What Seals our Fate

 What Seals our Fate

Good question.  WHAT SEALS OUR FATE ?  Our foes ?  Nope. Our adversaries, if any ?  Not at all.  Our work environment ?  Definitely NO.  Or is it force majeure after all ?  It's NOTA, none of the above.  Unfortunately, that's the worst common denominator of mankind.  Count in even the first world versus the third world.  America's perennial critics claim that when America sneezes, the third world countries will catch colds.  But to me, that's baloney.  If third world countries are NOT third world, then they would have been first world.

Back to our lives though.  If I were a student and I' getting fidgety with the final marks I'll receive in my subjects, the basic question is:  WHAT MAKES ME FEEL NERVOUS ?  If I'm in a work environment and I'm feeling vulnerable when reorganizations and restructuring comes, what made me feel that vulnerable in the first place ?  WHAT LED ME TO THAT DOOMSDAY THOUGHT ?  Hmmm, everything happens for a reason.  Your state of health now, your academic standing now or your credibility at your workplace was of your own making.   

Truth is, "NO ONE DECIDES MY FATE BUT ME".  If you've gone this far, beat your chest, pat your back.  If you've stagnated, don't just tap your wrist.  If you're regressing, ask yourself, what were the triggers that caused you to regress.  As much as success does not happen overnight, so do failures.  You don't get flushed out that instantly into the sewerage.  Multiple mistakes could have compounded. Blunders could have happened in streaks.  And where were you during when mistakes and blunders happened left and right ?  Probably you were up high in the ivory tower, oblivious of what's going on in the ground.

Narratives anyone ?  Unfortunately, we can't hire ghost writers to write our narrative.  To our liking or not, we are our own authors.  It's us who lay down the foundations.  It's us who plot out our paths.  At those crossroads and intersections, obviously, opposing forces within us are pulling us to opposite directions but at the end of the day, it's our call.  Sad note here is that often times, we let things take its natural course but in a tossed coin, what if we lose by default, regardless if it's head or tail.  

 Our worst enemy ?  That's spelled either in three letters, abbreviated in two.  It's spelled Y-O-U, your very own 'ME'.  And what is it in us that sometimes dooms us to an ill-fated destiny, it's spelled four letters as F-E-A-R.  Why ?  It's because FEAR is the worst setback we can ever suffer in life.  Because it pushes us back.  Because it pushes us to the edges of the cliff, the precipice of what is spelled F-A-I-L-U-R-E.  How to avert all these ?  FIGHT your FEAR.  Overcome that FEAR.  Clobber those monsters.  Muster all your strength because there is no parachute solution you can cling on.  C'mon guys, YOU CAN DO IT.❗❗❗

Complaining has NO VALUE

 Complaining has NO VALUE

Complaining is part and parcel of our inherent rights, either as a team member, a customer or a recipient of any of the various products and services in life.  But would you agree that often times, complaining seems to go way beyond the roof in terms of volume or it's just become a difficult pill to swallow when the complaint doesn't hold water, when it shouldn't have been lodged in the first place.  Don't get us wrong, though.  Everyone is entitled to speak up and articulate where anything is valid, where something needs to be rectified. an improvement area is needed.

Where things go overboard are misplaced callouts, unfounded concerns, unreasonable noise that do not have any place in our cycle of feedbacking.  Knockers. Nigglers.  Censurers.  Or simply nitpickers.  They DON'T deserve our lending ears.  But the constant challenge is to sift through and figure out which are the valid ones versus that ought to be discarded and ignored.  And for recurring complaints, where it becomes recurring, this is where escalation kicks-in because at that point, it needs intervention to right the wrong.

Whiners anyone ? Unfortunately, whiners are cluttered all over the place.  How to do some cleansing ?  Indeed that's a tall order to take but it's achievable.  How ?  Pull these whiners aside.  Confront them what's the upside of all their whining ?  BUT don't stop there.  Swing there around by giving them a 'pep talk' how to be a credible critic, someone whose 'noise' will be worth the reception we extend only for the good tidings.  Moreover, let's cajole these whiners for them to 'bundle' alongside their complaints their solution.  Doing so, they become part of the solution rather than exacerbating the very problem or issue at hand.

Now this gets tricky.  Did we notice that both LISTEN and SILENT are spelled EXACTLY with the same letters ?  But more than just spelling and semantics, LISTEN and SILENT are closely inter-twined because they are akin to Siamese twins, one can't be without the other.  We need to be SILENT when we wanna LISTEN and otherwise.  And all these are the antithesis of complaints.  And the realization here is that we need both to be SILENT and LISTEN to give value to complaints that do have value.

Bluntly, if we complain of not having enough money, WORK MORE. If we claim we can't afford because we DON'T HAVE TIME, that's the easy way out, an easy escape.  Note that money by itself has NO VALUE.  Money is a 'VECTOR for TRANSMITTING VALUE'.  It all boils down how you express value.  The value isn't in the money.  It is in the product or service we buy in.  Otherwise, there's nothing intrinsically valuable in money itself.  Points to ponder folks.❗❗❗

Balance the 'IMBALANCE'

Balance the 'IMBALANCE'

For the longest time, these were the very pillars where our lives revolved around, namely FAMILY, HEALTH, WORK, SPIRIT and FRIENDS.  Even within those very pillars, a good number of lives went into shambles simply because they were unable to find the 'right equilibrium' across these pillars.  Balancing two forces was, by itself tricky.  And obviously, how can we come to terms with five forces that were often items running counter against each other, causing cacophony in our life.

Indeed, juggling between those five pillars required one to be deftly doing a balancing act effectively everyday, if not every hour.  Alas, some of us manage to cruise along with minimal effort, with challenges hardly visible on the surface and which on the periphery, such lives looked too good to be true.  But there were success stories told and untold.  It's for us to emulate though.

Instead of simplifying a complex situations, things just became murkier the past two to three decades with technology lording it over across the wide space.  And guess who was the uninvited guess in this technology roadshow ?  Yes, social media no less.  Social media was not just everywhere.  In many cases I can attest to, social media has even taking over many of the lives we see around.  People lost track of time.  They were just totally helpless managing their time.  Priorities ?  Oh well, people learned that today's top priorities are posting to FB, IG and/or Twitter.  And tracking your followers, comments and all the 'LIKES'.

To accentuate that imbalances needed to be corrected fast, quick and pronto, imagine yourself wearing unique shoes that were just 'unpairable'.  Won't you end up as the 'odd man out' ?  Won't you cause heads to turn ?  Absolutely.

Whatever keeps you busy in life these days, you gotta 'balance the imbalance'. Pursuing  'balance the imbalance' is a given.  It's just moot and academic to argue and debate on this.  Balancing your time allocation and balancing your priorities should easily gobble up the biggest chunk of your life.  Turning a blind eye to 'balance the imbalance' will lead you to that downward path, down south.  And worse, there could be no turning back.

Anyone giving up to 'balance the imbalance' ?  Please don't.  Any slightest clue that you're in that 'southward' direction, pull the brakes, ground to a halt, take an urgent pulse check and stomp yourself with this frank question:  are you IN or are you OUT? Are you giving up things, losing by default ?  Or will you realize that turning things around is the only NEXT STEP but again, all these will kick off with your very FIRST STEP to turn things around.  If you need to shed off a bit of your unduly excessive time with friends for your family's sake, JUST DO IT pronto else any imbalance will just throw you off track. C'mon.✅

Life is NOT a 'SPRINT'

Life is NOT a 'SPRINT'

There's this widespread fallacy that to be quickest and the fastest is the way to go in our lives.  Unfortunately that is NOT the truism that prevails in real life.  We need to clear up the air of all the fallacies.  THAT life is not a 100-meter sprint.  THAT life is not a one-chapter storybook.  THAT life is not a replica of those flashes in the pan.  THAT there is no shortcuts in life except if you are looking for those dreaded shortcuts towards doom, towards failure, towards frustrations, towards one-way roads where you're headed towards that dead-end.

On the other hand, there are numerous sectors in our society who do accept the fact that life is a marathon but the problem is, quite a number of us are still [stupidly] locked-in towards sprinting the marathon, [wrongly] thinking that the earliest bird catches the worm, that the best sprinter wins them all.  What's being overlooked is that in our marathon, the road ahead is not paved and smooth.  It's a 'rough and tumble' game of potholes, of landslides. of deep ravines and cliffs by the side, of rickety bridges we need to cross.  You can win the top plum in your sprint today but that's only a chapter of a lifelong saga you need to endure.  

BTW it is no rocket science to figure out how to survive our marathon in life.  Just one simple logical advice: 'PACE YOURSELF', no more no less.  Remember we're just humans and although we got our own fuel tank, that is finite.  Eventually, that tank gets emptied unless and except you 'PACE YOURSELF' and having that best judgment when to accelerate or when to just be in that 'cruising speed' good enough to sustain the longer stretches.

Alas, we can't be totally faulted.  Why?  Because we are just damn motivated.  We wanted instant success, instant gratification, those overnight success stories. But hey, that's more fiction than anything else.  You got to invest pain, tears and even frustrations before you reach that precipice of success.

So, where's the trick.  Nada, nil, nothing unfortunately. You gotta earn your spurs, gotta remain focused and committed, be consistently glued to your goals and never get distracted but the multifarious disruptions now happening in our lives.  Note that you don't have foes and enemies in your marathon except yourself.  Everything is within you, dude.✅✅✅

Fire in the Belly

 Fire in the Belly

Do you have that 'FIRE IN THE BELLY' ?  BTW, before you answer that short question, let me clarify what it really is.  'FIRE IN THE BELLY' is that unknown thing deep inside you, that thing driving you more than you should, pushing you to grind harder than what should be, that catalyst that pushes you hard often times regardless if that leads you to empty a 'near empty' tank.   That 'FIRE IN THE BELLY' is that mindset of never giving up regardless if all cards are stacked against you, even if all the odds are just not in your favor, those moments when everything is going against your favor and it's a matter of time for you to quit.

'FIRE IN THE BELLY' is that 'never say die' character that can be best seen in those outstanding champions who may get beaten once or twice but they keep rising from their downfalls to pick up the pieces all over again, again because of that 'FIRE IN THE BELLY'.

BTW, why are things in life that need to be measured are metered ?  Exactly, because these are the barometers as you step up until you get on a 'full throttle'.  Imagine in our life if we are satiated enough with a so-so performance ?  Will you hear 'hossanah's from your boss if you stepped on the pedal just enough to gain that momentum but without pushing for the limits ?  Why does the Guinness Book of World Records does contain endless world records ?  It's because there are people out there with 'FIRE IN THE BELLY'.

Why is it not all of us have that 'FIRE IN THE BELLY' ? Simple. It's because a majority of us remain in the middle of that bell curve, that band of average-performers whose bars for success are as high as a matchstick and as low as a nail.  In real life, what happens if we don't have that 'FIRE IN THE BELLY' ?  Omg, it's speculative but most scenarios will show us failing to reach our mark, failing to get academic marks beyond what is the passing mark, workers who eventually receive salary adjustments that are akin to bread crumbs because their work performance is just that.  Do you have that 'FIRE IN THE BELLY' ?  C'mon.❗

Deliver More Than Expected

Deliver More Than Expected

Do you complete your tasks on time ?  I think so.  Do you deliver things as expected.  I believe so.  Do you deliver or complete things more than expected or required ?  Honestly, I doubt it if the majority of us would admit having such a mindset.  WHY ?  For multifarious reasons, obviously.   Firstly, we tend to be so caught up with that OBLIGATORY mindset such that all mattered was delivering things as expected.  Secondly, we tend to have developed that COMPLIANCE mindset wherein if I needed to deliver from A to C, all that mattered was A to C and not either D, E, F or G.  So, what seems to be prevailing is something not premeditated at all.

Yes. fingers will be logically pointed to the habits we formed.  As the 3 R's of habit formation, REMINDERS, ROUTINE and REWARDS are the very factors that influence our DELIVERY MINDSET.  Getting so caught up with the triggers and cues that form as the REMINDERS, it leads us to what are ROUTINES which are defined alongside REWARDS.  At work, that means working eight hours because we're paid for those eight hours.  In online classes now brought about by this pandemic, it's literally following the instructions to fulfill and comply in projects after projects, all with deadlines.

How could we override this mindset then ?  Simple.  Let's agree with this poster: "WHEN YOU DO MORE THAN YOU'RE PAID FOR, EVENTUALLY YOU'LL BE PAID FOR MORE THAN YOU DO." Same goes for the school's online class-based projects.  If the teacher states that to get a perfect 100, you need to submit more than what is all listed in the project instructions, that human factor kicks in.  We will end up doing more than what we're paid for at work.  We'll submitting school projects beyond specifications.  That new mindset shapes up then till it becomes our new norm, our new habit.

That goes true too with giving and receiving.  By nature, we're so caught up with what we need such that if we receive ten items we do need, we're willing to part off with one or two items, keeping the rest for us.  And this is when our SURVIVAL mindset kicks in.  We [wrongly] think that we received are part of our basic survival needs such that, parting off with nine of the ten items we received is just a NO-NO.  Unfortunately, that is a NO-NO mindset.

At work, another culprit is our 'TIME-TRACKING' mindset.  Simply because the operations manual documented the end-to-end process to take sixty minutes, what matters most to us is that misguided mindset that executing that end-to-end process in sixty minutes makes us the TOP PERFORMER at work. REALLY ?  Can't we take that Xtra effort to execute that process in fifty minutes or less yet delivering it within specifications ?  That Xtra effort has always been key in our company's continuous service improvement initiatives.  If only more can adopt it.

If we take that paradigm shift, our output a.k.a. throughput will likely shoot up.  Our submissions as part of our online classes' projects may even look like 'earth shaking'. And as this pandemic still locks-in all of us, partaking more by giving out more than just that 'drop in the bucket' would create that positive ripple effect to the needy, to the underprivileged.  Let's think about it❗

Did You Play Your Heart Out ?

Did You Play Your Heart Out ?

Happy Weekend.  What a respite indeed after a week-long work but hey, DON'T get me wrong, I love my work, enjoying every task, every call, every interaction. But to set things straight, this piece is NOT literally about 'hearts' but it's all about how we lead life, how we played out in life, in every endeavor, every pursuit we were glued at.  What separates the men from the boys, the performers from the laggards, the cream from the crumbs all boils down to one  variable, and that is, how each one of us played out each game we went into because surely, each of us ended up with varying results but remember we had the same goals ?

You could be a student now locked-in to your online classes, a worker isolated in your room due to this pandemic or you could be the spouse or partner whose day-to-day agenda is the upkeep of your home and of course your kids. Or you and your partner are so insanely locked into gaming. But if there is a commonality amongst you all, it's the tough question you need to answer:  DID YOU PLAY YOUR HEART OUT ?

And if there's a NO-NO, it is a NO-NO to utter that you 'have no idea where i'm going'.  That's a huge setback even before you embark on your journey because you tend to be a rudderless boat ready to sail off to the high seas.  How far can you go from the shore?  I'm worried that your boat may just run around in circles or worst, run aground.  We DON'T want that heartbreaking result, right ?  C'mon, let's figure that out.

At the end of the day, we all owe it to ourselves to ask ourselves, "WHAT'S THE STORY'.  Asking that stomping question just makes sense because it is testimonial and reflective of how you played that game you were in.  As a student, did you aim for 98% or 99% grades ?  As a worker, did you angle to be the TOP PERFORMER ?  As a spouse or partner, can you beat your chest and claim that you did it all and gave it all for your spouse or partner ?

Oh, I got enamored to this poster which says, "DON'T LET THE GAME PLAY YOU, YOU PLAY THE GAME".  What it means is, you gotta steer the game, control the game end-to-end and never just spin off and spin out of orbit because you'll lose the game BIGTIME, whew !  Over in the NBA, the top teams are now battle-ready for the post season playoffs reeling off tomorrow [that's Sunday, Asia time zones]. And to quote Jimmy Butler, Miami Heat's undisputed leader, he is "INSANELY LOCKED IN".  Heart, body, mind and soul, he's all battle-ready to grind and out-grind the competition.  And he won't mince words to 'crack the whip' if any of his teammates don't play their hearts out because that's MEDIOCRITY and plainly unacceptable, under any terms.

There you go, folks.  We're all into our respective games and pursuits in life.  And BTW, we're not into it for the sake of being part of the game.  We're 'IN IT TO WIN' and if that means kicking your ass damn hard, go for it because you gotta out-grind the competition.  And BTW, sometimes that competition is WHO ?  That could be YOU, dude, that part of you whispering you to take things easy while the better part of yourself keeps pushing you to PLAY YOUR HEART OUT.✅✅✅

Rude Awakenings

Rude Awakenings

Why is it there's such a thing as 'rude awakenings' ? It's because we never expected such 'rude awakenings'  in life.  We never expected 'rude awakenings'  to even knock us off.  Lastly, we were never prepared for those sporadic 'rude awakenings'  in our life.  As a parallellism, 'rude awakenings' are akin to natural disasters caused by hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis and earthquakes.  While we do know that any of those cataclysmic events will hit us hard one day, we just left things to fate, to destiny and more often, we left it to our respective governments to mobilize the disaster preparedness programs.

And that's the thing.  What compounds and worsens our dilemma is that with our very little or almost nil expectations of surprises springing up in our lives, we tend to set the bar so high when we are brimming much with a positive and optimistic outlook of things to come.  We seem to ready up our mindset of the best results, the best scenarios, the best outcomes only to end up as huge letdowns when results finally trickle in.  Such is our mistake that repeats itself over and over again.

Thing is, we are so caught up in our daily lives such that what catches our attention [and priority] are the basic routines happening day-in day-out like in this pandemic, we may be locked down within the confines of our homes but we've scheduled the next trip to the grocery, to the bakeshop, and even to the wet market.  Did we prepare ourselves if one of our immediate family members gets into a difficult medical situation ?  Did we prepare ourselves suddenly feeling penniless because the huge savings we amassed through the years suddenly dissipated in thin air, all because something unfortunate happened.

When and where are we hardest hit ?  Yes you're right, we're hard hit when we had to endure those difficult surprises in life.  Question is, how do we respond to such surprises ?  Its spelled as P-R-E-P-A-R-E-D because there's no other way.  By being prepared for a very remote probability, by bracing ourselves for the inevitable, we will be softening the difficulty of such surprises, that's all there is to it.

Those scenarios we dread, like the sudden passing of our loved one, the sudden illness a family member has to struggle with, the sudden financial hit we had to endure very severely, these are inevitabilities.  But it's never taboo to be prepared for such unknown variables in life.  Health insurance has been there for our picking every since. Hospitalization coverages were hitherto unknowns till of late.  Obviously there are a lot more that's force majeure but again, we just gotta be prepared, $$$ and otherwise. ❗

When Humans & Pets Interact

 When Humans & Pets Interact    

Apologies for this late posting today. It's been a tight day that was capped by visiting my first cousin and his family of lawyers.  But what enthralled me was not the success stories of my cousin's sons who have been consistently bemedaled academically till they became full-fledged lawyers.  But rather, I'd like to spend time to dissect the lessons we can learn from the interactions of humans and their pets.  Unfortunately, I'll bluntly state that not all people with pets can claim to have that appropriate level of interaction with their pets.  I still think that for humans and pets to reach that meaningful level, we as humans need to acquire that realization that the best cared pets can be as human as they can.  But it's not a twist of fate when we can have that 'human experience' from our pets.  In truth and in fact, it has got nothing to do with fate or its twists.

What insights can we pick up from the storybook success stories of humans and pets ?It all boils down to what comes in goes out.  Love begets love.  Care begets care.  Sweetness begets sweetness.  Feelings begets feelings.  Positivity begets positivity.  These are my insightful thoughts that vividly manifested during that short visit I had with my cousin and his family.  What this tells us is that everything starts from us, within us.  And what we give is what we get.

More than the love, care and concern, pets deserve the attention when it comes to their health and hygiene.  Note that we humans DON'T have a monopoly of vaccines.  Pets need it too.  Not surprisingly, when my nephew-lawyer called his papa from Singapore, the first reminder he gave his parents is not to miss the vaccination schedule of their fav pet dog.  How we give value to our pets is reflective of how we can expect to be valued by folks around us.

So, where's the beef ?  Hmmmm, we shouldn't look too far. Before we should be angling for the healthiest relationships with our partners, spouses and immediate family, the best validation of our fit is the state of health of our interaction with our pets.  If you're now reaping the appropriate attention from our spouse, partners and immediate family, credit should circle back to you because that says a lot.

And as much as we have witnessed how pets can be that intelligent, we should equally have the same expectations with our spouses, partners and family.  They are discerning enough and once there is a 'meeting of the minds', expect the spontaneous reciprocity between you and your spouse, partner or immediate family.  Point is, never belittle the capacity of others, pets included.  They could be a tough nut to crack if there is no 'meeting of the minds'.  But 'whenever the stars align', expect things to trickle-in with little effort expected.  Where there is a disconnect between humans, expect the same dilemma when we interact with our pets as well.  Just as dogs have been perenially tagged as man's best friend ever [long time before Faceook introduced that 'friend' function in their apps.

You may not believe this but it's a fact, even animals foster their relationships via team building exercises.  That explains that we humans have that exclusive opportunity to further foster our relationship closely [and that obsession, for lack of a better adjective] because we put forward our foot now will dictate whether our last step was good enough. From this day onwards, let us look upon our pets as humans as well, please.✅✅✅

Do You 'MOVE THE NEEDLE' ?

Do You 'MOVE THE NEEDLE' ?

So sorry if I confused you.  Although we're all locked in this pandemic and everyone is in the midst of the frenzied vaccine needs, this piece is NOT about Covid vaccines but instead, this piece is all about our lives.  To move the needle means how can our life be meaningful, be impactful. Either as a student, as a businessman, as a worker or even our home-based family members, we got to endeavor to "MOVE THE NEEDLE". To "MOVE THE NEEDLE" could only be achieved in various shapes and forms for us to be recognized or impactful enough in our respective landscapes.  If you are hardly noticed either in business, in school, at work or even at home, we gotta "MOVE THE NEEDLE".

To "MOVE THE NEEDLE", it all boils down to PERFORMANCE and that PERFORMANCE METER, we all want it to swing over to the far right, that solid green indicator to confirm its EXCELLENCE.  To "MOVE THE NEEDLE" means our criteria should be tough and stringent.  Any performance that ends up either as GOOD or AVERAGE is just NOT GOOD ENOUGH because it has to be EXCELLENT.

A FORCEFUL move.  An EFFECTIVE move.  A STIRRING performance.  A ROUSING result.  A POTENT approach.  Or any result that is IMPACTFUL or EARTH-SHAKING and no less than that.  Those are the barometers for you to "MOVE THE NEEDLE".  BTW, to "MOVE THE NEEDLE" doesn't need that you have to deliver things beyond your capability.  You just need to grind and near-empty your fuel.

Question:  Why is it that the biggest majority of outputs, performance and results fall within the periphery of someone AVERAGE ?  It's because many of us are contented enough with AVERAGE results.  That "AVERAGE" mindset really pulls people's performance towards the AVERAGE band.  Why ?  Some argue that that's enough to survive.  But if plain survival is our motivation, that's just not good enough from any perspective.

All these, however, will never be easy to achieve.  You want to achieve BIGTIME, you gotta grind BIGTIME.  You gotta have MORE, you gotta exert MORE.  No free pass in that fast lane of life where only the 'CREAM of the CROP' will excel and prevail.  Further, the element of time creeps in.  That tree will never bear fruit overnight.  You gotta nurture that tree day-in day-out till it's ready to bear fruit.  Frustrations.  Failures.  Pain.  Tears.  These are the common experiences you have to endure.  Once you're able to "MOVE THE NEEDLE", I'll rest my case.📌📌📌