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11月10日 How to take risks (Brian Kim)When you were young, you didn’t even understand the notion of risk. You just did. You ate paint chips off the wall, you tasted the handful of dirt you scooped up in your garden, you stuck your fingers wherever you wanted to, but as time passed and you grew older, you were slowly introduced and taught the notion of risk by others around you and it was as if a square marking your boundaries was slowly painted around you. Soon enough, you stopped risking. You stayed confined within the box that was drawn around you by others and you accepted it. This is where I’m comfortable. What happened? On the one hand, when you were young, you just did without thinking of the consequences. On the other hand, when you got older, you stopped doing because you started thinking of the consequences. Neither end of the spectrum is good so how can we reconcile? How can we get the best of both worlds? First off, let’s tackle the part of “not doing”. Why do we hesitate to take risks? How can we get back that trait of boldness we had as a child? It’s actually very simple. It just involves changing what we label risk as. You’ve got to understand that risk is nothing but a label and the reason why risk yields so much power over us is precisely because of that. Labels are extremely powerful because we tend to pass judgment solely based on that. When something is labeled, we equate some sort of image to it. Armani – fancy suit. Ferrari – fast car. Nike – running shoes. In this case, what image does the label of risk conjure up? Imminent danger. We judge risk as imminent danger. We need to change the label. Stop thinking of risk as just a one shot do or die situation. Instead, start thinking of risk as a journey of exploration. It’s not just about one shot. It’s about a journey, a journey you choose to embark on for the purpose of exploring a different path. Columbus did not take a risk. He chose to go on a journey to explore the new world. Entrepreneurs don’t take risks. They choose to go on a journey to explore other means of making a living. Companies don’t take risks. They choose to explore doing things differently than the norm. People mistakenly think that if they take a risk and it doesn’t turn out the way they expect it to, that it’s all over. The sky will fall, their world will come crashing down, and that they’ll never bounce back from it. It’s precisely because of that one shot do or die mentality that prevents people from taking risks. Step back and look at the forest. Don’t look at the trees. Risk is not just about looking at one tree. It’s about exploring an entire forest. If you start labeling risk as a journey of exploration and discovery, it takes the weight off your shoulders and you become more inclined to take action. Before, you had no label for risk as a child. Now you do and it’s stopping you from taking them. Change the label and start exploring. Now that you’re older, you have the ability of thinking of the consequences of your actions. It’s a good thing because if you didn’t and you started thinking of risks as exploration and decided to jump off a plane with no parachute, you’d be in for one big surprise. Again we run into the issue of labels. Consequences usually have a negative label associated with them. You will suffer the consequences of your actions. Do you know what the consequences of that will be? You’ve got to face the consequences of your actions. Such a heavy label isn’t it? Instead of consequences, think outcomes. Go on a journey of exploration and focus on your desired outcome. Don’t focus on consequences. Also, understand that each time you take a risk by thinking of it as a journey to explore, the box around you gets larger and this increase in latitude of exploration spills over to other areas of your life. If you find yourself exploring in work, you’ll find yourself exploring in your social life, your personal life, etc. As you keep on doing this, you realize the fact that there is no, or ever was, a box drawn around you and that it was all in your head the entire time. What about those times when you risk it and it is just about ONE shot; like when you go for it on 4th down during the national championship game? Isn’t that a big risk? How can that be exploration you say? When it comes down to those times, those aren’t really risks from the coach’s point of view. What the audience doesn’t see are all the times that the coaches ran risks during the pre season, going for it on 4th down in the middle of other games, the hundreds of times they went through this exact same scenario in practice, etc. You see, the coaches took many risks BEFORE this moment to explore how to handle this type of situation if it were to ever come up in the future. Meanwhile, everyone at home is thinking this is a HUGE risk, a big gamble to go for it on fourth down, but the players and the coach know otherwise. It’s not a risk because they’ve explored this scenario many times before so they know what to do and how to deal with it when the situation actually came. So must it be with you. When you begin to take little risks of exploration, you make yourself bold enough to take those big risks that appear to be like do or die situations from the outside, but you will smile on the inside because you know otherwise. Change the labels. Go on a journey of exploration and focus on the desired outcome and the word risk will have power over you no more. When you do this on a consistent basis, you’ll find that a new label for risk emerges. Freedom. 11月8日 Self-criticism (by Tejvan Pettinger)If you value your own progress, you need to learn how to criticise yourself. We are often eager to criticise others, but when it comes to criticising ourselves we are strangely reluctant. The art of self criticism is essential to learn ing from mistakes and gaining an improved perspective on life. Consider Your MotivesWe maybe able to fool other people, but we should never try to fool ourselves. It is important to be aware of our motivation for doing something. For example, are we being kind to someone with selfless motives, or is it being undertaken with an ulterior motive? At times we like to fool ourselves into thinking we are being altruistic, when actually we are acting from the basis of our ego. This is when we need to be self critical because otherwise our mind can trick us into feeling we are a very good person, when actually we are just being selfish. By being aware of this, we can try to reduce the power of the ego in our lives. Be Honest with YourselfSelf criticism means we have to be honest with our-self. There is no benefit from trying to justify our bad actions. If we can learn to be honest with ourselves our conscience will prevent us from undertaking regrettable actions. Many bad people, will try and find a way of justifying their actions to themselves; this is the danger of not being honest with yourself. Avoid Excessive GuiltSelf criticism is not easy, but it is a valuable aspect of our self improvement. However, when we criticise our bad actions, it is unhelpful to retain a powerful sense of guilt. Guilt does not help us to improve, it can just make us feel miserable. When we have become aware of wrong thoughts, make a resolution to avoid doing it and then focus on doing the right thing. This is much better than becoming debilitated from guilt. Don’t Judge Other People by the Same StandardsOften we see a defect in our own behaviour, and we quite rightly want to improve upon it. However, the problem is that, in our eagerness, we can gain an evangelical fervour and seek to proselytise to other people. We want to improve ourself, but, also start to feel others should be making the same change. Stick to self criticism; other people will go at a different pace, and we are not responsible for what others do. Self Improvement not self contempt.Self criticism does not mean self contempt. We have to draw a careful balance between working at our self improvement and feeling useless and worthless. Remember we are only criticising a certain action and not our self. If we make mistakes no harm; mistakes are an essential part of learning and developing. The important thing is that we are able to learn from our actions. Self criticism should be looked upon as a positive thing, and not a tool for beating ourselves up. Don’t Let Pride Get in the WayIt is our pride that dislikes being criticised. Our ego likes to believe we are always right and therefore it becomes difficult to examine our inner motives. However, to continue doing the wrong thing from a sense of pride only serves to magnify the existing mistake. If we are reluctant to make some changes because of a false faith in our ego, we will feel a permanent tension. If we can learn to let go of pride, we will gain joy from our own self-improvement. Know Your ValuesIt is important to criticise ourselves for the right things. Work out what matters in life. For example, if you fail to meet the expectations of your boss in working overtime, this is not necessarily a thing to be self-critical about. However, if you are letting down your friends by being thoughtless and unkind, this is far more significant; be self-critical about the things that matter. Invite Suggestions From OthersQuite often we cannot see our faults, even though they maybe glaring to others. In these circumstances, it can be very beneficial to invite criticism from a close friend. This can help us to see faults, that we are just unable or unwilling to be aware of. If you do invite criticism from others, don’t respond by being defensive and aggrieved. Be calm and detached; and see it as an opportunity to learn from the mistakes. Self Criticism is a Path to HappinessI feel self criticism is synonymous with self improvement. Self improvement doesn’t mean we just maintain a cheerful disposition; we also have to be able to be reflective and honest about ourselves. It is only when we can impartially judge our motives and actions that we can overcome obstacles and weaknesses. It is in overcoming these weaknesses that we pave the way for long term happiness.10月26日 The power of your mindYesterday, at the NLP trainig, I broke a wooden board into halves using my bare hand. I am still fanscinated to have done that coz I would never imagined I could do so.
On that board, it's all my negative beliefs or say excuses not to do something, including the negative belief that "I can't break the board". I am inspired by all my other classmates who are either bigger or smaller than me, who have all broken the board successfully. So I concentrated on the board and beyond the board, and I did it!!!
For the first time, I truely experienced how powerful our mind is! I know that we ALL have the potential to do anything, achieve anything in life as long as we choose to be determined and focus our mind on the goal!
The Indian biotech queen Kiran Mazumdar Shaw once said in a TV interview: "If I can do it, you can do it, everyone can do it!" I am saying to myself "Ok, another diplomatic answer from a successful person." But now I understand it's not HER being diplomatic, it's my negative belief "I don't think I can be like her" which is preventing me to truely listen and believe. She is right, everybody can be successful like her! It's just that she chooses to believe that she can do it and the rest choose not to.
From the time we were born, people around us start to manipulate our minds through their own beliefs unconsciously. And one of the most important influences is from our parents. They can't do or achieve something in life, mostly because they tried to do something once or twice but they didn't succeed so they gave up, so they tell us that we can't do it too. What's really underneath is that - They believe if they can't do it, how can you do it? It's really not their fault to implant those negative and limiting beliefs in us, as they are also merely human! But IT'S OUR LIFE. It's useless to blaim them! We got to take the responsibility for our own lives and unlearn all those negative beliefs and tell ourselves that WE CAN!
(Quotes from "Pursuit of Happiness")
Christopher Gardner: Hey. Don't ever let somebody tell you... You can't do something. Not even me. All right?
Christopher: All right. Christopher Gardner: You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period. We can all achieve our dreams as long as we believe we can. Our mind is powerful, let's unleash the potential of it! The replaceables and irreplaceablesComing to think about it, in one's life, most of our possessions and relationships can be mainly divided into 2 categories: the replaceables and irreplaceables.
Replaceables: job, money, sex, material possessions, titles, degrees, life styles
Irreplaceables: family (parents, siblings, children and spouse), love and friendships, time, life, youth, once-in-a-life-time experience
So often most people make the same mistakes by focusing their effort and time on the replaceables and totally forgot about the irreplaceables. Only to realize and regret when your loved ones have gone. After all, money can be made later, jobs can be found else where, material possessions can be easily duplicated and replaced. But can we simply make another mother, or father or Jane or Tom whom we know? Can important relationships be rebuilt or repaired overnight? Can true love be found everywhere?
I guess you don't need my answers. :D 10月22日 Instructions for Life by The Dalai Lama
10月17日 The heroes in my lifeI still couldn't help to hold my tears when I watch the Hoyt family's video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZhfn_5ARb8&feature=related, it reminded me heroes in my life: She is born into a declining noble family whose father was alcoholic, depressive and physically abusive. She never finished primary school because she want to start earning money for the family as early as possible. She started working at age 12. She then became nationally famous for her opera singing at age 16. She then went on to finish her university degree through self-study with her new born still in her arms. Her name now is listed in the book of "1000 most influential person of China in the 20th century". She is my mom. He was told his new born baby had serious skin problems and can't survive for more than 3 months. All the medical doctors in town asked him to give up the baby and prepare to have another one. He didn't believe it, he didn't give up. He knocked at all the doors he could find, he don't want to give up hope. He finally found a retired Chinese medicine doctor, who cured his daughter. His daughter has since healthily grown till now. He is my father. He fought with Japanese soldiers in world war II, he fought in Chinese civil war, he's been to jail and has escaped from death for more than 3 times. He migrated from a small town to the big city to set his scrap metal business from zero, which later became one of the biggest players in the city. He then lost everything due to a wrong business decision. But he just started all over again. He formed a great family with 5 children who have all grown up into useful and successful people. He is my grandpa. This list goes on and on, and I am so proud to happen to be in their lives. They taught me this very simple and powerful thing - There is nothing impossible to achieve in this world if you set your mind to. I hope one day I can do them proud too. 10月16日 Love is not enough"Love is not enough", it took me years to realize what it really means.
It's really lovely and heart wrecking sometimes to watch romantic stories on movies or TV, and thinking "Wow! Love can conquer anything!" But in real life, can love really conquer everything? If love can conquer everything, if love is enough, there wouldn't be so many great relationships failed into break-ups and so many marriages failed into divorce. It's funny to see people saying "love can conquer anything" in the beginning of a budding relationship, but at the end of it saying "I am not in love with you anymore." So can't love conquer "not in love anymore" and start to nuture a new love? It's also interesting to hear people saying "when you meet the right one, things will work out by itself." If we all have to practice 5-10 years on the piano to be sufficient at playing, what made us think we can make relationship work just because of the right person that we haven't known yet? If we can't play the piano when the first or second time we tried our hands on it, are we going to blame that it's because the piano is not right?
After all, love and relationships are two very different things. Whether love is a feeling or a decision, it has the same end in mind that you want to make your loved one happy. But relationship requires another aspect: You want to feel happy inside the relationship with your loved one. Love is an easy exercise, it requires simply giving - give your time, your affection, your knowledge, your help, your emotional or financial support etc. But when there has to be a return mechanism, when love moves into a relationship, things get complicated.
We started to compare and weigh our own needs with our partner's needs. We started to experience the different communication styles in our partner which often results in miscommunication. We started to feel our own time and needs are sometimes compromised. We started to feel resentful and unappreciated when our partner puts their needs in front of ours, or not reciprocating the same kind of support we extend to our loved one. When we are inexperienced in relationships, we started to associate these negative resentful feelings with our partner, and identify these negative feelings with the love we have for our partner. Instead of communicating our needs in a positive manner, we started to throw anger, tantrum, fights, complains, emotional distance at our partner, thinking they could understand our hurt then they will change. If our partner is also inexperienced in relationships and can't recognize your passive aggressive behavior, he/she will misinterpret your strange behaviors as that you no longer love them anymore and start to pull away. Then a day came when break-up happens.
Love is magical, love is rare, it would be lucky if we fall in love once in our life time. So the question is, when we meet our love, are we ready to manage the relationship and communication well so that we can hold on to this love for dear life?
I think the following aspects need to be thought through to have a successful relationship:
1. Know what's important and what's less or not important to us. If we decided love is the most important to us, we must be prepared to place the needs of the partnership above our own. If our values tell us that our own needs are above everything, then I guess we will never be able to have a successful and lasting relationship or we might not be ready to have one yet.
2. Seek first to understand, before being understood
3. We need to have our negative emotions in check. At least, we should try not to react to our partner's negative emotions
4. A relationship serves to add value to both parties' lives, but not serve to have all needs being met, have realistic expectations
5. Acknowledging that the other party is merely human as we do too, be prepared to accept flaws and imperfections
6. Have a good and effective communication toolbox, be open and honest
7. Know what we want out of this relationship. If we just want short term company and partnership, don't string our partner who wants family and children
8. It takes two to tango, but we can't change our partner except ourselves. Be prepared to take responsibility for our actions and the response we get from our partner
9. Practice makes perfect, experiment different ways to achieve different results.
10. Attitude is key. If you both really want to make it work, it will work. Skills can be learnt, but attitude drives everything forward or backward
11. Nobody can guess our minds, even our partner can't. It's our responsibility to ask what we want our partner to do and how we want to be treated
12. Men from Mars and women are from Venus, we think differently and react differently to situations. Acknowledge and accept the difference
In my own opinion, the best relationship happens between two mature person that can challenge each other to grow, and reach to the same level everytime in the end.
Love is not enough to make a relationship work, but it's our choice to grow wisdom and learn skills to make it work. Wish everyone can have a great relationship! 10月15日 Self-criticism Yesterday I interviewed a candidate with R, we shared our opinions about her after. I told R that "I feel she's like A, not really creative, a bit over diplomatic, although I have to say that she speaks well, present herself well, and obviously she's done her research properly. I think she wouldn't have a problem convince a speaker over the phone, but whether writing a spot-on programme I would have my doubts." A was a conference producer that I worked with before who has been excellent at getting good speakers but couldn't put together a commercial oriented programme in the required period of time. Her project deadline usually got delayed 4 to 6 weeks. It was also a bit of a nightmare for me as she used to change the topic of the programme every week just because of another person she spoke to on the phone said something. She left the company eventually, when my emotional experience with her wasn't all that positive. R said: "Ok, let's not go down that pathway. Let's be a little self-criticizing here. What did we do or didn't do that made that happen?" I kept quiet while trying to process his message. R continued, "Business acumen and commerciality can be trained or guided. We only started to use the Pro.Po.Sal recently which already helped us a great deal to improve the commercial understanding of the programme. Instead of criticizing, can we ask what lessons we have learnt from A?" I was still trying to make up my mind about the hiring decision, but R's reminder on self-criticism made me think. When I started to manage people 2 years ago, I was very critical and always complain about my staff. I didn't understand what it means by taking responsibility for my staff's performance, I didn't understand why my staff don't do things like me even after I've taught them many times. I was very frustrated coz things always look like out of control. It is only until one night I went to see a concert. One of the soprano singers on stage used to be in a competition with me 3 years ago, I won the competition when she didn't even get into the 2nd round. But during that concert, she sang so well that I was shocked. The friend who came with me to the concert asked, "What do you think about that girl? I think she is fabulous." I answered, "She is just OK, there are loads of other much better ones." When I got home, I started to feel really shameful about my answer. I was obviously jealous thus why I choose to criticize instead of sincere appreciation. She definitely deserve a huge complement for her improvement, but I was so shallow minded. I started to really hate myself and thought, "Maybe I was too much of a control freak and perfectionist. Maybe it's not them, it's me, who needs to change." There is a Chinese saying, "When you point one finger at others, you are pointing at least 3 other fingers at yourself." We are all human, we are all not perfect, we make mistakes. But often we only see the faults and weakness in others rather than ourselves. It's the easiest thing in the world to point finger at others and blame that it's all their faults, and they are not good enough. But as a matter of fact, as much as we want to take control, we can never change anyone except ourselves. People are all doing their very best at that certain time with the resources that they think they have. Maybe they are not good enough for us. But it doesn't mean they are wrong or less because we don't like it. It's just they are different from us or our standard. We have to acknowledge this huge difference between each other, or else there will never be real understanding, there will never be successful relationships, there will never be effective communications, especially when information reaches our receptor, it gets misinterpreted through a filter system - deletion, distortion and generalization. When a person's behavior or words went through this filter of us, it became a meaning or judgment, which will either trigger a positive or negative emotion state in us, which in turn will trigger our reactive behavior, such as criticism. Thus it's often important to look at this filter closely at times to examine whether we were being fair and objective when drawing a certain judgment, whether it is the behavior of us that triggered that behavior in the other that we don't like, whether we can change our behavior and ways of communication to get better results instead of useless complains. After all, we are all not perfect, we are all human that make mistakes, why keep looking at the negative side but not the positive? Why not always being generous in complements instead of criticism? We've had enough people telling us that we are not good enough, why would we want to repeat the same on others? Today, let's practice some self-criticism. Patience is a virtue"I am not patient". When asked at interviews what my areas of improvement, I always used that line.
I know life will definitely give me lessons to learn this virtue.
When life throw me staff to manage who only think in one direction. What to do? Fire the "square-thinking" staff and look for a new one? But he has good attitudes, although he might not be that creative but at least he is keen to learn, and have good attributes for customer service. And it's so difficult to find good people with good attitude nowadays. So I decided to stick it out, I invested more time in training, I asked myself to be patient, I changed my way of communication which suits his way of thinking. Today he came to me with good news! The customer that rejected him earlier decided to give another thought.
Life throw me situations that I cannot control over. What to do? Expand more energy on negative emotions and make everyone around me miserable? Or focus on postive actions? I decided it is totally a waste of my life to focus on situations that I can't control and decided to focus on things that I can control - myself. Then I learnt the magic is when you focus on something, something expand. I became a better person, I learnt that every feeling and situation is transient and temporary. People and things change all the time. So why control?
Life let me wait for the right moment, the right person and the right opportunity. What to do? Complain everyday that life is unfair? Give up the dream and waste our time on something that is less than what we deserve? Or work on myself to be more prepared for that moment to come so I can truely seize it and leverage? I think you guessed which one I've chosen.
I learnt: Being patient is a choice, not a definition for your personality.
When we were born, we are naive and illiterate, if our parents didn't choose to be patient with us, didn't choose to overlook the trouble to clean our drool and messy spills constantly, didn't choose to bear with our attention seeking behaviors like shouting, screaming and crying, didn't encourage us when we learnt to speak our first word after many months' of trying to make it sound right, where will we all be today?
Life is like a half-filled bottle of water, we can choose to focus on the empty half or we can choose to focus on the filled half. And the outcome will be different according to which half we choose to focus and respond to with efforts and actions.
I choose to be patient. What about you? I am gratefulI am so grateful that I have eyes that I can see
I can smell the sweet scent of the flowers
I can have arms and legs that can touch and feel the textures of things
I am so grateful that I can sing, I can talk, I can scream
I am so grateful that I can hear, so I can listen to the most beautiful music in the world
I am so grateful I have loved
I am so grateful I have friends that cares me dearly
I am so grateful I can pick up the phone anytime to reach my loved ones anytime I want
I am so grateful that my parents support whatever I want to do
I am so grateful that I have met some most beautiful souls in this world
I am so grateful that when I am sick I can go to hospital in less than half an hour
I am so grateful that I can travel by different vehicles to go anywhere I want
I am so grateful that I can breath, I can drink clean water and have electricity
I am so grateful that I am grateful
Although I need to remind myself constantly
How lucky I am actually 10月14日 Essential education is the key to a better worldI usually don't like topics like this, coz my preconceived judgment would be "What do you know? If all the political and spiritual leaders can't even solve the problem, how do you think you would say a word about this?" So I am asking, my reader, to just spend another 5 minutes which you could spend watching TV commercial to give me the opportunity to be heard, without judgment first. Today I went for a social enterprise talk by Masami Sato, the founder of B1G1.com. Her message is simple and inspiring: Life is a game. We know we are here to enjoy our lives. We also create some level of complication and challenge in our life in order to enjoy it more. We are all looking for something, often the same thing: money, pleasure, recognition, love, adventure, a life purpose, a meaning or a calling, career satisfaction, personal achievement etc. But why do we want these things? Is it because we believe these things will bring us joy? So what do we do when we want something? We try to get it. What happened when we finally have it? The joy of getting vanished, disappeared, lost. Then we repeat the cycle of getting, having, losing again and again. So what we are doing and why we are doing the things we do? That's often the time we started to ask ourselves these questions when we actually achieved what we thought we wanted in our lives. We started our life from the joy of being, to the joy of learning, to the joy of developing, to the joy of achieving. After we achieved something in our lives, usually when we feel we have created enough for ourselves, we move to the next level - we found friends we like, we get married, we start a family, we immerse ourselves in the joy of sharing. When we have kids, we started to appreciate the joy of giving, we give our children unconditional love and expects no returns. After our children grew up, we found we have so much to give but we don't have enough recipients, so we start to donate to charity, we care about community. We finally found that our joy are not in achieving and getting but sharing and giving. So what if we all change the cycle of getting, having, losing to receiving, having and giving? Just imagine, as a customer, every cup of coffee we buy, a homeless children will get a cup of clean water. Every seminar we attend, a child in a rural village of China will get a semester of education. Every time we bought a book, a tree was planted... As a business owner, you can say "every time a customer dine with us, a child in need receives a meal." As a doctor, you can say "just by visiting us today, you help get much needed medicine to a sick child." A meditation cassette business owner can say "every time you relax and enjoy a healing meditation, you give a healing session to a traumatised young girl rescued from the sex-trade in Cambodia." B1G1, buy one give one, is exactly born under this concept. I was very inspired by her talk, especially I was also involved in a social enterprise recently, which is a charity founded to helping children, youth and adults of all cultures and traditions to develop their innate capacity to be kind and wise, and contribute to peace in the world. But I was never quite sold into the idea of donation, especially after scandals of NKF, seeing how aggressive and money hungry the National Cancer Foundation funding raising/sales people are on the street. Especially considering we have so many more NGOs in the world, but the problem didn't seem to get less! What happened here? Just put aside corruption in NGOs, what most charity organizations are doing?! They are mainly focusing on the less fortunate, who obviously creates little impact on the world in contrast to the trend setters, celebrities and billionaires. Moreover, they seem to be more into feeding the less fortunate fish, instead of teaching them how to fish. Not seeing that actually it is those riches and those from the developed world are not appreciating what they have, and more prone to depression and suicidal. Not seeing that most of the people that complain and saying "I am not happy, I don't know what I want" are those people who seemed to have everything. Not seeing that feeding the poor directly with food will only create reliance. So what about if we could help someone, everyone, young or old, poor or rich, fortunate and less fortunate, how to create joy and happiness themselves? What about if we could help everyone learn to enjoy and appreciate happiness and inner peace through learning of wisdom, love and compassion? What about if we could set up more schools in the developing world to ensure the next generation will be educated and equipped with skills enough to earn a living by themselves? What a better world will we have altogether? With this, I strongly believe that essential education is the key to a better world with abundance of love, peace and harmony. I sincerely hope you could be part of it too. 10月7日 Personal valuesToday my newly hired conference manager resigned after 4 days of working, reasons being, she doesn't like what she does and can't find herself fit in. The HR manager asked me what we have learnt from this experience, I said "When in doubt, don't hire because of urgency." In the beginning, I already had doubts about her personality since I feel that her confidence is of pretendence rather than real in nature, although we found some goodness in her attitude and values which is honesty and hard-working. I was convinced by other hiring managers that strength, confidence and ability to strive can be trained. I took the risk but maybe we were wrong.
I asked her what she wants to do in her life, she told me she wants to open her own shop one day. When asked how important that goal is and whether she is willing to do whatever it takes to acquire the skills that could help to make that happen, she gave me a very weak answer - yeah, I think so. When asked what's most important to her, what she enjoys doing most, she said doing things she likes and spending time with friends. I finally understood that having an easy and comfortable life is more important to her than opening a shop one day, although throughout her interview, she emphasizes on that she value "challenges".
Many people say they want to get the job, many people say they want to achieve this dream and that dream. But those who succeed are only those that have the determination, willing to put in the hard work, take continuous actions, be persistent, and most importantly they find their dream worthwhile and meaningful enough to meet their values and fullfill their missions in life.
Only until recently, I understood that, when it comes to decision making, making compromises and setting life goals, our personal values became the most important guidelines and rulers. It's basically what we perceive as right or wrong, and what's more important and what's less, what dreams are worthwhile/meaningful and what's not. It is also the most important parameter when it comes to selecting a potential job candidate, a business partner or a life partner, as experience can be trained, knowledge can be learnt, but values and attitude are something that come from the upbringing, which is very hard to change. Today another candidate had her second interview, which I hadn't had a very good experience in the first interview with. In short, I felt she was fake, smoking her way through the entire interview and having all her answers calculated rather than from her heart. She had a good package - she carried herself in suit to interviews, good articulation of words, nicely crafted CV - but I am strongly against hiring her because I am simply not convinced that the values of honesty can be trained in a short period of time, which might be the most important quality you can ever look for.
On the second thought, I felt quite sad for the two girls, and again felt how blessed I am to have great parents like mine. From young, they focused on training me to be strong, perseverent, indepedent, they taught me the good values and how important it is to be a good and compassionate person before everything. From young, we were taught tools to live in the current modern world to become a professional that is needed in the current job market. But school never really taught us creativity, school never taught us values, school never taught us interpersonal skills, school never taught us to honour and love ourselves as who we are, school never taught us emotional fitness, strength, confidence and positive beliefs to help us succeed in following and achieving our dreams. But aren't those things that are not taught in school the most important things to learn for a human being?
I believe everybody has the potential to become a better person, and I do hope these two girls would be able to learn the right things in the right environment in the future. This again re-affirms one of my other dreams to dedicate some part of my life to develop full potential in human beings.
What a better world would we have if everybody from young were taught about good values, beliefs and given the chance to experiment to discover their true self, given the guidance to help them to achieve their dreams?! We don't need so much money to be happyPeople felt richer in the 1950s - when houses averaged 1100 square feet - than they do now, when they average 2000 square feet. (Statistics in U.S.A) There were no VCRs, no microwaves, no cable TV, no PCs, no video games, hardly any dishwashers, and in most homes only the father brought in an income. Yet according to surveys, our reported level of happiness peaked in 1957 and has gone down as our level of wealth has gone up. The reason is simple: You and I don’t need much to be happy. ` Most of us are doing too much, working too hard, trying to make “enough” money. But it costs us time. And after a certain point - a point we have all passed a long time ago - you get less and less happiness for more and more expenditure of time to earn money. And that is time taken away from time spent with your loved ones, where a good deal of happiness does come from. Those moments of simple human interaction - talking, playing a game, taking a walk, cooking together - those are the real riches of life. You’ve been exposed to barrage of advertising, something like a million ads by the time you’re twenty. And those advertising people are experts on human nature. They’ve read all the studies showing what influences people, and they carefully design their advertisements to pull your attention and then to convince you their product would make you happy. They have been trying to manipulate your values since you were a kid. They’ve been trying to get you to believe having things is what will make you happy. Most of us are way too busy, and that’s just perfect as far as the advertisers are concerned. We’re out working to earn more money so we have more to spend on products. If we would learn to curb our desire for so much stuff, we wouldn’t have to work as much, so we’d be able to spend more unscheduled time with our loved ones. You already know this, I’m sure. But the more you hear something the more of an impact it will make on your feelings and behavior. Ask any advertiser. You want more time? You want more enjoyment? There is a way, but it will require a little discipline: do without. You’ll be a lot richer. (By the way, I can prove it. I asked myself not to buy any clothing, cosmetics or non-essential products for the past 6 months, my happiness didn't decrease but increased.) Remind yourself you don’t need much to be happy. notes from a friend: a guide to taking control (Anthony Robbins)
"I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." - Thomas Edison The first step to turning your life around is getting rid of this negative belief that you can't do anything or that you're helpless. How can you do that? Often the reason that people say they can't do something is that they've tried things in the past that haven't worked. But remember - and I've used this phrase again and again throughout my life: Your past does not equal your future. What matters is not yesterday but what you do right now. So many people are trying to drive into the future using a rearview mirror to guide themselves! If you do that, you'll crash. Instead you must focus on what you can do today to make things better. persistence pays Many people tell me, "I've tried millions of ways to succeed, and nothing works!" Or, "I've tried thousands of ways!" Think about it. They probably haven't even tried hundreds of ways to change things, or even dozens. Most people have tried eight, nine, ten ways to make a change, and when it hasn't worked out, they've given up. The key to success is to decide what's most important to you and then take massive action each day to make it better, even when it doesn't look as if it's working. I'll give you an example. Have you ever heard of a guy named Colonel Sanders? Of course you have. How did Colonel Sanders become such an unbelievable success? Was it because he was born wealthy? Was his family rich? Did they send him to a top university like Harvard? Maybe he was successful because he started his business when he was really young. Are any of these true? The answer is no. Colonel Sanders didn't begin to fulfill his dream until he was 65 years old! What drove him to finally take action? He was broke and alone. He got his first Social Security check for $105, and he got mad. But instead of blaming society or just writing Congress a nasty note, he started asking himself, "What could I do that would be valuable for other people? What could I give back?" He started thinking about what he had that was valuable to others. His first answer was, "Well, I have this chicken recipe everyone seems to love! What if I sold my chicken recipe to restaurants? Could I make money doing that?" Then he immediately thought, "That's ridiculous. Selling my recipe won't even pay the rent." And he got a new idea: "What if I not only sold them my recipe but also showed them how to cook the chicken properly? What if the chicken was so good that it increased their business? If more people came to see them and they made more chicken sales, maybe they would give me a percentage of those additional sales." Many people have great ideas. But Colonel Sanders was different. He was a man who didn't just think of great things to do. He put them into action. He went and started knocking on doors, telling each restaurant owner his story: "I've got a great chicken recipe, and I think if you use it, it'll increase your sales. And I'd like to get a percentage of that increase." Well, many people laughed in his face. They said, "Look, old man, get out of here. What are you wearing that stupid white suit for?" Did Colonel Sanders give up? Absolutely not. He had the # 1 key to success; I call it personal power. Personal power means being persistent in taking action: Every time you do something, you learn from it, and you find a way to do it better next time. Colonel Sanders certainly used his personal power! Instead of feeling bad about the last restaurant that had rejected his idea, he immediately started focusing on how to tell his story more effectively and get better results from the next restaurant. How many times do you think Colonel Sanders heard no before getting the answer he wanted? He was refused 1,009 times before he heard his first yes. He spent two years driving across America in his old, beat-up car, sleeping in the back seat in his rumpled white suit, getting up each day eager to share his idea with someone new. Often, the only food he had was a quick bite of the samples he was preparing for prospective buyers. How many people do you think would have gone for 1,009 noes - two years of no's! - and kept on going? Very few. That's why there's only one Colonel Sanders. I think most people wouldn't get past twenty noes, much less a hundred or a thousand! Yet this is sometimes what it takes to succeed. If you look at any of the most successful people in history, you will find this common thread: They would not be denied. They would not accept no. They would not allow anything to stop them from making their vision, their goal, a reality. Did you know that Walt Disney was turned down 302 times before he got financing for his dream of creating "The Happiest Place on Earth"? All the banks thought he was crazy. He wasn't crazy; he was a visionary and, more important, he was committed to making that vision a reality. Today, millions of people have shared in "the joy of Disney," a world like no other, a world launched by the decision of one man. When I lived in my crummy little apartment, washing my dishes in the bathtub, I had to keep reminding myself of these kinds of stories. I had to keep reminding myself that: No problem is permanent. I kept thinking, "Even though my life looks terrible right now, there are many things to be thankful for, like the two friends I have, or the fact that I have all my senses, or that I can breathe fresh air." I constantly reminded myself to focus on what I wanted, to focus on solutions instead of problems. And I remembered that no problem affects my entire life, even though it may look like it right now. 10月3日 Timeless I saw a beautiful paint Flowers, acrylic, thick, rich and colorful I stared at the paint Hold my breath He came and ask me "Do you like art?" "Yes I do." "What do you feel when you look at the painting?" "It's hard to describe. It feels time has frozen, only the beauty matters, and it almost sucks your soul into it." "People told me that's called timeless." "Yes, timeless, that's right. When you look at a beautiful face, face a beautiful soul, hear a beautiful song, smell a beautiful scent. It's timeless." I saw a beautiful paint Flowers, acrylic, thick, rich and colorful It woke up my soul The soul that searches for timelessness The differences and respect Last week my mum and I went to climb Lu Shan Mountain before I went home, during the dinner I asked about my grandma's health and she swiftly changed the topic, I pretended that I didn't notice until she broke the news when I arrived home: Grandma has passed away 6 days before I flew back. I know that was her way of expressing her love as she would like to protect me from the sad news which could possibly ruin our holiday or influence my work. While talking to Gloria, the kiwi girl, she was quite puzzled about my mom's behavior after I told her my story. Apparently her mom, whom was originally from Samoa, are dealing with the worries about her family's wellness in samoa after a major tsunami and multiple earthquakes. To her, sharing bad news or vulnerable moments show trust and love, that's why it's a very normal thing for her to moan the recent death of her dog together with the family or share the emotional moments with her aunt's crying voice over the phone while moving out of the house to head for a highland. Participating in their loved ones' pain and adversity is a part of being loved while feeling needed by their loved ones. I suddenly understood that our differences. We Chinese people like to keep the negative events away from our loved ones, especially those that we feel our loved ones couldn't help much with, but instead we think what it can do is just to add worries, panic and pain to their lives. It's normal and understandable for us to hide the unfortunate events and only inform about the good ones. Of course partially that's because of the typically Chinese "saving face" behavior sometimes too, especially as we wouldn't like our friends and family circle to know about things that we feel shameful about. This made me further realize the importance of "respect for other people's model of the world" taught at the NLP training today. After all, there is no reality, only perceptions. 10月1日 Borrowed confidence and inner confidenceConducted a training for the sales managers on selling new events yesterday, found out the major challenge they are facing is "how to build confidence in the clients about something that has no track record". To my surprise, most of the experienced sales managers from the floor only found it possible to sell the event should there were some prior relationship from other events or brands.
It made me realize that how much our sales people are relying on borrowed confidence to build pipeline for the product, which made me appreciate much more about our chairman's courage to set up this company with no track record, starting in the basement of a church, and 100% financially dependent on the loan secured by his house mortgage. Same admiration goes to my uncle, who started his business in a foreign province alone with only less than 1000 yuan in his pocket and no prior relationships whatsoever, to build what is now a billion dollar business across 6 provinces. Back then, they had no external relationships and established brands to borrow from, what they had were just themselves.
I asked my uncle, "Were you scared when you started out?" He answered, "Of course I was scared, but seriously I have nothing to lose. If I fail, I pack my bags and go home, start all over again. But what if I succeed?"
My direct boss is a very smart and hard working business woman, who have contributed significantly to the company's growth. I once asked her why she never thought of starting her own business which I am sure she will succeed. She told me, "I thought about it but you know it's not easy. Do you know how hard it is to build the company brand and have all these infrastructure and marketing framework in place?" I know at the back of her mind, she is scared she can't succeed, as she couldn't convince herself whether all the trouble of starting out a new business is worth losing her MD title, 6 figure salary, company shares and huge bonuses for. She is, by all means, attached to borrowed confidence too, that maybe also explains why she has more than 10 Prada bags.
I thought to myself, maybe the tendency of people looking up to borrowed confidence from external sources is good to have. If people are all strong and tough enough to rely on their inner confidence, everybody will choose to study at home, read and experiment by themselves, everybody will choose to run their own businesses instead of working for someone else, there will be no such thing called "branding", "leadership" and "authority", branded universities and expensive MBA courses will lose all their businesses. So in a way, it gives the next generation entrepreneurs opportunities to tap on and make a big fortune by building new brands and objects for people to borrow confidence from.
With this, I conclude: The world is led by people with inner confidence to build some statue for the followers to borrow confidence from. This seems true for politics, business, religion and education. 9月30日 Life is a possibilityToday I was talking to one of my staff about a project that the production time has been delayed for a few weeks. I know if this project has to be delayed further it will have to be cancelled, all my time spent on market research, idea conceptualization, mentoring the staff, business development activities and hours and hours spending on drafting that beautiful programme will then go down to the drain. I communicated my worry and possible consequences to my external contract producer, who is the kind that is easily stressed and get emotional over things. She is getting panic and start to focus her negative energies on getting worried, she said, "what's the point to continue this project if it has to be cancelled anyway." My reply was "Look, I know we all have put in great effort into this project but there is no time to spend on emotions. Let's just do our best, even it has to be cancelled in the end, at least we wouldn't regret."
I was sometimes surprised over my impromptu statements over things, and this is one of them.
Actually her words have reminded me about myself in the past: "What's the point of trying if I know it's going to be extremely difficult and probably I wouldn't get a good result, coz a lot times, success is dependent on luck?" Then just realized years later that what I was doing was just to delay my actions another year later and simply not investing enough time to do what's necessary. Instead, I comfort myself by saying, "Even if I succeed, so what? Let me just flow with fate then." - Typical procrastination.
I recently heard of a theory which is quite close to my heart: We were sent to this world to learn about things and the law of the universe through suffering. We chose our parents from whom we can learn the biggest lesson from, then we leave the world with more wisdom and come back again until we have enough wisdom to come out of the Saṃsāra (wheel of suffering).
So I would like to ask myself "Even if I fail, so what?", "at least I tried my very best, I learnt something and I have no regrets when I die."
After all,
Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it. Life is bliss, taste it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is a duty, complete it. Life is a game, play it. Life is a promise, fulfill it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it. Life is luck, make it. Life is too precious, do not destroy it. Life is life, fight for it. - Mother Teresa
Life is a possibility, embrace it. 9月15日 BoundariesRecently I was talking to a girl friend who broke up with her fiance or soon-to-be husband. I asked why they broke up, especialy after they've put down the deposite for the wedding banquet. She tod me: "He took me for granted! I cook for him, I iron for him, I even take care of his dog! I did everything for him but he didn't appreciate that. Instead he seems to be less interested nowadays, super occupied by his work, spent less time with me and even raise his voice at me and telling me that I was demanding!" She is obviously hasn't over her anger yet.
"Hmm... I see. But why did he take you for granted?"
"Maybe he just lost interest in me, he is bored, or he love his job more than me!"
"Ok. Maybe that's true. But did you try to communicate with him what you feel when he does that to you and ask him to improve his behavior?"
"Yes, I did try to talk to him but he was always too tired from work to talk about it! But you know I don't like conflict. So when he was stressed out because of work and shouted at me, I'll keep quiet and try to talk to him when he cools down. But how can he do that to me? I did so much for him, I spent so much time for him that I didn't even have time to keep up my part-time studies. It's all his faults!"
"I understand. But you know what I will say? One hand alone cannot clap. He definitely didn't do a good job to be a perfect boyfriend. But don't you think you allowed him to take you for granted? You give him the power to disrespect your time. Maybe you have some responsibilities in this matter too."
She reminded me about my mum, who at times feel resentful towards how other people treat her not up to her expectation but chose to display passive aggressive behavior rather than direct confrontation. I used to hear mum complaining all the time how much she has done for my grandparents and other siblings of hers but was not appreciated. She would do things such as buying furniture for her brother without telling him in advance. She just decided that the furniture that her brother has at home were not good enough, so she went to the shop, chose other furnitures she liked, paid for them and ask them to be delivered to his door step. I guess she thought that was romantic and kind. My uncle was so shocked and obviously wasn't happy about her unexpected gift. He expressed his gratitude to mum, returned those furnitures and asked her to respect his life style and taste. Mum was very hurt by this and will bring out this every time to whine about how generous and giving she was and how badly she was unappreciated. Then father will joke with her that she is an international police officer. Then she will come to me to whine further how my father didn't understand and appreciate her either.
I realized that people who don't set boundaries for themselves also don't respect other people's boundaries. And there has been so much resentments built up between my parents over the years which caused them distant themselves emotionally because of failure of setting boundaries. People who don't have boundaries suffers from severe difficulties in taking ownership of their lives. Instead, they expand a lot of unproductive energy to please others by compromising more of their own needs and then feel resentful towards it. They are being extra nice out of fear that they will lose the support and love from those people if they don't comply to their requests. Then they want to take extra responsibility for other people's feelings and problems, which are totally unnecessary and not appreciated, which might be coming from a good intention nevertheless. Finally they feels like their lives are a miserable failure so they complains, "I have no choice! I have to do this. I don't want to be selfish. I need to be responsible for other people. But how come other people still treat me badly and don't respect my time and effort?!" They didn't notice that they asked for those themselves but they refuse to take ownership of it.
How important boundaries are!
I was recently starting to read the book called "Boundaries" and just finishing the first 25 pages made me understand so many boundariless patterns in myself and others. And I started to understand why it says you can only live in freedom if you start to define boundaries around you, ask people to treat you the way you want, and take responsibilities for your actions and outcomes without resenting that you did it for others when things doesn't work out the way you wanted in a later stage. It's not only important to define boundaries in relationships, but also at work places and any other social interactions. Only with boundaries, we will have control over our lives, will be able to live in freedom and free from fear. 8月31日 Do it anywayPeople are often unreasonable, Illogical and self-centred, Forgive them anyway. If you are kind People may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives, Be kind anyway. If you are successful, You will win some friends; And some true enemies, Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, People may cheat you, Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building Someone could destroy overnight, Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, They may be jealous, Be happy anyway. The good you do today People will often forget tomorrow, Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have And it may never be enough, Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, It is between you and The Greater Universe It is never between you and them anyway. |
notes from a friend: a guide to taking control|
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