Kick Off

Our Kick Off Meeting happens this coming Thursday...

In today's environment, competitive advantage lies not in machines or patents but in people, people who will improvise and innovate and invest themselves personally in their companies.Committed associates will do their best for us even when we're not looking, which is especially true in the sales arena.

To that end, I always try to foster 2-way communication, to create feelings of family and "oneness", to recruiting associates who could be developed for the long haul and to helping them become all they could be.

from left: Shirley, Clarice, Avril

State of mind

"Is taking this job a mistake," an old friend consulted me.

Here's my take: You can't let the failure outside you get inside you.

Just like... you certainly can't control the length of your lfe - but you can control its width and depth.
Just like...you can't control the contour of your face - but you can control its expressions.

A personal growth expert says, "90% of all those who fail, are not actually defeated. They simply quit."

Talent and intelligence doesn't quite count here. It calls for character.

No lonelier decision

Should he undergo an angiogram and angioplasty which he might not survive? Or should he not undergo one and may not make it to the hospital on time the next flare-up?

Today, my dad is alive - very ill, but alive. As I prepare to visit him tomorrow in the hospital, I am overwhelmed by the doubt and pain of addressing the above life-and-death decision. Tomorrow's discussion with mum, Ben and dad will hopefully spare me the agony of wondering if I've made the right decision.

I think there is no lonelier decision to make in this world than the one that might lead a parent (or any loved one) to die. I pray with all my heart to spare my child this agony.

I have decided that I will live with whatever decision my dad makes...if he chooses to make it. If he doesn't then it is mine to make and mine to live with. And i hope that on the other side of this decision, both my dad and I will find peace. I think I am ready.

The seesaw

It's hard to feel any real balance in your life when a parent is critically ill. Try as you might to focus on work and other responsibilities, there is an irresistible pull that draws you into caregiving and decision making.

It has been a poignant and difficult week for me.Dad is gravely ill. At times like this, a bbm from a friend spoke volumes.

After a week, from New year's Eve till today - Monday to Monday - I am in limbo. Doctor wanted to see me this evening to discuss about doing an angiogram. A procedure, that in itself, might even kill him in this weakened state.

We straddle the fulcrum, shifting our weights and roles as the times demand; one moment we are workers, another we are sons andaughters and still another, we are parents, lovers and friends. Evryone does this. It's just that this week, I spent a great deal of time focused on being the child of my fragile father. And that made it very, very hard to keep the seesaw level.

We choose

My dad and his brothers are under the weather. Dad's in hospital with a weak lung, liver and heart failure. His brother Paul is fighting lung infection and his other brother Lawrence is battling the c-word.

Everything is a choice. This is life's greatest truth and hardest lesson.

It is a great truth because it means we have power to live the life we imagine. It is a hard lesson, because we have chosen the life we are living right now.

We have chosen the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the thoughts we think. We have chosen to believe certain ideas. We have chosen the people we call friends.

We chose, and in doing so, we design our lives. Some may say that we do not choose our circumstances. You'd be surprised. If we choose to smoke, we may hurt our lungs. If we choose to be obese, we have hurt our liver.

Life is choices. Love is a choice. Anger is a choice. Fear is a choice. Courage is a choice.
We choose.

Discounting other people's contribution

The banter around the table last night amongst Peter, Yam Seng and David in Capella were about discounting other people's contribution.

One of the biggest mistakes high achievers make is in overestimating their contribution to a success. When was the last time we heard a colleague recount a triumph that we recall as a team effort but, having gone through the rince cycle of our colleague's ego, has ended up sounding like a one-man show? 

People also go too far back in time, digging up an achievement that happened so long ago that it's no longer relevant and may even qualify as ancient history.

Nowadays, I frequently check myself so as not to exaggerate my role in any achievement.

Counting my blessings

I was borned 48 years ago today.

The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now. I do not know if the days are dwindling for me or if I will make it to ninety three like my grandmother. Nonetheless at forty-eight I am convinved we must live as if we're immortal.

Am I aging gracefully? All I can say is I am counting my blessings and not my time with a pointless pining for yesterday because I keep telling myself, "The older I get, the luckier I am."

~ You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old. ~ George Burns