Would you do anything differently if you know you only had a year to live?

The Worst Year Ever. TIME magazine has a drawing of a red “X” over 2020 on its cover with a heading which many will agree with. From the time it has started, the pandemic has killed millions of people across the globe. It has changed everyone’s lives completely. We may not say it, but deep down we act and behave like we’re invincible. That stuff happens to other people, not to ME. I have plenty of time left. We forget how light our grip on life really is. I urge you to give serious thought to the question posed in this posting heading. I guarantee your priorities will come sharply into focus if you do. We all need reminders of what’s really important from time to time. Death doesn’t make life pointless, but rather purposeful. Our fear of death shapes our decisions, our outlook and our actions. Is the ladder you’re climbing up leaning against the right wall? Make the most of living life instead of mostly living with regrets. I can’t remember a single person who was ever completely satisfied with their work/life balance. Too many of us tend to believe the hype that age defines and limits our potential. Science suggests that the best path to sustaining physical and intellectual achievement is to never hit a stop sign. The research showed that when people are afflicted with arthritis, they tend to move less, because movement is painful. But movement actually helps ease the pain. Why should we ever think about retiring, when we could be “rewiring”? Retirement is another cultural idea that may lead people to give up career and life goals years before they might actually want to stop working. The fact is, retirement was not created because older people were incapable of doing good work, but rather, it was invented by a 19th century German chancellor in response to rising Marxism in Europe, because young people wanted their jobs at a time when there were not enough jobs to go around. Furthermore, older workers are not less productive. Researchers at the University of Mannheim in Germany looked at teams of workers at a BMW plant. Productivity increased right up until the mandatory retirement of 65, because these veterans knew how to handle problems and prevent mistakes. Be a (re)inventor. My definition of retirement is doing what you want to do. Loving what you do can make you more productive, sociable and innovative. That kind of enjoyment can help fuel the grit needed to help us persevere when we face the inevitable challenge. The great law of nature is that trials and tribulations never stop. There is no end. Just when you think you’ve successfully navigated one obstacle, another emerges. As the Haitian proverb puts it: behind mountains are more mountains. There are always more obstacles, bigger challenges. You’re always fighting uphill. Get used to it and train accordingly. Knowing life is a marathon, not a sprint is important. Understand that each battle is only one of many. More important, you must keep them all in real perspective. Never rattled. Always hustling and acting with creativity. Simply flipping the obstacles that life throws at you by improving in spite of them, because of them. People will make pointed remarks. They will cut us off in traffic. Our rivals will steal our business. We will be hurt. Forces will try to hold us back. Bad stuff will happen. We can turn even this to our advantage. Always. It is an opportunity. Always. Forgiving you means I no longer dwell on what an asshole you are. It doesn’t mean you’re no longer an asshole. What stood in the way became the way. Not everyone looks at obstacles – often the same ones you and I face – and sees reason to despair. In fact, some see a problem with a ready solution. Leaning into their problem or weakness or issue, they see a chance to test and improve themselves. Nothing stands in their way. Rather, everything guides them on the way. It is much better to be this way, isn’t it? There is a lightness and a flexibility to this approach that seem very different from how we - and most people – choose to live. With our disappointments and resentments and frustrations. To be sure, no one is saying you’ve got to do it all at once. Margaret Thatcher didn’t become known as the Iron Lady until she was sixty years old. So under that pressure and trial we get better – become better people, leaders and thinkers. Because those trials and pressures will inevitably come. And they won’t stop coming. Like Rockefeller, you’re cool under pressure, immune to insults and abuse. You see opportunity in the darkest of places. You are iron-spined and possess a great and powerful will. Like Lincoln, you realise that life is a trial. It will not be easy, but you are prepared to give it everything you have regardless, ready to endure, persevere and inspire others. The names of countless others escape me, but they overcame what life threw at them and in fact, thrived because of it. They were nothing special, nothing that we are not just as capable of being. What they did was simple (simple, not easy). But let’s say it once again to remind ourselves: See things for what they are. Do what we can. Endure and bear what we must. What blocked the path now is the path.

Successful aging

TIME's first-ever "kid of the year" Gitanjali Rao, created apps to tackle contaminated drinking water, cyberbullying, opioid addiction and other social problems. She is 15-years-old. Speaking about age, mum, dad, your baby turned 56! And, like most, I wonder how it all happened so fast. Like a lot of people, I had an exciting, eventful twenties. Wild, free, energetic are words I would use to recall that period. My thirties brought responsibility. At thirty-one, I became a parent. I would describe my thirties with the words, confused, searching, scared. I didn't have time for a midlife crisis; by the age of forty I had a new job and relocated to a brand-new country. I was on top of my game and made a name for myself. To chararcterise my forties, I would use the adjectives "stressed" but also "appreciative" and would rate my life statisfaction at nine out of a possible ten. I was ecpecting less, and appreciating more. Now in my mid-fifties, I have to grapple with, "Well, things hasn't turned out the way I expected." I have run up against a reality that looks pretty different from the future I anticipated for myself at age 45. With not only a professional transition,but a personal one too, it would seem my most exciting days are behind me. But as I look back on my life, I realise that everytime I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being redirected to something better. What Sophie Tucker used to say - "I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better" - is true. The seven big factors in the happiness economics are relationships, our financial situation, our work, our friends, our health, our personal freedom and our personal values. One secret of happiness is to ignore comparisons with peiople who are more successful that you are: always compare downwards, not upwards. Unfortunately, that advice, while sound, is difficult to follow; how difficult depends on not just our attitude, but also our age. As you get older, your ability to benchmark a bad experience against other things you've navigated just puts it all in a very different perspective. You do get wiser. The passage of time is inevitable and inexorable; the clock ticks at the same rate for all of us. Aging is a more subtle, more relative phenomenon. For one thing, people age at visibly different rates. Some people, at age fifty six are more physically active and fit than in their days of beer and pizza. Others struggle with painful backs and aching knees and have been forced to relinquish their vigorous self-images. A life in memory, like a great painting, changes with the light it is seen in. In my mind's eye, I am almost twenty again. I want to make a mark on the world. I would do well professionally. I would have everything to be grateful for. I have a sense of what my limitations are, what my strengths are, and I can now organize my life so I an play to my strengths. I can do life. Life gets better. Much better. Growingt old isn't for sissies. Don't let age change you. Change the way you age. Sometimes you will never the the true value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.

Do what you love - the money will follow

Black Friday is over. In recent years, however, Black Friday’s importance has faded as more online sales make it possible for shoppers to browse and buy from their couch or on their smartphone. I  n our Covid-riven world, crowds are the thing to avoid. The coronavirus pandemic could be what finishes it.

Repurpose and Retool, for finding a solution to the problems caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

Everyday, there are reports on how companies are laying off more and more people - both blue and white collar workers. "Downsizing," "rightsizing," "reengineering" are the current buzzwords of the corporate environment.

In difficult times, people too often lose the ability to face the future optimistically. They begin to think about their tomorrows negatively. Undoubtedly some great tasks lies ahead of you. Get up, get over it, get going.

Sometimes good-bye is a gift. In the moment you don't realise it, you can't see it, you don't understand the reason why it happened.  But looking at it in retrospect sometime later, it might turn out that good-bye was a blessing.

Starting over usually isn't easy, to say the least, but it sure can bring incredible results. Just like when Malaysia severed ties with Singapore, the country's leader, felt that the country has been cast adrift - with few prospects and little hope. There was only one thing to do: Work themselves out of their horrible situation.

Too late to start? It may be late, but it’s never too late.

Both Jan Koum founded Whatsapp, Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia at 35. Mark Pincus and Robert Noyce founded Zynga and Intel respectively at 41. Ray Kroc started McDonald’s at 52 and John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola at 55. Let’s not forget that Harland Sanders started KFC at that ripe old age of 65.

Don't worry so much about what you can't do; just do what you can as only you can do it. I believe you have inside you a core genius - some one thing that you love to do and do so well that you hardly feel like charging people for it. It's effortless for you and a whole lot of fun. And if you could make money doing it, you'd make it a lifetime's work.

Any idea is worth considering. We waste money, time, and paper. But nothing is as tragic as the waste of a good idea! So, if there's a good idea in your mind right now, don't waste it!

Desire alone will not allow you to do something new; you must create the capacity to do it. Realize too, that you are in unfamiliar territory, and it may take some practice before you feel comfortable. Eventually, however, you will find a way to regain control of your own life.

Let me say this to you now: Don't wait for an inspiration. Use your head and your heart will follow. Don't wait until you feel like it to make the move. You may need to go on a diet, but you don't feel like dieting. You're waiting until you feel like it. Don't! Winning starts with beginning, and beginning starts with a single action.

Life today is nothing more than a collection of results of the choices you have made. And I would add this sentence: Today's decisions are tomorrow's realities. Any path in life can be either a dead end or a stepping stone, and the deciding factor might arguably be the degree of imagination and creativity one brings to it.

Nike has tapped into the sentiment that is so appropriate for a lot of us at this stage of our lives: just do it. There comes a time when you have to say to yourself, "I may not have all the answers yet, and I'm not exactly sure where this is going to go, but that's oaky. I'm going to take charge of my life and go for it!" 

 Straight ahead lie the greatest years of your life.

There is always a way

Mulan is the year's most beautiful letdown...so screamed the headlines on The Verge. Disney's $200million production has received a torrent of negative reviews. On Douban, China's largest movie rating website, 70% gave negative reviews, compared with 13% of positive ratings. 

Sometimes criticism comes in the form of such reviews. Other times, criticism comes in different forms - like an email from a client or boss, or a comment from a family member or friend and it's never a fun experience.  

Everyone's grappling with some kind of challenge. It might be happening privately or publicly, or even on live TV. But everyone's  dealing with something, and everyone has moments where they wonder, "Am I going to make it?" "Why are people so cruel?" I've felt that way many times. The person sitting in the cubicle or coffee shop seat next to yours - they've felt that way too.

I am writing this because I wanted to remind people (including myself) that feeling frustrated, discouraged, criticized and rejected in the course of your career is actually...very normal. Every career has its ups and downs. Everyone goes through dry spells, difficulties, setbacks at some point or another - even A-list celebrities and presidential nominees. 

Let's be honest...it's not fun when you're job-hunting and you apply for 100 different positions and don't get a single response. It's not fun when you watch your colleague get chosen for a promotion that you wanted.  (even though you're more qualified and everyone knows it)

But this kind of stuff happened. Sometimes, things just.....seriously suck. How can we survive moments like that? How can we stay optimistic, motivated and inspired to keep marching forward? Seriously, how? 

Yeah, you might cry. Of course, you might want to crawl under a blanket and self-medicate with Netflix because you're a human being with human feelings and sometimes things hurt. 

Whatever you're going through right now, or whatever you're worrying might happen next, I want you to know: You're going to survive. And the silver lining is that you're become a smarter, wiser, funnier, more compassionate person because of whatever you've endured in your life and career.

Despite its hard body, bamboo is incredibly flexible. It will sway even in the gentle breeze. Yet it will often be the only thing standing after a typhoon, its roots firmly anchored. How we react when faced with a shifting landscape - from handling more challenging assignment at work to a critical situation in our personal lives - is affected to a large degree by our sense of grit.

My life has been a long series of zig zags. When something doesn't turn out the way I think it should...I'm good at dusting myself off and saying, what did I learn and how can I use that to tackle what's next? That's the ability to bend, flow and adapt - negative experiences force me to dig deep within myself out of sheer necessity. 

We face challenges in life, whether they are physical, emotional, financial or circumstantial. Why is it that some people have the grit and determination to succeed against all odds, while others do not? Research shows it's not about having nothing to lose; rather, it's about believing there is much to gain. 

I am now into Wait training. Achievement of any kind, I have recently been reminded, requires patience. It means clocking endless hours on the treadmill to train for a marathon, or taking night classes for a year or two to finish that degree. And often it gets harder to stay the course. It's not easy to persevere when we don't know how long we have to wait, or whether or not our imagined future will ever come. It's why those signs in train stations that tell you when the next train will arrive are so comforting - just knowing that makes the wait less torturous. But even when the trains run on schedule, there can be derailments along the way. Dealing with them may force us onto a new track. And that could be a good thing. 

Imagine failing more than a thousand times at something. Or three thousand. How many of us wouldn't give up? Well, meet James Dyson. Dyson failed more than five thousand times as he struggled to create his first Dual Cyclone vacuum cleaner. The knighted British inventor finally brought it to market 15 years after his initial effort. 

But how do you turn your life around when you've lost all hope?

When I'm feeling discouraged, what helps me is hearing stories about people wo have experienced a similar type of discouragement. I like reading about what happened, how they felt, how they survived the bleakest moments and how they got stronger, even if it's someone I've never met in real life before. They help me feel a little calmer. A little more hopeful. A little less alone. 

No pressure, but if you do feel like it, I encourage you to share your survival story here about terrible bosses, unimpressed clients, vicious comments, betrayals, embarrassing mistakes, misery, discouragement, defeat...and how you got through it, what you'd learned. Your story could change someone's whole day - or life. So you should probably tell it.

I hope you will.

Find the positive benefit in every negative experience

From Taipei to Taipei. Eva Air's Hello Kitty Flight to nowhere was fully booked. International tourism has been effectively stopped in much of the world for more than half a year and this special flight with a Michelin-star meal, help satisfy its customers' travel itch. Singapore Airlines has burned through half of the $6.4billion it raised through share sales in just two months, even as it cut costs and grounded most of its fleet. American Airlines announcement to cut 19,000 jobs is the clearest sign yet of the devastation for the airline industry.

COVID19 is the gravest crisis the aerospace crisis has ever known.


It's a simple truth that in life you're going to hear "good-bye" many times. From employers. From family members. From someone you love. Let's be clear: It doesn't feel good. Not the first time, not the next time and not the last time. It never feels good.


Make a point to try to understand why it was time to say good-bye, embrace what good came from it, compartmentalise what feelings you have about the experience so you can handle the day-to-day situations that follow.


A metaphor is like the time when we were splashing happily on the surface of a pool, and life probably seemed pretty good. Every person in the pool were bobbing happily on the surface. And why wouldn't they be? It is safer on the surface, and there is a lot more company. In fact, life itself is usually great at the surface.


Oh...and just so you're not surprised, you need to know that, even today, when someone leaves the surface heading for deeper water...it makes everybody really, really, nervous.


Down. It is the last place I thought to look, but I believe the treasure is indeed there. Not halfway down. All the way down.


We can use the bottom of the pool as a foundation for greatness. There is a power to be harnessed by bending the knees...squatting and push hard off the concrete and head for the surface. And when you break the surface of water - with a mighty yell and clenched fists held high, it would be overwhelming.


Okay, okay, okay...I can hear your head exploding from here. Settle down and let's think through this.


Unfortunately a mind has wings and also possesses an anchor. And either can be deployed at the drop of a thought. If you have become mired in life's quicksand by default...there is good news! As quickly as you can snap the fingers of your mind, you can immediately begin to alter the trajectory of your future.


How you think is massively influenced and largely determined by what you read, hear and watch. Another huge factor is the group of people with whom you surround yourself. Perhaps more important to choosing how you think is that you can choose what you will NOT read. You can choose what you will NOT listen to and choose what you will NOT watch. You can choose the people with whom you will NOT be around.


You know, regardless of how stressful or successful a momentary situation might be, a person's ability to outwardly demonstrate "enjoying the moment" as well as the ability to "be enjoyable to others in the moment" are critical, easily observable markers that reveal the stuff of which a person is made.

Life is a game of chess. We cannot undo the moves but we can make the next step better. The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit.

Accept accountability

If you’re like me, your house or apartment has become your office, school, gym, and much more for your entire family. Stay-at–home has become business as usual and many people are looking for ways to transform their homes into ideal “staycation” spots – into their own little private resorts. People are really interested in making their house a place that they want to spend a lot of time at. These staycation transformations are driving gains in stocks such as Home depot, Etsy, Apple, Best buy, Bed Bath and Beyond.

As this black swan event drags on, leaders in every industry are moving urgently to embrace a new agenda—one aimed squarely at what comes next - with actions ranging from rapid responses to more fundamental, strategic shifts. Clarity of thinking, communications, and decision-making will be at a premium.

A few people are blessed with a built-in GPS mechanism and always makes the correct turn and ends up where they intended. They are our role models and heroes. We all know people like this. For some of us, it's our mums or dads. For others, it's a partner (the proverbial "better half"). For others (like me) it's a success coach or a mentor.

Let me share something that is true. I am not one of those blessed with an internal compass. It's not that I don't know who I am or where I am going or what I want to achieve. Not is it that I don't have an adequate sense of self-worth. What's wrong is that I have no idea how my behaviour is coming across to the people who matter my boss, colleagues, subordinates and customers.

Character doesn't come from going to a seminar or reading a book. While those things can help, character is formed by continued hard work and intentional effort. I want desperately to be a man of high moral and character.

If you're like me, we need honest, helpful feedback. Feedback tells us what to change, not how to do it. And when we know what to change, we're ready to start changing ourselves and how people perceive us.

You know the old saying: to err is human, to forgive divine. When you make a mistake, give the people you work with a shot at divinity. Admit your error. Own up. Then propose a course to correct the mistake. Never use your authority to mask your mistakes. Admit them. Apologize for them.

If it isn't obvious by now, I regard apologizing  as the most healing, restorative gesture human beings can make. Admitting you were wrong is tough for some people to do - but brilliant for those who can. Express your regret, offer no excuses, take full responsibility. Once you admit an error, look to the future. What have you learned? How will you keep this from happening again? Reflect, learn and adjust your behaviour.

In fact, great leaders know that when you are willing to admit your own mistakes and genuinely listen to critical feedback - without rationalizing, justifying or placing blame - you get to turn these moments into learning opportunities for yourself and "teachable moments" for your team. You create a more open and collaborative culture among your team members - without the pressure and fear of anyone pretending to know it all. This kind of authenticity and transparency ultimately gives others permission to be open about their weaknesses and fears too.

We can't undo our errors, but we can learn from them. If we don't learn, the lessons get harder. Regretting our mistakes is not the same as learning the lesson. We are not here to be perfect, but to live and learn, to fall and to rise again - to evolve and strive toward our highest potential. May this painful experience become a blessing that transforms your life.