Stress got you down?

Tinder was the highest-grossing mobile app in 2019. Consumers spent a total of US$2.2 billion on dating apps in 2019. This year so far, despite the epidemic hysteria effects of coronavirus, casual dating activities has reported to be on the rise on the basis of the psychology of start living before you start dying.


Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity? Stress? Hell, yes.


Uncertainty is a fact of life. My world and your world are both full of it. Stress is a killer. It doesn't just lead to heart attacks. It leads to underperformance, indecision, and on-the-job misery. Life will surely seem unfair to you at times, but it will seem unfair to everybody at times. 


Think about how an upcoming holiday can change our state of minds. The condition is set for people to be happy, loving and peaceful. The rest of the year, most of us return to a fearful and negative state of mind. Why? Because what we see in the news and elsewhere highlights the negative. 


The same happens in an organizational environment. You worry about the competition. You worry about the boss. You worry about coworkers. You worry about the product. You worry about the market. Pretty soon, when you consider any idea, process or action, you do so with fear and negativity. 


When people don't know what's coming next, they tend to dwell on the dangers and hazards of what might come. How do you turn fear into courage? Any leader who deals with times like this understands that sometimes there simply is no right answer, at least not a perfect one. I can't give you a precise formula that works in every environment, but I've experienced a lot of touchy leadership situations. 

As you can imagine, being in a sales discipline subjects you to great amounts of stress and fear. Throughout my career, I've had the opportunity to work with great people and great leaders. As a leader, one of the most important tasks is simply to be there and to create a positive environment. Leaders present in times of stress are far more valued than those who stop by once in a while when things are going well.

Just being there, however, won't suffice. Let the team know you're there alongside them. I believe there are times in which leaders need to maintain their composure, despite the natural inclinations to express feelings of discouragement, fear or even despair. This is not to say they should shield others from reality or withhold basic information about the situation. Rather, it is to say that there are times in which the perceived attitude of the leader is a powerful force that can create energy and optimism or fear and pessimism. 

I don't need a PhD to figure this out: great leadership is critical in times of stress and fear.

Get results...without losing your soul

"A cup at Starbucks isn't really that expensive when you consider what Victoria Secret charges per cup." 
Victoria's Secret's Wexner, the longest-serving CEO of any Fortune 500 company, was reportedly in talks to step down from the company after more than 50 years at the helm and potentially sell the company. Once the largest lingerie retailer in the US, Times had once described it as the “internet-breaking moment” of this era after 1.5 million viewers tried to tune in to the annual fashion show when it aired for the first time online and crashed the site. Today, with its sales declining, Victoria’s Secret has been closing stores and its share prices have fallen more than 75% from their 2015 peak.
 
In the course of my work, I've seen many leaders who struggle to achieve prolonged business success, much less build meaningful professional relationships. If that's you, you're not alone. The truth is that all around the world, it's not hard to find stressed-out, frustrated (and often helpless) leaders.
 
We may not admit it, but all of us want power - the power to influence others, the power to get our phone calls returned, the power to get things done that are important to us.
 
How do you measure significance?
 
I believe a lot of people stick with business and work because there is a clear scorekeeping mechanism. You win or lose. You make the deal or someone else does. You get rich or go broke. Clear metrics.
 
Success is mostly about externals. Significance is defined more personally and internally. It is about what we want to do with our lives when success gives us freedom of action and choice.
 
Try not to become a person of success but rather try to become a person of value.
 
One thing I'd noticed that sets lasting successful leaders apart is their compassion. They genuinely know what it's like to do the work you do, face the pressures you do, and thrive amid them. They have genuine compassion for the frontline and middle-level managers that comes through in the encouragement, humour and tough love their share. They want you to succeed.
 
User leaders tend to treat people as objects - the people are there to achieve results and that is their only value. These leaders push hard for results and try to compel productivity through fear, power and control. They say things like, "Why should I say thank you? It's their job." Some other leaders spend their days playing dirty politics, working one person against another in their ceaseless quest for status.
 
You don't have to choose between results and relationships. Effective leaders focus on both. A clear and effective focus on results is the foundation for your influence and success as a leader. You cannot win without it. When you achieve results, those results don't become sustainable until you add the second external focus on relationships - connect, invest and collaborate.
 

The most effective leaders, however, don't stop there. They combine confidence and humility. It's not about results or relationships, confidence or humility. The answer is in the "and" - you need them all.
 
Good leadership is never about what you can do, it's about what you enable and encourage others to achieve.

What stories will your team share about you?

RIP Kobe.
Kobe Bryant was the only athlete to ever win a basketball championship and an Academy Award. He was also the first professional athlete who was not an actor to have his hand and footprints enshrined at Hollywood's historic Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

"The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.” - Kobe Bryant

I invite you to reflect: Who has helped you become who you are? And now: Who will think of you in the same way?

Effective leadership is inspiration. A true leader does not impose commands from the outside, but inspires people to draw on their own deepest inner reserves. Much of leadership is about extracting that extra 5% of performance that individuals did not know they possessed.

Smart, clinical, sterile leadership doesn't inspire anybody, no matter how right they are. I keep my focus on people, not products, not sales. That is your #1 job as a leader.

You don't get the best out of people by hitting them with an iron rod. You do so by gaining their respect. I can't think of any leader who succeeded for any length of time by presiding over a reign of terror. It turns out that the two most powerful words in the English Language are, "Well done.". People perform best when they know they have earned the trust of their leader.

Great teams are a collection of talented individuals, who need to be treated as individuals. When I was younger, I was more inclined to be severe. It was in those days that someone made a celebrated comment: "Paul treats us all alike. Like dogs!" Every associate is different, and I came to learn that they all required different care and feeding. Some would be at one extreme and need little help from me. This was particularly true of team members who had worked long with me, and understood me. With most team members, I did  not have to urge them to increase their work rate or expend more energy, but there were a few, who needed that extra poke. I'm sure from time to time, I underestimated the degree of intimidation experienced by newer team members. I try to distinguish among my team, trying to learn everything possible about the emotional makeup and then use that knowledge to its best effect. I am now a psychologist more than a slave driver. Sales is a pressure business, and on my team I put on the most pressure. The point is that I've got to learn 17 ways to pressure 17 associates.

Part of the way to extract the most out of people is to show genuine loyalty when the rest of the world is baying for blood. Sales provides plenty of opportunities for a leader to show his support. There may be the times, when someone is significantly short of meeting sales targets . But more often than not, it is the little things - like helping associates improve their techniques. I was not doing these things because I was trying to emulate Mother Teresa, I was doing them because they would help the overall team performance but they had the side-effect of demonstrating to the team member that we had confidence in him or her. This instils loyalty; it also helped them to lift their game. And so, inadvertently, I gradually came to understand this back-door route to inspiring people.


I hope that what you've read here had provoked you to think about leadership in a new way. The journey to becoming a leader who inspires others is an inner journey to know yourself and an outer journey to share it with the world. After all, true leadership is not so much about what is in your head as about what is in your heart and how you use that to inspire others to greatness.

There exists within each of us a longing to leave a legacy, some proof that we were here. We need to  know our lives were important, that somehow our being here mattered. Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry. 

facing depression, building hope

Less than three weeks into the new year, there's already been a flurry of significant events. From Megxit to a deadly plane crash to bushfire crisis to the US and Iran almost going to war.

"Lord, be good to me. The sea is so wide, and my boat is so small."

I believe the meaning of that quote is one that all leaders - regardless of their faith - can understand today. There is a storm brewing out at sea in each of our lives. We don't know when it's coming, but it is impending. Each of us has to prepare for that storm.

Our calm mind is our weapon against our challenges. So I try to relax. We can only control efforts, not outcomes. Serenity, patience and wisdom are born of this understanding. We cannot directly control, people, events or results.

Our minds creates meanings about things which happens around us. We see things not as they are, but as we are. Our mind can make meaning or madness, light a candle or curse the darkness. Unfortunately, knowing this makes no difference whatsoever when you're stuck right in the middle of it all. And of course, all of this only makes things somehow even worse. To transform our lives, we need to change our expectations. Ultimately, it may be best to replace our expectations with a neutral state of openness to whatever life may  bring, accepting life as it unfolds.

If you're rolling your eyes and wondering, "How does any of that help me solve my problems?" I'll tell you: it doesn't. None of this will deposit another thousand dollars into your bank account.

What this will do is help you put things in some kind of perspective and help you face life and all of its problems with a powerful attitude.

It is not easy to behave constructively in the face of negative emotions, and not easy to say a kind word when we feel angry or sad. But whether or not life is easy, holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

Meanwhile, you put on a brave face to mask misery. Perhaps you self medicate with excessive caffeine or alcohol just to be able to function in  a decent mood. If you've done any of these, you know the strain of having to keep up a chirpy appearance and smile when you're hurting inside.

One day when feeling depressed, I was on a flight descending into clouds. I watched as the sun slowly rose in the sky, lifting my spirits. When you're feeling low, devote a few minutes to meditating on these marvels of existence to rally hope. Miracles abound. Whatever you're going through, there's always hope for a new day.

 

Living with pain

The 2010s could be a decade you cherished or a decade you loathed for so many different reasons. It was a decade of change, of loss, of growth. It was a decade of civil unrest - in Thailand and Hong Kong, of nationalism and tragedies - in Haiti, Chile, New Zealand and twin tragedies with Malaysia Airlines. In 2010 Donald Trump was a gameshow host. Giving a DVD or CD as a gift was common place. Instagram was in its infancy. Brexit didn't exist.  The world will never be the same again. 

"Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in long-shot," so said Charlie Chaplin.

I will confess that the decade had been bittersweet for me. But slowly, on a personal level, it has gotten better - or at least less terrible. I did quite a lot of thinking, some praying, and, in time, a good deal of laughing.

What I've learned from my personal "decade review" is that there are years that ask questions and then there are years that answer them. I never know what a year might hold.

We live in a world where everyone wants answers, but we never want to wrestle with the questions. Instant gratification - our culture - teaches us to cave in to impatience and to take the easy way out instead of patiently searching the deeper meaning. We don't know what the universe has in store for us. So whatever questions, whatever challenges are thrown at us in a given year, we've got to roll with them.

What these years of questions really do is to test me. One of the keys to sorting through the questions is to not let them consume me. Throughout those uncertain years, I was still finding success, and making significant contributions. I wasn't just sitting around vexed and perplexed.

You have to find your own ways of answering the questions, whatever they happen to be. If you're diagnosed with a major illness, that's life asking you, "now, how are you going to deal with this?" If you lose your job, the question is, "Now, what's your next move?" These questions are testing your faith, testing your perseverance, testing your principles, testing your soul.

When people say," Man, I can't wait for this year to be over," what they're really saying is, "it's been a year full of unanswered questions."

We can't be afraid of having question years. Anyone who's successful will tell you that they learn more from failures than from successes. The years that ask questions are the years that end up leading to growth. When you embrace those trying years, as with any other test, there are answers waiting for you on the other side.

Look, I'm going to be honest here. Even as I say all of this, we both know that when disaster strikes, it's challenging to stay levelheaded. Our problems are still real, they still hurt.

It's up to us to make the choice to be grateful even when things aren't going well. Happiness, as they say, is not about getting what we want; it's about appreciating what we have. 

Journeying through crisis

Queen Elizabeth II will retire in 18 months at age 95. NO! "There are no plans for any change in arrangements at the age of 95 — or any other age” A rare statement from the Prince Charles' office has shot down the rumours.

The fears of aging have been one long cascading domino effect through the years: twenty-year-olds dread thirty; fifty-year-olds fear fifty; and so it goes. Research shows that having a bad attitude toward aging when we're young is associated with poorer health when we're older.

From my vantage point, I can see how society needs an attitude adjustment when it comes to aging. I don't claim that aging is all good, but it certainly isn't all bad. But too often, the negative stereotypes scare the young and make elders feel worse about themselves.

At 55, I am now at the age known as "senior citizen" (I am eligible for discounts at cinemas and telcos) in Singapore and, like most, wonder how it all happened so fast.

Like a lot of people, I got off to an exciting start in my twenties. Wild, free, energetic are words I would use to recall that period. I had no firm goals, no money, no love life (or prospect of one), no conspicuous talent. My thirties brought responsibility, then predictability. In my forties through to my fifties, I'm expecting less and appreciating more. I remember where I started and appreciate any blessings that come my way. There are crises and difficulties, true. I encountered disappointment and failure and still do. Sure, I'm still in the trough of the U curve.

Life is dynamic and unstable. What worked yesterday, today no longer does. Life is as beautiful as it is challenging; it will reward us and it will test us. There is no escaping the conditions of pain, and difficulty and loss. At times in your life, it may feel like nothing seems to be going your way. For example, if you look to someone else to establish your identity for you in some way, losing that person can make you feel destroyed.

At some point you're going to find yourself in a particular situation where you have no control over any of the variables. We cannot directly control people, events or results. We don't have godlike powers to just magically or mystically transform everything into exactly what we want. We cannot control if we win a game, find love, succeed in business or create world peace. But by making the effort, we vastly improve the odds of achieving what we desire. No matter what our desires or preferences, the universe. So the best way is to enjoy life without clinging - hold all that you have gently - as you might hold a small bird that may fly at any moment. Sometimes strength means holding on, and sometimes it means letting go. So, make the effort, then accept the outcomes. Let go of what you can't control.

We got to learn to be our own best friend. If we do, we have a friend for life. I have seen so many people do it, really come to life. We can buoy ourselves up, give ourselves comfort and sustenance the times when there is no one else. We are our best source of encouragement and good advice. We are all accustomed to waiting for someone to give us a kind word, but we really have available to ourselves, many kind words.

There is no magic switch. But there is an attitude. Our mistake begins when we expect things and other people to assume responsibility for our happiness. Disillusion always seems to follow when we expect someone or something else to make us happy. 

Mood swings are common to most of us. One moment we may feel "up", the next "down". We speak as if our feelings change from sunny to stormy like the weather, over which we have no control.

You have to make a very basic decision: do you want to lift yourself up or put yourself down? If you decide you want to help yourself, you can choose to do the things that make you feel good about yourself instead of the things that make you feel terrible.

I try not to concern myself with being happy, instead focus on being strong. Day by day, I am working on strengthening my ability to cope and rebuild in the face of adversity.

This article about aging isn't necessarily about aging at all. It's about living and how we cope and thrive throughout our lives.

 

Everything works out if you let it

Hong Kong is right at the edge of total collapse. It is enduring what could be its most turbulent week since the protests began in June. Schools have been ordered shut, employees have been urged to work from home and events cancellations are piling up. In mere months, Hong Kong has gone from a growth economy to recession as retail and tourism numbers keep plunging.

The hard part about being pushed to that point of desperation is reeling yourself back in and regaining control. 

For it is true - no matter how hard times get, they always, without fail, turn back to better times. I have only to look back on my life to know that.

The greatest happiness and successes are always preceded by challenges. It's the way we're tested to see how much we want something. If we don't want it that much, we'll give up. If we're really determined, we'll see it through. No matter how hard it is.

One of the biggest enemies we face in day-to-day life is that of our own emotions. Desperation, fear, anxiety can drive us to choices for which we will pay later down the road.

I am learning the hard way that sometimes I have to accept the facts that some things just have to run their course, creating new opportunities, building character and providing experience. Situations have a way of working out, and they can do it quicker and better if left alone.

Sometimes the best way to manage a problem is to manage my own meddling. It will certasinly save a lot of heartbreak and tears.