Yesterday

Yesterday was the best day in your life.

Yesterday was the most successful day in your life.

What you have from yesterday can bring you sweet memory, can expend your experience, can give you strength to be successful again in future.

But,

Yesterday’s greatness will not guarantee tomorrow’s glory. What got you here will not bring there.

Just like yesterday’s sunshine will not dry today’s wet cloth. Yesterday is gone forever.

You have to get up and step forward continuously, no matter what happens. You have to restart your new day, every day, with a sunshine mindset.

Treasure yesterday, Embrace today, walk strongly towards to tomorrow.

A leader with curiosity

One of the attributes a leader should have is curiosity.

What does it mean for a leader to have curiosity?

It means that a leader should have consultative skills when she leads. She learns about her teams by asking good questions to clarify situations, provoke thoughts, engage with employees, and show empathy…

In addition, a leader with curiosity is a leadership with growth mind. A growth mindset is the essential attribute to be a good leader, an effective leader and successful leader.

Change others, Serve others

We want to have influence, to be impactful.

What is the key element to do so?

It’s not power, not authority, not loud voice, not force…

It’s your ability to serve others.

Only when you are able to serve others, you can connect with them and get trust from them.

Serve others mean you know what they need, what they want, and you are capable to provide these to them. Therefore, they listen to you.

Sometimes they don’t know what they want. It’s your responsibility to let them realize or see what they want and provide these to them.

These places are where your leadership shows. Where you serve others that you make your impact.

Success is a kind of feeling…

We all want to have success.

Success is mistakenly labeled as the end of the journey, the destination, the place you can happily live after…

But,

Success is a kind of feeling. Success is a moving target. Success is a sense of achievement at one stage of your life. Your life moves on, so you always can reach your next success down the road.

When you are success, it’s great that you have embodied your capability and skills now for certain things you’ve done. However, what got you here, may not get you there. This success can’t guarantee your next success.

The good news is that you were successful once, you have better chance to do it again. You can copy what you’ve succeeded for other things you want to do.

The key is to keep your momentum of success. Make it sustainable. Make it a habit.

A sense of success is a wonderful feeling after all.

What would you do if you have the permission?

One question is being asked:

“If you have the permission to create, to speak up, to be generous, to fail… what would you do? ”

What comes to your mind when you see the question?

Just pause for a moment and reflect: how many things you do that you are waiting or seeking for permission… check how many of them limits your creativity, how many of them do not reflect your personal identification, how many of them limit your kind initiatives, internal desire and your freedoms…

Image – tomorrow morning you get up. You are entitled the permission to do anything under the law.

What would be one thing you can do at this moment that you will not need permission any more for once?

Then do it.

If you can do something ONCE without permission, you can do this twice, three times, and more times…

Break a routine needs break that routine thinking. It needs awareness, courage, and execution to get new experience, momentum, and transformation.

Go to do ONE thing today that you no longer need the permission.

Dreams, Goals, Tasks…

You hear these three words very often: dreams, goals and tasks. What are in common among them?

May be not much. However, they are closely and intricately connected.

We all have dreams. They keep us alive.

Sometimes, we share our dreams with others and we get a sense of accomplishment.

Sometimes, we also share our goals with others and this also provide us a sense of achievement.

But, if you stop or hang over at these stages, it’s not a surprise. Because your psychological mind has played a game with you, ie. it makes you feel you’ve got there after you tell others about your dreams and goals. Therefore, you don’t feel and have the urgency to do anything about them.

The real thing that leads you to realize your dreams and goals is the task.

You need to do your tasks to make your dreams and goals come true.

“I long to accomplish a noble and great task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they are noble and great ones.” Hellen Keller.

Find your daily tasks. Every tiny, small tasks will get you closer to your dreams and goals.

Leadership is a hard work

You want to be in a leadership. Do you know it requires hard work, very hard work to be in a leadership position?

You would be creative and strong to face uncertainty. You would be emotionally intelligent enough to deal with tough challenges with business acumen. You would be empathetic to your employees. You would be accountable and consistent for whom you are. You would be making tough calls…

Therefore, showing your leadership means you are permanent student to learn about your team and industry; permanent parent to take care your employees and business; permanent linchpin to hold your organization together and strong.

This is hard work.

Successful leaders always do the hard work. One thing is worthy of mentioning, they enjoy what they do, even though they do these full of sweets and are covered with mud.

Extend yourself

When I say that you have extended yourself in life, how do you feel? what do you see yourself look like?

I feel from time to time that I have extended myself… during those time periods, I feel that I have connected to others, connected to the surroundings from my extremities smoothly, no border, no end… I am in a free flow net – I am part of the net…

My reflection tells me that these moments and periods in life are the time when I generously offer myself to others without any string attached. I honestly give my effort to others from a empathetic place, from a compassionate action. I offer others with my emotional labor. These actions make me feel myself and I’m satisfied with what I do.

The offers I give are not forced.

In fact, offers should be given people in needed and people asked for the needs.

I believe that everyone is Naturally Creative, Resourceful and Whole.

With this believe, we give people benefits of doubts. We give people the chances for trial and failure. Because we believe they can create, find their resource and discover their potential on their, or with some help.

With this believe, we connect with people. We get trust from people. Therefore, we extended ourselves by this bonding and connection.

This is how we make our mark in the world. This is how we make a difference. This is how we an impact to others.

Extend yourself today.

What is being open-minded?

We say to be open is a pleasant trait. Therefore, we all strive to be an open-minded person.

What is exactly being open-minded?

Being open is an altitude. It’s an altitude towards work and life. Being open provides you more opportunity to see things in many angles, with more possibilities and options. It also provides you more opportunities to connect with people, to get closer to the truth of a matter, to get more accuracy to do things.

Does open-minded mean you have to listen to others all the time? Most of the time? Or some of the time?

It really depends…

Being a leader, you may need to be more open in order to get fuller evaluation of a situation. Therefore, you will get better judgement and reduce the chance for potential risk. You can make decisions quickly for smaller things, but with open discussion and debate for bigger (fewer) decisions.

Jeff Bezos said “People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot.”

He believes that if you do not change your mind frequently, you are going to be wrong a lot.

Therefore, being open means you need to be ready to change your minds, to face tough situations, to embrace the pain to grow stronger.

Being open-minded is not a show. It gets to be from the bottom of your heart. Only then, you can learn, grow, and get better for what you do.

Live truly for yourself with a growth-mind, ie, an open-mind.

Work with purpose

We all want to have the drive for a good work.

However,

Some days we are not clear what we do will deliver our expected results or not. Some days we are frustrated by many meticulous things in life and at work. Some days we are distracted… or tired…

we are human.

To have a good day of work is to know your purpose every day. Every time you feel not clear about what you do. You will need to take a break and dig deep to think your purpose of work.

Because every moment is unique. Once it passes, it’s gone forever. To make our work enjoyable, we need have a purposeful doing. This will make us feel meaningful, energize us and have a good day.

You could have a few times a day, say five moments, to pause, reflect, meditate, looking for bigger picture, appreciate… realign your work with your purpose.

Each moment could last a few minutes, or even some seconds. It can make a big difference to your quality of work.

Work with purpose.