Laugh and love

My best friend asked me. Why him. I said. He makes me laugh. That's why. And after more than 10 years of marriage, he is still making me laugh. And it is only now I realise why he makes me laugh. 

I won't

You said to me, she is so special you can't let her go. I said Neither can I. The moment she walked into my life - literally so - I knew she is here to teach me lessons in life. Sayang is one special cat. I won't let her go. 

Reading makes my heart light

Small blend of magic

I am always into making "big wishes". You know, those that shakes the earth, moves mountains and nothing short of turning water into wine. That sort of big stuff.

It was not until a friend, Bea, who shared with me her story about wishing small, her wish was for an iPad. Magically, three days later, she found a long forgotten overseas bank account with money to buy her the much wanted iPad and more.

Inspired, I said. Ok. Let me wish for something really small too.

You see, I ve been thinking about getting an extra blender. I like my fruit juices or blended fruit smoothies - which I make religiously every morning. When I am at work, I sometimes feel like having fresh juice but there is - of course - no blender at work. However I also think it is quite frivolous to have two blenders. One for home. One for office.

Still, after hearing Bea's story, I closed my eyes and wished silently.

A day later, when I was at Fortress, a large Hong Kong electronic shop to buy a humidifier, I looked wistfully at the blenders. Big ones, small ones, powerful ones, stylish ones. Whilst they are no where near as expensive as iPad, I am careful not to buy stuff just because I want them.

Anyway......my bear said, we have this blender at home. He pointed to a small travel size blender of a good brand.

"We do?" I asked in surprise.

Yup. In the cupboard. Got it years ago, free from one of the credit cards. Its still unopened.

"Unopened?" I parroted dumbly. My heart beating fast by now. 

 

You can imagine that I can hardly sit still all the way home as I cannot believe I have the blender I have been thinking about. Wishing about.


Back home, the blender is really up on one of the shelves, still in box, never opened.


With shaking hands, the blender is removed from the box and cleaned. And it works perfectly. Yes, I can take it to work. Even better, I can take it for my long travels (I will be in India two weeks in Jan, and this will continue to supply the fresh juices)

When I was drinking the smoothie freshly blended by my new found blender, I thought about the miracles of small wishes. In my case, a small blend of magic.

With the dawning of a new year, wish all your little wishes and your big dreams come true in special ways. Happy new year. May 2014 herald in another 365 days of magical time.

--

Best wishes for 2014

Q

 

 

 

FOOTNOTE:

 

 

 

Do you know that I have set up a blog together with my friends Sean Sha, Tracy Xu (in cc mail). It is held by Wechat/Weixin and we update it regularly with stories/sharings/learnings - such as my little funny story above. Hope to see you on Art Of Flying Blog.

 

Sean has kindly provided the instructions to get linked up on Weixin blog

 

QR Code for Art of Flying

 

 

INSTRUCTIONS

 

(A) If you know how to use WeChat, the simplest way to join ArtofFlying at WeChat.

1.At the bottom of Wechat choose Discover and then choose Scan QR Code

2.And then Scan the QR code you see in the e-mail and follow it. 

3.QR Code

 

B) If you are very new to WeChat and want to join the ArtofFlying

1. Find App Store

2.Press Search

3.Search WeChat and Install

4.Once you Installed, press WeChat

5.At the bottom, choose contacts, and then choose Subscripition Accounts

6. At the up right corner, choose the cross 

7.Search ArtofFlying and then Press the result

8.Press Follow

9.Once you press Follow, you can choose view history to see all the previous articles

9 Previous Articles

Willing to learn? How far will you go?

When new gradutes are interviewed, undoubtedly 9 out of 10 will claim "Willing to learn" as one of their strengths. When it comes to "Willing to learn", no one can beat a young man called Larry.

        A final year student in finance, Larry travelled 20 hours by train to/fro to listen to one corporate professional speak for 2 hours.

        Intrigued, I asked Larry. Is she famous like Hillary Clinton? No. Do you know her well? No. I never met her before. Is she a good speaker? I don't know. Will you get a certificate? No.

        My goodness, why are you taking all the trouble? He smiled and softly replied, "Because I love to learn. And I believe I can learn from her."

        Larry travelled not only once, but twice to learn from the speaker, who each time spoke for only 1 or 2 hours. He said he will travel the third, fourth, N-th time as long as knowledge awaits him on the other side of the journey.

        THAT my friends, is the true King of Willing To Learn.

        H a p p y   f o o t n o t e:  The corporate speaker and Larry are now friends, and this young man is invited as VIP guest for all her speaking engagements - including those that are for C-level participants only. 

Larry can be reached at weixin:briliantlarry

Uhm......is this your bad habit?

I have a bad habit.

Very often, I don't zip back my bag after opening it. Kind strangers will walk up to me and worriedly caution, "Miss, your bag is opened." Actually, I have lost things too. Still, I never quite learnt to zip up my bag.

Most of us have this or that bad habit. Have you ever thought where it came from? When it started? And most importantly, how to motivate yourself to kick the bad habit?

One bad habit some speakers have is the constant use of Umm, Ahh, Err or You know. When used too much, these are annoying noises to our listeners.

Want to know my Ahh secret, how I stopped this habit?

Very simple. Here's how.

Whenever you are about to say Umm or Ahh, just open your mouth but do not let the sound come out! It may escape the first few times, but later, you will learn to catch it before it slips from your lips. 

Your Ahh when silent, becomes a pause in your speech. Remember what I say about Pauses? Pauses in speech - no matter long or short - are always welcomed by our listeners. So there you are -- cure a bad habit and gain a brownie point. Are you motivated to give it a try?

Now, your turn to advise me how to kick my bad habit of not zipping up my bag, ok?  :)

Footnote:  Talking about habits, author Charles Duhigg of the Power of Habit found a sure-fire way to replace bad habits with good ones. 

Drop us your name and email if you like to receive more information onThe Power of Habit. Let's learn some good habits together!

Zero to One Hundred in 3 lessons

Join me and my friends on Wechat / Weixin, by Scanning the QR Code below - for my updates on leadership and strategic tips. See ya!

From Terrible to Terrific

        Absolutely no one. Yes, no one would believe that I used to be horrible at public speaking. No one except my boss, Wander Meijer, who saw me stutter and stammer, turned pale and then turned very red in the face as I stood on the stage to deliver my annual address as CFO of the company.

        Up to then - that was in 2006, I was hopeless at presentations. Did I do anything about it? Yes! I usually make up my lack of confidence with heavy laden PPT slides - full of words, full of numbers, full of pictures. Slide, please speak for me. Did I do anything about it? No. I thought I am too hopeless to be helped by any training. So I suffered silently for many years.

        In 2006, I received a global award from USA Centre of Creative Leadership and with it,  invitations to speak publicly. Out of desperation, I hired a coach to save me. It was baptism by fire with 3 sessions of 1:1 coaching over 2 weeks.

        Surprisingly, my first public presentation post-coaching was so well received. Audiences of C-level calibre generously awarded me with 3.95 out of a maximum score of 4 for content and style. Magically and almost overnight, I transformed from a Terrible speaker into a Terrific speaker. Literally from Zero to 100% confidence in 3 lessons.

        As a result, I am now very passionate in helping you make the same transformation because I know it is very easy. And I promise you, really fun and practical. 

Jungle lessons

For four days and three nights, I spent alone in the deep of a Borneo rainforest. Not exactly alone I guess, as the forest is alive everywhere and 24 hours a day.

The ants were first to welcome me when I alighted from the 4-wheel drive provided by Borneo Rainforest Lodge to take guests from Lahad Datu Airport into the heart of Danum Valley, some 77km away and takes 2.5 hours on a gravel track. The ants are everywhere, even hurrying up my lunch table to check my lunch choice as I opened my pack of "nasi kuning" lunch and sweet coconut dessert, a sugary Malay kueh.

My guide is a stocky chap with a wide grin, Rafel, dressed in pale green long sleeved shirt with a big BRL logo emblazoned on it, and long khaki pants. He pointed to his calf, covered with a grey cotton cloth pulled up to the knees and bunched up with a string and asked "Have you got your leech socks yet?" Ok, the forest is alive with leeches too!


Some lessons learnt in the jungle:

LESSON ONE: I am jungle food

Everything flying, crawling, looping, creeping view me as food supply. The sandflies swarm in droves to bite my neck, the only exposed area when I trek. Leaving red angry welts, like a large ruby necklace. Leeches are just as eager to make my acquaintance, looping up my leech socks in desperate such for exposed flesh.















LESSON 2: everything is bigger than life in the forest. I mean really big

LESSON 3: Human, apes and monkeys are primates, and the difference btw an ape and monkey is that the ape has no tail. Neither have I. I am an ape???????

LESSON 4: Everything you see in Danum is real. It is also wild.

Lesson 5: In the forest, magic is everywhere. So is colour. 

  
LESSON 6: There is more medicinal options in the jungle than in a modern clinic. Organic too.

When I hurt my hand, I had many options to choose from. Boiled tree root, Leaves meshed into pulp, Jungle oil (herbal). I choose jungle oil - called Ubat Batu or Stone medicine. Smells comforting, feels smooth when applied and leaves no marks.

Princess or GI Joe

As the date draws near for my solo spa resort/jungle trip, I am getting pretty excited. 

The Hubby Bear worries about me disappearing into the bowels of an untamed Jungle. A rainforest lodge in the heart of nowhere. Hubby's worry is my fault really, as I told him that the rhinoceros beetle I saw back in 1990 was bigger than the palm of my hand. I suppose it then led him to think that the cicak (gecko) must be Godzilla-like. And given that Malaysia has lots of cicaks, there must be an impressive gang of Godzillas roaming about on the ceiling of my hotel lodge. 

My only issue is, I am keen to be packing like a princess for my stay in lovely 5-star spa beach side resort, but then, realised I need more ammo than a GI Joe for the rainforest stint. The princess wants to take along a nice handbag, sunglasses, headscarf, colour pencils and a drawing book, alongside the dresses and court shoes. The GI Joe is screaming for mosquito (leech) repellent, Nike sneakers, long pants - fortified if possible (against leeches), linen shirts, tshirts, baseball cap, khaki clothes, thick socks. 

How now? Princess or GI Joe.

A well meaning friend said "GI can go for spa, but princess shouldnt be in the forest".  

Goddess of Little things

I have entered a new state in life. 

A state of doing nothing, but at the same time, doing everything I wanted to do but have never found the time to do the said thing unhurriedly.

Today I made time. Time for a simple little pleasure of sitting by the window sill and watching the clouds float by. Enjoying the warmth of the morning sun, enveloping the green lush mountain. Peeking into the treasure chest of creative allures.

It was then I made a small promise for myself. Each day I should look forward to savouring the small things in life. 

And just like that, I started my first day of A Year Of Little Things.