Keep clam and strong in a dynamic world

We are living in a very dynamic world in many folds. One particular case is the spin caused by coronavirus originated from Wuhan, China,

Many people died because the infections and complications caused by coronavirus. The situation has become so sever that people in Wuhan are under quarantine, different places identified with positive infections worldwide are under quarantine… anyone comes from China needs to be quarantined fro two weeks before she can go out…

What are consequences of all these?

People in China are delayed to go to work, or work from home.
Universities, all schools are turning into online educations.
International companies manufacture products, parts or raw materials in China are not in their capacity for the planned production goals.
TXS had deep dive yesterday (biggest in ten years) because of the fear of spreading of coronavirus.
International supply chains are disrupted due to the quarantines in China.
Individuals in China have limited activities to have real time face to fact interactions, or even outdoor activities…
Some People outside of China become racists towards Chinese…

What a world are we living in?

We are living in an close connected world, fluid world, and vulnerable world.

The world becomes smaller, because we all interconnected. Any changes in one country will impact the activities in other countries.

The whole world is like a family. Any changes from a family member will cause others members to do something new or additional. Therefore, other members are changing too.

Changing is infectious. Changing is infinite.

A true calling for an individual is to be true to oneself, know who you are, what you want, whom do you want to become, and whom do you want to know…

When we know or seek to know who we are with an open mind, we are on the road for self liberation, freedoms. We accept changes, we adapt to changes, we make changes. Then we evolve.

The adaptability is the strongest skill. That’s why coronavirus can survive and caused so many death. We need adapt our capability to out-survive coronavirus, and we can, and we are.

No need for panic.

No need for complain.

We are strong. We have things to do.

We focus. We agile. We triumph.

How to get unstuck at work and move forward

– The number one crucial step is to get where you want to be

Linda is my best friend.

After she graduated from a university in pharmaceutical with a Master degree, she landed a nice job with the largest State owned pharmaceutical company in China. After eight years, she became the youngest senior engineer in the company and was assigned with an international project to work in Tokyo in a Nobel Prize Winner’s laboratory.

Linda completed her project in two years in Japan, published her research results on a peer-reviewed international journal…

She applied grant after returning from Tokyo. She was pumped with energy and excitement with her new learning and research capability after coming back to her company. She wanted to contribute more…

However, her grant application got denied.

Linda was back to where she was two years ago.

How do you feel if you were Linda? Disappointed? May be.

But, life moves on.

Would you stay where you are if you were Linda?

The reality was that being in a state owned pharmaceutical company is like that you already have your golden bow for the rest of your life, with the nice salary and benefits. And Linda’s family and friends were around as well…

Linda was frustrated, not satisfied with her situation at work…

Time passed by… one week… one month… three months…

Linda was not happy, and she noticed that she developed shoulder pain, and neck pain… The pains became so sever that she had to see her doctor…

She had medication, acupuncture and message treatments…

Six months passed by her pains were still lingering around…

She went to an international conference to present her research in Japan. A professor from Canada was very interested in her research and came to her asking questions. The discussion went for a while… and Linda was encouraged to apply for a Ph.D study in his lab.

So she did,

Linda followed her heart – the internal craving for growth, bravely with clear determination. And her pains mysteriously disappeared soon after.

Person growth is the number drive for our happiness. If you are not satisfied with your situation, look internally and pay attention what makes you tick.

Very often, what makes us tick, makes us burst to sing, usually reflects our personal value, and what is meaningful for us.

So become more aware of those signals. Become more clear with what you want and why you want it.

Once you are clear what you want, you are half way to your success.

Go deep to find what you want today. Clarity is the key.

There is no overnight success, it is augmented progress makes so

We hear stories often that someone became success overnight. We wonder what makes them so success suddenly.

The real stories are that they have been working hard and smart for a long while, with ups and downs before they are successful.

One of the most important traits of the successful people is confidence. They are confident to do whatever it takes to pursue their goals, till get to their destination.

They make progress daily, take baby actions:

One step a day
One conversation a time
One connection at a time
One day, another day, another day…

The augmented progress adds up.

Just like moving one stone at a time, days and days later, stones form a mountain. And suddenly people see it, notice it.

Mountain can be formed from one stone at a time.

We need go to do the thing we get to do. We need see the client we get to see. We need make the call we get to see. That’s how we slowly build up our mountain, our momentum.

Momentums form our milestones, our small goals, big goals, then our success.

Start today, start small, as long as you start, you are getting closer to your success.

What is chasing you?

We are in a very dynamic and turbulent world now. Things are constantly come and thrown to us.

How can we find a peace of mind, keep focusing on our priority and do things confidently and efficiently?

What I found that works for me is to keep asking three questions:

Where do I want to go?
What is chasing you?
What future do I want to create?

First, “where do I want to go” gives me the sense of direction. This includes the goals I want to achieve, milestones to reach etc.

I need to be clear on this and align me actions to the goal every day. This goal is my filter of doing my work or living my life.

Second, “what is chasing you” let’s me having an internal dialogue with myself. Why I feel the way I’m feeling now? What makes me feel this way?

When I was in elementary grade one, I was chosen to be in a musical band. The musical teacher said I have the natural figures for Erhu (one Chinese music instrument), therefore I should be in the band.

Being in the band means I had to go practice after school. I hated. I began to escape the practice. Many times later, my band teacher went to my home talking to my parents about it.

I felt the shame of escaping the band and became very sensitive to criticizes and rejections at work.

Only after many years at work, I realized how the childhood experience had been chasing me for what I did and how I behaved in the past.

Now I have become much better in handing rejections and critiques. But the childhood experience had chased me many many years.

After recognizing my “trauma” and it’s impact on me, I have becoming more conscious my emotional experience and not let it being on my way.

Third, “what future do I want to create” has huge impact on my life. This is the light house of our journey.

If you can picture what do you want to create for you, you can live the future in your NOW. This is a very powerful initiative for me. It is the reason why I get up every morning from the bed and pumped up.

Summary:

These three powerful questions can change your life. And they can create a sense of self peacefully and happily do what your calling requires you to do.

Ask yourself the three questions and put your answers into action. I hope you can stand tall and still in this chaotic world.

Getting self help book is to get your prescription

If you go to see your doctor, she gives you a prescription after. Will you go to drug store to get your medicine?

“Why not?” You May ask.

Exactly. You will.

But, think for a moment: did you read all the self help books you bought in the past? How many you actually read well?

I remember even last November when I clean my book shelf, I found a few books I haven’t started reading yet…

What is going on here?

For me, the time I search books and buy books is the most exciting time. Because I have the urge to learn something from reading these books and with underlined statement that I will gain skills and knowledge from the reading – to become a better self somewhat.

When books arrive to me, I feel that I have completed some of my mission – it feels that I already “there” (read the books). And my enthusiasm for gaining the information has diminishing a little bit.

I knew I need some help in contain areas, but I did not want to do the hard work to read the books.

The hard work is to take action.

The hard work is to do the work.

If we just buy the books and don’t read them, we are hiding. We using owning books as excuses for not doing the real work.

Getting the self help book and read them.

Do the real work.

Take your medicine.

You will become a better a little bit after reading each book. Your aggregated progress by reading one book at a time gets you a little bit better every time, and a better self.

Design your environment for your growth and success

I was living in an apartment on the 31st floor of a building two year ago.

The building is located in a very nice private community with many facilities conveniently nearby. I can go down stairs and walk 50 steps or so to a Recreation Sport Center.

Therefore, I went to the Rec Center regularly for running. I became a runner.

Then I moved to another city to another apartment, which is not close to any sport center. However, there is nice yoga studio near by. Soon I became a yoga lover and only occasionally go out for a run.

Even though I love the feeling after running and I have tried a few times to discipline myself to keep running regularly, but I have hard time to keep it up.

I find I always have some reasons for not going out for a run: it’s a gloomy day; it’s a little bit cold; it’s a little bit hot; the traffic is busy; the pavement is not even…

You see, the environment has a big impact on my behavior. I choose easy route to do things.

This tendency also reflects in my life for doing other things.

One of the laws for forming a habit by James Clear is to “Make it easy”.

Therefore, if you want to success and grow a good habit, in addition to your motivation, one important thing is to make your action easy; it is to create an environment in favor of your action.

James stated that there are four laws for forming a habit:

Making it obvious
Make it attractive
Make it easy
Make it satisfying

Among the laws, “Make it easy” by changing your environment is the one easily being overlooked, yet it is a very important factor for your success.

Back to my previous story. I moved to a house after two years living in the apartment near by a yoga studio. The house is very close to a Rec Sports Center. Now, living in this house, I start running again!

I chose the place where I live. I want it be close to a sport center. This close proximity makes my life so easy. I enjoy running and yoga and other facilities and activities offered by the center. I feel good about myself after exercises. I enjoy the energy generated from my regular exercises.

My habit comes back to me.

This experience can be applied and it has spilled over to my life in other areas.

Changing your environment, change your life.

Changing your friends, change your life.

I ask you take an inventory of your life:

If you want to improve your life for better, 1% better by end of the week, what one change you want to make?
What environment you need create to make yourself easier to make the change?

Design your environment, you will one step close and easier close to your success.

Use your “placebo” to show your confidence

I found that if I jotted down a few lines I need to say for a meeting beforehand, these lines serve me very well.

I could forget some details. But these lines are my lighthouse directing me to navigate during the meeting. I could regain my confidence with those lines. They also serve me as my placebo and back born for my confidence during those occasions.

Similarly, I can give myself some prep-talk when I am not sure what I can do and how do I act during other occasions. This kind of talk backs me up, serve me as my placebo many times over.

You can be as good as your placebo.

Dr. Joe Dispenza said, “You are the placebo: mind matters”. He has documented many cases for patients who believe placebo effect have reversed their illness and sickness.

We can psychic our mind and prepare our mentality, for good or for bad.

With all the placebo effect, why not you choose the one good for you?

Because when we lack confidence, we are suffering. We are stressed. We do silly things and regret. We make our family and friends worried as well.

We get to set our intention, our placebo, our mind to make us feel confident. So that we can be our good, better and best self.

Here are a few steps you can start:

Make a collection of your positive peak moments
When you feel the little monkey in your belly drumming up and down, find a quite place and take a few deep breath
Create your placebo
Use your placebo freely when you need it

What are the real skills that serve you life time?

We interview two most promising candidates for one important position for the company.

The two candidates have stellar resume, great interviews (three rounds after initial screening interview). They both are in their early forty, full of energy and ambition.

The executive interview committee members come together to vote for The One after the last round of interview. Strangely, contrary to previous Interview results, this vote is tilted to candidate B.

The reason?

Most committed members feel certain uncertainty about candidate A, but hard to put a finger on the exact reason.

I would call this as instinct, a haunch, or a doubt, or may lack of some trust.

As matter of fact, we all have similar experience under different circumstances. We know some people have excellent education, but hard to connect, difficult to work with. These people, we say, lack of “soft skills”.

Soft skills we refer here include personality traits, such as

resilience,
generosity,
honesty,
open minded,
empathy,
sympathy,
grit,
kindness,
communication skills,
Emotional maturity…
etc.

As a matter of fact, these so called soft skills are The Real Skills we all need to have a sustainable career, to have fulfilled and happy life.

Employees without these real skills, a company will not operate healthily for long. And employees will not be very happy working there.

These real skills are difficulty to measure, to quantify. Therefore, it’s difficulty for companies to use them as hiring criteria.

Knowing there are so many self helping books regarding the development of these skills, more and more coaches come to help people discover their real skills, I feel the time for mastering the real skills is coming.

To develop these real skills is hard. It is scary. It needs a lot of work.

We will get to face:

our fear of imposter
Fear of imperfect
Fear of not good enough
Fear of rejection
Fear of failure…

Only when we take charge of fear, we can take a moment to see things from other’s shoes. We can bounce back to our life to do things we get to do. We can grow our muscles stronger. Then we can develop our real skills further.

Educations are necessary for us to learn.

The real skills can get us to a more productive, happier and long lasting route.

Happy everyday…

I have a long time mentee asked me, “How can we keep a happy life on a daily basis?”

Obviously this question has bothered her for a long while.

I don’t have answer for her.

To me, I would ask me a different question, “How can I keep feeling content each day?”

“Happy” is a good word. Feel happy is a good feeling. But your happiness is different from mine. Therefore, happy is a vague word to measure our daily life.

However, when we talk about content, we have something in common. We all pursue satisfaction, growth, safety and security, love…

We pursue a career that can fulfill our ambition. We want to have a partner loves us, understands us and supports us. We want to have steady income for our living security. We want to have an environment that provides us safety and life quality.

To keep us feeling content is a mentality. A mentality that lets us feel we are alive, not bored.

We are exited when we are dating, when we get a new job or a promotion, when we move to a new place, when we meet new friends… We sometimes call these happy time – peak moments.

And you can’t have these moment s all the time, very often.

So the big challenge is how to keep content after the peak moments?

Habit expert James Clear asked one of his coaches about what makes the top performers different from the rest of us. The coach said genetics, luck, talent, and added that at some point, it comes down to who can handle the boredom of doing the same thing over and over and over…

Anyone can work hard when they feel motivated. However, it’s ability to keep going when work isn’t exciting that makes the difference. And this may not make you happy, it may let you feel content for what you do.

This is the dividing line between a professional and an amateur.

Happy every day may not be your goal. Happiness is a consequence of your being after your doing.

You do not need build up your confidence

To have confidence is a good feeling. To be confident you may need go through a tough journey and do some hard-work.

When I was recruited as an executive to a company I knew little, I took the chance. I remember that I was commented as an fit leader because I came from a different industry and I was not an expert for the industrial content matter not very long into my role.

I sure felt like my stomach punched at that time. I feel I had the moment of the emperor from the Emperor’s New Cloth. I was naked, totally exposed and vulnerable.

However, I also felt the relieve that I do not to pretend I knew everything. I can felt that my ego was run away hiding some where.

So I openly acknowledged that and asked their help to build a stronger company together. It took a while to build trust and bonding with my former colleagues. But the experience has strengthened my confidence through vulnerability.

To build up your confidence is actually a wrong statement.

Everyone has the confidence.

What keeps us from doing the things we want to do, we get to do, we love to do is our willingness to put us out there, to experience our vulnerable moments, to be human.

As human, we all make mistakes, do silly things from time to time. It is our sympathy towards to ourself set us free. We give ourself second, third, fourth… chance to do things right. We learn from our experience. This is how confidence is progressing.

Confidence is a journey you take.

Confidence is a choice you make.

You have confidence in you when you were born. It waits there for you to discover it and re-discover it all the time. Confidence is your life long companion.