The next stage of my journey saw me heading to the Vipassana center in Prachinburi. After reaching Bangkok from Udon Thani, Paiboon and I parted ways as he was going to another Vipassana center.
While waiting for the bus, I wasn’t quite so sure what to expect. 10 straight days of meditation, starting at 4:30AM in the morning, without any books, music players, TVs or writing materials allowed – not to mention no talking at all?
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Recently, Zen Habits and Getting Rich Slowly‘s blog owners both got out of debt. It’s a big achievement and very inspirational; and they both show you how they did it.
Read Zen Habit’s The 10 Key Actions That Finally Got Me Out of Debt; or, Why Living Frugally is Only Part of the Solution.
Read Getting Rich Slowly’s Free at Last! Saying Good-Bye to 20 Years of Debt.
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Christine Kane has a better way for you to start your year: choose a word.
Just one word.
That’s it.
And this word will be your guiding focus for the next 12 months.
Last year, I chose the word courage. Looking back, I think I’ve done pretty well. I faced my fear of talking to strangers over and over and even made friends with a few. I also kept stretching the boundaries of my comfort zone by doing new things like getting my driving license, and facing my fear of heights by jumping off trees.
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You’re probably already aware that confidence plays an enormous role in business success. When you exude confidence, you naturally attract others. People listen to you, follow you, and even buy products from you. Displaying confidence assures people that you know what you’re doing.
Even people with the highest levels of self-esteem feel unsure of themselves at times. Consider how difficult it is to be confident when you first start a new job and you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, you don’t feel fully comfortable with the routine, and you haven’t developed strong relationships with your co-workers yet. You probably don’t appear very confident.
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Most of us go through our entire lives reacting to our own interpretation of the happenings and events in our lives. We live in fear, we fall asleep in quiet desperation and we do anything we can to protect what we think is ours. Under the guise of personal power, we falsely believe that we are able to control everything in our lives by holding the things we cherish most so tightly that we are never threatened by their loss.
In the Vedic scriptures, this is referred to as ‘False Ego’. It is our desire to lord it over everything in our lives in order to maintain security, control and a false sense of power over our material existence. It is completely fear-based and referenced from our perception of events in our pasts. It is unreal, yet perceived as real and therefore given the power to manipulate our life experiences. (more…)
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A traditional Japanese tea room is exceedingly simple, with a bare minimal of decoration, helping the participants of the tea ceremony to focus on just what is at hand. In other words, the room and the ceremony are made to help people just be.
I think there is great value in this being. Lately, I’ve noticed myself getting more and more anxious, more and more worried that certain things wouldn’t go well, that things just weren’t good enough. (more…)
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Today I mourn the loss of a dear friend, a good brother who never failed to warm your heart with his cheerful disposition, lend a helping hand when you were down and give generously to those in need. He inspired me through his actions, his accomplishments and his struggles against all odds, to be a better person. Therefore I beg your indulgence for a few moments as I share with you my personal impression of him.
I remembered that during one of the difficult periods in my life, he was there encouraging me. He would say, “E, you’re still young, you have plenty of good things waiting for you, so don’t let this thing bog you down, never give up on yourself”. (more…)
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I spent yesterday thinking of the answers to Tim Ferris‘ questions from his book The 4-Hour Workweek:
Which 20% of my efforts are producing 80% of my results that I need to focus more on?
And which 80% of my efforts producing 20% of my results can I eliminate from my life?
The 80/20 Principle, also known as the Pareto Principle, discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, says that for many events, 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes.
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I finally finished my vision board a couple of weeks ago with some pushing from my mastermind group.
For the uninitiated, a vision board is a poster with images of what you want to have, do and be in your life. The idea behind this is the same as putting your goals, tasks and intentions in a place where you see them everyday; you make it easier to attract these things into your life.
It was easier and more fun than I thought. I bought a cheap board from Ikea, a few magazines, printed some inspiring photos, got it done and now it’s hanging in front of my desk.
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I’ve been wondering lately about what decluttering really means. One of my favorite designers John Maeda, author of The Laws of Simplicity, says in his (ironically rambling) TED talk that the simplest definition of simplicity is that ‘simplicity is about living life with more enjoyment and less pain’.
That rings very true. So how do we get more enjoyment and less pain in our lives? The art of decluttering is obviously about removing all the unnecessary bits of our lives that cause us more pain than we need; the undone task lingering in the back of our minds for two weeks, the stiff doorknob we keep putting off oiling, the pile of old clothes we refuse to throw out.
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I was reading Marc Allen’s The Millionaire Course and wondering why I’ve always seemed to have problems with money. Growing up, my family turned from being well-off to struggling and it seemed like I got stuck with this ‘poverty consciousness’ along the way.
Then I got to wondering about difficulties at work. Why was it that something I could have finished in much less time took much longer for me to complete – and why was it such a struggle to get it done?
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Self-awareness is often the first step towards growth. But is there any drawback to being a person who’s keenly aware of his environment, his actions and the people around him?
You betcha.
It’s a tendency to kick himself in the ass for all the mistakes he’s seen himself make throughout the day.
You see, the more aware a person is, the more he’s able to notice when he flubs up.
That’s when his critical voice kicks in; ‘how could you have done that, I can’t believe you said that, you should have known better, yadda yadda yadda now no-one will ever love you and everyone in the universe will know you’re such a total loser!’
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I was stressed. Somehow I kept feeling like there was something bugging me…what? Then it hit me – and I had been staring at it all day long for weeks. It was my desktop clutter.
This is a screenshot of my desktop at work. I thought it’d be a great idea to have my task list displayed (via Samurize, method here), together with my calendar appointments and the local weather via widgets (my office has no windows). And a kick-ass wallpaper.
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Who owns you really?
Is it email? TV? Fame? Money? Is it what you drive? What you have or don’t have? That new toy you just can’t live without? Is it your past? Someone you haven’t seen in years? Is it what people say you are? Is it what others think of you? Is it what you believe? Is it your own voice or the voices of others?
Who owns you? You or somebody else?
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Watching Spiderman 3 reveals a part of the Hero’s Journey that is not often seen; the hero’s downfall.
If you’re not familiar with the previous steps of the hero’s journey, download my free Hero’s Journey ebook. If you’re familiar with the 10 steps, you’ll know the Spiderman movies are wonderful metaphors for the hero’s journey (although the Lord of the Rings trilogy kicks so much more ass!).
The hero’s downfall can happen anytime after the Supreme Ordeal. After the hero’s faced down his biggest enemies, and possibly Claimed His Treasure, his ego gets inflated. Having had a taste of his own power, he mistakenly begins to think he’s the greatest thing to come along since sliced bread. He becomes an arrogant pain in the ass.
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I was facilitating a team-building session when an interestingly hostile participant threw this spanner:
“My leader is obliged to hear me bitch about things at work! It is therapeutic and allows me to work better!”
Being the hard-headed fool that I am, I nodded my head in acknowledgement of her comment. Effectively attracting the spanner to fly my way. She pointed to me and declared with aplomb:
“See, even the coach here agrees with me!”
What’s the difference between someone who’s led around by the nose and someone who does the leading?
In Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), we learn about the Law of Prerequisite Variety: the element in any system that has the most flexibility will end up leading the system.
Think of little children, they have incredible flexibility. To get you to do something, they’ll tease, cajole, beg, lie, cry, laugh, use logic, use emotion, jump up and down, be adorable, be funny, and they’ll keep doing it until they get what they want.
Adults seem to have 2 or 3 patterns they keep coming back to 😛
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In Getting Your Life On Track Part 1, we discovered a way to find out if the things we spend our time on are really that urgent and important.
In Getting Your Life On Track Part 2 we revealed how you could use that understanding to develop clear and important goals for yourself, so you’d always know you’re doing what you could best be doing.
In Getting Your Life On Track Part 3 we learned how dumping it, stuffing it and dealing it could help you unload your overload and reduce the anxiety you feel in your life.
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In Getting Your Life On Track Part 1, we discovered a way to find out if the things we spend our time on are really that urgent and important.
In Getting Your Life On Track Part 2 we revealed how you could use that understanding to develop clear and important goals for yourself, so you’d always know you’re doing what you could best be doing. (more…)
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Ever feel like you’re caught up in doing, but not sure if you’re doing what you should be doing? It’s scary to think we could be throwing all our time and energy into climbing a ladder, only to find at the top it’s been leaning on the wrong wall.
In Getting Your Life On Track Part 1, we discovered a powerful way to find out if the things we spend our time on are really that urgent and important. (more…)
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I had a blinding flash of the obvious the other day: I realized why I’d been falling behind on my commitments and feeling more stressed out the last few weeks.
I’d fallen for the lure of the urgent important and been chasing shiny trinkets of faux productivity. And it wasn’t because I didn’t have enough time, although that would have been a convenient – and irresponsible – excuse. It was because instead of leading my schedule, I’d let myself by led by it. (more…)
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Remember those goals you set out at the beginning of the year? So this is March, and what have you done?
Yup, welcome to the reality gut-check post – not for the faint-hearted.
After years of setting goals; achieving some and not others, I realized the difference that makes the difference is you must have a way to measure your progress.
We’re coming to the end of March soon, so this is the quarter-year check. If you haven’t already taken some steps towards achieving your goals, here’s the gut-check: it ain’t gonna happen until you start…now.
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Charisma. You know it when you see it, but what is charisma and how can you become more charismatic?
In the How To Be Charismatic series, I explore different people and facets of charisma as I attempt to answer the question: just what is it that makes charismatic people charismatic?
Many of us would agree that Bruce Lee was one of the most intense and charismatic figures in the history of cinema. But just how was he charismatic and what can we learn from him to be more charismatic ourselves?
The following video is a 25 minute interview with the Little Dragon. It was thought lost for a couple of decades until found miraculously preserved in the 1990s. Done in December 1971, when Bruce was riding on the success of his first film, we get a rare glimpse into what it must have been like to talk with the legend face-to-face.
You can find clues to Bruce’s inner and outer game of charisma by watching the video.
1) Mid-tempo speed of speaking.
A frequent characteristic of charisma that I keep reading about is a measured pace of speaking – speak too fast (a problem I have) and you appear insecure. Speak too slowly and you bore people.
2) A wide range of gestures that punctuate his speech.
Something you’d expect from a great martial artist; he’s comfortable with his hands and he uses them to emphasize what he says.
3) Use of pauses in his speech.
Bruce likes to use well-timed pauses in his speech to…add emphasis and…build anticipation. Great technique.
4) A variety of changing facial expressions.
I was once taught that charisma comes out of variety; a variety of gestures, body postures, voice tonality, tempo and facial expressions. It’s obvious that Lee has a wide variety of facial expressions; note how he changes from smiling to serious, joking to intense in a heartbeat.
5) A variety of vocal tonality.
Listen to how he slows down, and punctuates certain words in-between or just explode into a new sentence – done together with his gestures.
1) Passionate
He loves the martial arts so much it comes through in everything he says.
2) Knowledgeable
Bruce gives the interviewer Pierre Burton a rich glimpse into the world of martial arts, even giving a little demo of Tai Chi Chuan when Pierre asks about it. He remembers his line from the TV show Longstreet and gives Pierre a short but intense performance.
3) Open
Bruce doesn’t pull any punches (hee hee) and gives Pierre his open and direct opinions; even on why he felt The Warrior wouldn’t be made because of racism (it was eventually made as Kung Fu, starring a Caucasian David Carradine).
Bruce Lee on Charisma
What did Bruce Lee himself have to say about being charismatic?
When I did The Green Hornet television series back in 1965, I looked around and I saw a lot of human beings. And as I looked at myself, I was the only robot there. I was not being myself. I was trying to accumulate external security, external technique – the way to move my arm and soon on – but I was never asking: ‘What would Bruce Lee have done if’ – the word if – ‘such a thing had happened to me?’ When I look around, I always learn something, and that is, to always be yourself and to express yourself. To have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate him. That seems to me to be the prevalent thing happening here in Hong Kong. They always copy a person’s mannerisms, but they never see beyond that. They never start at the very source, the very root of their own being, and ask the question: ‘How can I be me?’
Just what is an actor? Is he not the sum total of all that he is – his level of understanding, his capability to captivate the audience because he is real in the expression of his personal feelings toward what was required in the scene? You can spot such artists from ordinary ones like that. The Americans have a word for it, it’s called charisma. What you see on the screen is the sum total of his level of understanding, his taste, his educational background, his intensity, etc.
Most people only live for their image. That is why where some have a self, a starting point, most people have a void. Because they are so busy projecting themselves as ‘this’ or ‘that,’ they end up wasting and dissipating all their energy in projection and conjuring up of facade, rather than centering their energy on expanding and broadening their potential or expressing and relaying this unified energy for efficient communication. When another human being sees a self-actualizing person walk past, he cannot help but say: ‘Hey now, there is someone real!’
Bruce asserts that the secret to charisma isn’t in copying other people, but in honestly expressing oneself to one’s highest potential. He believes that a solid inner game will provide a solid outer game. This call to be authentic also echoes British Professor Richard Wiseman’s attribute of charismatic people; that they are impervious to the influences of other charismatic people.
I’d make a guess that if Bruce was asked about how to be more charismatic; he’d tell us to be ourselves as best as we can, develop our fullest potentials and express ourselves honestly.
See anything I missed out? And who else do you think is charismatic that we should take a good look at?
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Charisma. You know it when you see it, but what is charisma and how can you become more charismatic?
The word ‘charisma’ comes from the Greek word meaning ‘gift’, or ‘divine favor’. It’s that undefinable quality of being an attraction magnet; you just want to look at, listen and feel (ahem) people who are charismatic.
I’ve always been fascinated by just what makes people charismatic and how to become more charismatic myself.
It seems that there are two keys you need to master to become even more charismatic: you must have solid inner game; where you know what you’re about and you’re strong inside (points 1 and 3). You must have solid outer game; where you know how to direct your language, tonality and body language (remembering that words are only 7% of your communication) to influence others (point 2).
In this series, I’m going to explore different people and different facets of charisma as I attempt to answer the question: just what is it that makes charismatic people charismatic?
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February 8th marked the end of my 30 day lucid dreaming trial. I recorded 14 out of 30 days’ of my dreams in my dream journal, slightly less than half. Most of the times I either forget my dreams upon awakening or was lazy.
So what addition lessons have I learned since the 15 day mark?
1) Keep your pen in your journal on a blank page. Makes it much, much easier to just flip open your journal and write first thing in the morning. You won’t believe how much momentum you lose just in those few moments of looking for a blank page, and sometimes you’ll even write in the dark which makes fumbling impossible.
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