Car parking

I live in a big city in China. There are cars everywhere.

Sometimes cars park behind or in the front of a parking lot in my community. They make the cars in the parking lot impossible to get out. If your car is among the parked cars, you have three options in the situation:

Call the driver to move his car if he leaves a phone number on his dashboard.
Call the office to report the car parking “illegally”.
Wait for unknowing time for the driver coming back to move his car.

If you are going to work, meeting others, or shopping by car, you can see that only the first option can possibly solve your problem quickly.

It is the driver’s consideration makes the difference. Leaving a contact phone number is a kind consideration for inconvenience. And it is not difficult to do. It shows your humility.

We need more kind, considerate people to live a more civilized community.

One’s edge

I learned from a girlfriend of mine that she came back from a team building day. One of her male colleagues surprised many people by acting as a car sales girl wearing bikini top.

The context is that her company is situated in a secondary city in China. She like many of her colleagues think this male fellow is a quiet, shy, introverted person.

There are other occasions that are beyond our expectation, especially about other people’s dos and don’ts.

What are the possible reasons for these?

We are biased? People are capable more than we expected? We have mentally set up boarders, limitations for others?

These are all possible.

We do not know our limitations, edges till we face challenges.

One’s edge can be extended facing difficulties, challenges.

Every challenge we conquered expand our comfortable zone. Therefore, we create new edge.

Until next circle of challenge we may live in our comfortable zone.

If you break your edge constantly, grow your space, you will have more break free area.

Live on edge.

No super you

You have a Ph.D degree. You have a MBA degree.

Obviously, you have mastered more knowledge in many ways. You may be assigned to an important position: profession, director. You are the boss to many people.

You give directions, you help other’s to do better at work. You may boss around others.

However,

You are only as good as your team.

You are not a super person to do everything, to be everything. You success are depending on your team’s success.

Build up a better team, this is where you need to put your energy and effort on.

To live is to thrive

If a patient’s cardiographs showing a straight line, we are facing a big problem. She may die if we don’t do something to make her beat again.

If her cardiographs showing waves of ups and downs, we feel good. We know our patient is alive and her heart is thriving.

To live is to thrive.

We seek opportunities, we pursue happiness, we learn new skills, we travel to find meanings in our lives.

We go through difficulty and happy times. We live our lives.

If we feel bored, feel nothing to do, feel don’t want to anything, we get a big problem.

When I had this feeling came to me, I pinched myself to check if I was still feeling anything. I did bizarre things to myself just to feel my existence.

All of our effort is to get satisfied with us, with our environment and feel alive.

Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now.

With this realization, how are you going to pay attention to the present moment?

Find those making your current moment a quality one. Find those making you thrive. Find those sparking in your life and find a way how to get more of those thriving moments in your life.

Life is yours to live.

Speak the truth

To speak the truth saves money, resources, and it’s more effective and efficient.

But, it’s very hard for us to speak truth. It demands courage.

It took courage to tell that The emporia had no cloth on.

It needs an honest and frank and innocent mind to speak the truth.

We have many “The emporia’s new cloth” moments. These test our courage, character, and capability to tell the truth.

To change a culture, it needs you tell the truth from a small thing. Every change starts from one step at a time.

However, speaking truth cant be measured by small steps or big steps. Speaking the truth is reflection of your character and courage. It is a step to make a difference in the world.

The price of serendipity

Serendipities happen.

We wish they happen to us as well.

Actually serendipities can happen to you.

However, every serendipity happens for a reason.

The reason is that you have prepared for it. You’ve done essential homework. Even tough you may not be aware of this.

To have serendipities happen to you, you can start to write down any random bits come to your mind and write them down. This is an essential process for serendipity.

The price of serendipity is the preparation.

Chance favors the prepared mind.

Your choice: which to keep, which to stop

To be better, to do better and to be success all need you to make a tough choice: which one is to keep, which one is to stop.

Oprah Winfrey said, “One of the hardest things in life to learn is which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.”

To be better, you need to learn new things and new skills, grow new muscles, find new trails.

Therefore, you need abandon old habits, say NO to certain things, give up for things do not work for you: give up a project, give up a relationship, give up a friend…

To do better, it requires you to keep growing your courage to fight imposter syndrome, to be brave, to implement your action plan and be diligent.

Therefore, stop blaming yourself, stop complaining, focus on your process and enjoy it.

To be success, it requires you to be clear on what you will keep and what you will stop doing.

Therefore, do a regular reflection and check those “keeps” and “stops”.

Rome is not built on one day. It’s your choice to get it built the way you want.

Comfortable vs uncomfortable

We are told by key opinion leaders that we need go out of our comfort zone. Only then we can grow and feel alive.

Many executives say that they are always in an uncomfortable status. That’s how they make changes and grow their business. Their motto is to be uncomfortable to be alert.

The learning is to get used to uncomfortable.

Uncomfortableness is a new norm.

The other one

She could not move her eyes off the nearby colleagues in the office, especially the one sitting right across a walkway from her, lady D.

She determined that lady D was her biggest competition. Because of lady D, she did not get promoted, and did not get the big bonus she thought she could get.

She got upset when their boss gave a new project to lady D, not to her. She felt her whole day got ruined because of lady D could argue with their boss and dared say No to certain assignments.

“How dare she? I even can’t beg for an assignment.” She thought.

She could not stand the way lady D talked to their boss. She recorded the time lady D came to the office secretly and got mad when lady D left early and came late.

She thought this is unfair.

One day, lady D left the office for good. She moved to another city with her husband.

Suddenly, she felt empty and hungry, something was missing.

After a while, she realized there were holes in her life.

“Who am I? What do I want? What makes me happy?”

She began her soul searching and self-discovery journey.

After two years of coaching, learning, self reflection, She has realized that her competition in life is not the other one, not lady D.

Her competition is herself.

Her biggest competition is herself.

Her future competition is herself as well.

Crack

We fill cracks on the floor, on the road, in a wall.

We fill cracks and holes in our hearts with all sorts of desires and stories. We are panic when we leave the crack open without putting anything in immediately. We can’t handle the exposure of our vulnerability easily.

It takes courage to see our vulnerability, to experience the pain.

However,

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” By Leonard Cohen

When you open your vulnerability, you will receive new energy. A new birth will take place.