and I live just under an hour away from her fringes of the marsh line. This is where I go to recharge and get away, only taking close clients, family and friends. There are only a couple of places to grab last minute items before venturing into the unknown really. And, the more prepared you are, the better. One of the best parts of being in the Glades for a week or more, is the oddly independent feeling you get when living off the land or surving on your own, which can be a daily task. You drink and eat what you brought or killed, or you simply don’t. The Glades offer many things, from hiking, back packing to hunting and learning how to reconnect with Mother Nature. We are so disconnected from the hunter/gatherer gene that lies dormid in our DNA. I cannot express how fullfilling and rewarding it is to re-establish this once daily routine for all humans on the planet. The Everglades is just one of Florida’s secrets. Let’s discover her many others together.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My “Shoutout” goes to one of my older brothers, Phong Truong. He literally handed me an envelope just over 12 years ago around Christmas time that year, which is also near my birthday. Inside the envelope was the LLC Registration of my company through SunBiz, Florida. He also secured the domain name for the company, several similar ones to protect the initial name and everything else needed to build my website. I remember being so mad. Mad for not knowing how to do any of this. How to run a company? How to book clients? I didn’t even know how I wanted the website to look, none-the-less build it myself eventually. I was furious, scared and a bit freaked out for not knowing how I was going to repay my brother for the best thing that has happened to my life. I didn’t know how to do any of this at the time. My brother simply said to learn. And, that I did and haven’t looked back once over the years.

Website: www.SoFloCichlids.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soflocichlids/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SoFloCichlids

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SoFloCichlids

Other: TikTok: @soflocichlids

Image Credits
Jan Maizler, photographer & writer for some of the images.

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