Find a confidant to counter stress

Unbelievable! I was smoking shisha and drinking Turkish coffee on saturday afternoon on busy Taksim Square in Istanbul when a hearse pulled up next to me and a few men carried a coffin from down a nearby alley and loaded it into the hearse. Then the hearse pulled away and it was gone.

A new child in a family can cause as much stress as a death in the family. "Falling in love" can be as stressful as "falling out of love." However, whether its source be pleasant or painful, stress can easily make us very unhappy. Overwork, the loss of a job, can cause stress. But small things like a time deadline, a simple quarrel or a gadget that doesn't work can throw us off balance.

I find a confidant with whom I can be totally open and feel totally safe. I talk out all my significant and emotion-filled experiences. But I ensure I let my confidant have equal time. Nobody wants to be a human garbage dump for emotional refuse.

Stress reduction

"Today all the shops are closed. It is Sunday," Martha informed me upon my check in to Le Meridien La Ramblas, Barcelona. "Tomorrow they are open by 10am and it will get busy in siesta time."

All too often, the coffee break/lunch break is abused rather than maximised. A lunch break should be used as a time to relax so that we are more effective when we return to work.

We should get our mind off the job and preferably into the wild blue yonder. We'll feel much more refreshed when we land again.

Reverse English

"I will be in some ads next year," Irem said while sipping her Martini El Turko

We sell by talking about things people want. We can also sell by talking about things people don't want.

What don't people want? The exact opposite of the things they do want.

Listerine is good at this: the girls who read the cosmetic ads usually get a hint of what wonders can be in store if they do use the stuff, but Listerine tells them frankly what will happen if they don't!

I say: reverse English can make our sales pitch stronger.

Room to negotiate in a negotiation

"There should be room to negotiate in a negotiation," That was a memorable quote in the movie Founding of a Republic.

Over the years, I have learned that when negotiating we should give the other negotiator many ways out. The fundamental rule in negotiating is that we must seem to allow him at least 1 way out - a way to save his face - while getting him to do what we want him to do. If we don't allow him a way out - or a way that seems to be an out - it will be very difficult to get him to act, even unknowingly, in our interests.

Have a grateful perspective

It was Jack Cranfield who said on stage in Singapore, "Whatever you focus upon, increases."

The concept works like this: when we focus on things we need, we'll find those needs increasing. If we set our minds on loss, we are likely to lose.

But a grateful perspective brings happiness into a person's life.

Are we truly happy with abundance?

I arrived in Casablanca, Morocco last night on AT0961 ETA1910.

We look forward to the joys of travel, but we have to admit that the 2 happiest days are the day we leave home and the day we get back home.

Perhaps we thought it was marriage that would bring us perfect happiness. Even though it did bring a measure of happiness, we have to admit that we now take our partner's love for granted...

Perhaps it was wealth we wanted. We got it, and now we are afraid of losing it.

Maybe it was a desire to be well-known that we craved. We did become well-known and well-liked only to find that reputation is like a ball: as soon as it starts rolling, people begin to kick it around.

Here's what I conclude: our happiness truly does not consist in the abundance of the things we process.

Concise is a virtue

Coca-cola is launching its 1st global Christmas ad campaign in 15 years....reported Bloomberg Business Week.

"No frills" advertising copy is brief, direct & delivers a knockout punch every time. When we're about to say something in 10 words, we should try to see if we can say it in 8 or 6 or 4. Because when it comes to copy, being concise is a virtue.

Short, powerful words create an urgency and rhythm that drives home sales message so it has the best chance of getting noticed.

Takes a real man to be a dad

"Kenneth's father is always travelling on business. That's why he is bringing Kenneth to Chicago and New York this school holidays," Eni told us at the Lavender mrt station.

I am by no means a perfect father. I've made plenty of mistakes and had to apologise to my kid many times, just like every father who has ever lived. But I've always done my very, very best. When I became a father, I was absolutely determined that my kid would have his dad's guiding presence in his life.

Physical distance from our kid is toxic; emotional distance is even more toxic. Someone else once said that any male can spawn a child, but it take a real man to be a father.

Popularity is not leadership

"Governor Arnold Schwarsenegger's approval rating at an all time low; he's less popular than Gray Davis," reported LA Weekly.

That's the problem with so many of today's leaders. Their idea of leadership is to take surveys and polls and find out what's popular, and then try to adopt their stance. They want to be all things to all people, and they end up being nothing to nobody. They think popularity is leadership.

But popularity is not leadership.

Selling has no seniority system

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology has a chapter titled: "Starting Low but Ending High: A reversal of the anchoring effect in auctions"

The Singaporean dream has always been to start at the bottom and make it to the top.

There is no "bottom"in sales. A 45-year old veteran and a 1-week rookie are on the same level when they go in to see a customer. It is the level of professional skill that determines which one gets the sale.

Selling has no seniority system. Just because you have been around a long time does not mean you are more professional or successful than another. Some 20-year sales veterans have 1 year's experience repeated 20 times, while others grow with each passing month and reach higher levels of professionalism in a short time.

Keep teaching and selling separate

"You can use our roadshow to educate the team about your resort," Mr Gallard offered.

We sales people encounter this a lot: in order to sell our products we have to teach the prospect about it. We have to fulfill both roles - salesperson and teacher.

When doing presentations, we need to educate (what is it?) and sell (why buy it?) at the same time. I find that using 2 different backgrounds in the powerpoint presentation, 1 for teaching slides and 1 for sales slides, is more effective.

CV review

"We have a suitable candidate. Please see the attached resume. Could you do the interview as well?" Pak D wrote in his email.

The 1st step in screening out the obviously inappropriate candidate is the resume review. I should insert a word of warning here: sometimes, diamonds in the rough could be screened out from the group. I always keep in mind when reviewing resumes, that when in doubt, the benefit of the doubt should go to the applicant. I would at least interview him or her.

Job-hopping per se should not be a knockout, as it all too often is, but the reasons for those changes and the kind of changes might be. For example, individuals with the kind of strong personality we might wish to hire might just be the people who will not tolerate a job that obviously does not meet their needs. So, in some instances, the very people who are automatically eliminated because they are job-hoppers can be the very people that we might really want to hire.

Open with a big bang

"After this, my 5 colleagues will speak for 5 minutes each, updating you about the happenings in their respective markets," Andrew announced.

You're not alone in suffering some nerves, perhaps the occassional terror, before speaking or presenting.

Each and every presentation is a performance. Most audiences are not braced to0 be bored, rather they are eager to be informed and entertained. We all remember openings and closings of presentations far more than all the palaver in between. I usually craft my openings to grab attention, to get people to sit up and notice and be hooked into listening.

We all remember presentations that open with a compelling or funny story. I usually tell a story.

Bullying

"Youth bravado, not organised gang activity,"reported TODAY online this morning. There has been a spat of youth (supposedly gang-related) attacks in Singapore recently.

Many schools today are a battleground. Boys make trouble to get noticed. Girls ask for help but boys often just act for help.

It's a sad fact that bullying is a part of many boys'lives. A study of 20,000 primary and secondary school children across Australia found that 1 in 5 students were bullied at school at least once a week.

While the above may sound somewhat obvious, the fact is that boys often won't talk about bullying in the 1st instance because it seems weak to do so. The way I see it, almost every child, boy or girl, will experience bullying, and, if helped to acquire assertive skills, will overcome it.

My kid brought me to life

Everybody loves....BABIES is a visually stunning new movie which simultaneously follows 4 babies around the world - in namibia, Mongolia, Tokyo and san Francisco - from 1st breath to 1st step.

No mountain climb can match the fatique of the 1st 12 months of parenthood, and no accolade can match the pleasure of our own child running towards us with arms open wide.

Screen budget

"We live in a cyber-age," Vic said after finishing his lontong. "My 5-year old is so good with computer games."

Technology is taking over the home. PSP games, PC games, Wii, Nintendo DS games are here to stay, and we parents can't always stop this technorace.

The best we can do is to provide speed bumps and pit stops to slow it down. We create a screen budget...allowing ACE a certain amount of screen time weekly.

After all, there is a bright side to technology that we parents should allow and a dark side to technology that we must stop.

The world is what we make of it

I watched an ad on Mediacorp Channel 5 about road rage and found it interesting.

Many people who are very kind in their own homes and offices can become very unkind and selfish once they get behind the steering wheel of a car. This is probably due to the fact that in their own home they are known; in the car they have the advantage of anonymity and hence can be almost brutal without fear of discovery.

If we believe that most people in the world are crooks, it is amazing how many crooks we find. If, however, we go into the world with the assumption that everyone is nice, we are constantly running into nice people. To a great extent the world is what we make it.