Archive for the ‘career’ Category
Things to do at age 32-47 (1.5 precious decade)
- Be grateful. Gratitude can soothe your desire and competitiveness. More importantly, gratitude is the root of happiness.
- Love yourself. Stand up for yourself for things that matter. Get out of a bad relationship.
- Believe that you are beautiful.
- Believe in miracles. “永远相信，美好的事情即将发生”
- Travel and continuously learn and learn how to learn (meta learning). “Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.” ~ God via Robin S. Sharma | Learn new languages by immersion.
- Love your work. If you cannot do what you love, at least love what you do. According to Frankl, “We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering”
- Take (at least a big) risk(s) to realize your dreams, step by step strategically. Be courageous to explicitly/implicitly express “I love you”. When you’re old, you won’t care if your love wasn’t returned — only that you made it known how you felt.
- Be thick face enough not to care too much about what other people think.
- Plant kindness. Do your best to ensure that those who are less fortunate than you, believe that there are sunshine and beauty in this world.
- Build connection capital. Connection here refers to genuine and authentic relationships, true friendships.
- Cherish people, use things (not the other way round).
- Appreciate now and here, the moment, the nature and beauty in the forms of visuals, arts, music, delicious cuisine.
- Master the art of endurance.
- View a painful experience as an avenue to increase your wisdom.
- Move / exercise / dance / walk / hike
Ideas are inspired from:
Tips from various magazines
@~@
To reduce commute time:
www.workshifting.com
Personally, commute time can be used for doing other useful stuff.
Relax (when the public transports are not too crowded).
Listen to voice notes of inspirations and ideas.
Read: study materials, news, facebook.
Plan.
@~@
According to Sally Poon (a dietician from Hong Kong Nutrition Association),
food of eating out are high in SALT, FAT & SUGAR,
which increases the risk of obesity, heart disease & hypertension.
Yes, we know all these but many times we choose to satisfy our
Minimize fried food.
Avoid preserved meat, e.g. salami.
For pasta e.g. spaghetti: red sauce (tomato-based) is healthier than white sauce.
@~@
"The more time a person spends on the job, the more conflict there is likely to be between work and family."
Do you agree with this statement?
@~@ Things that I must do:
# live my life to the fullest.
# appreciate what I have.
@~@
Short-listed things that I find interesting to do:
# Learn copywriting. Learn writing to sell a strategic idea.
# read The happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (since January 2012)
# make DIY flash cards. First picture that I found: polar bear of Churchill, Canada. Remember that the cuddly-looking polar bear (thanks to its shaggy fur) can be dangerous. My friend J was given a polar bear soft toy as the first birthday gift from his man, and his man can be cuddly yet dangerous like polar bear!
# attend a Nobel Prize banquet @ Stockholm (since March 2012).
# eat Vosges Haut-Chocolat (chocolate with unlikely flavors like curry, taleggio, and wasabi), partly because Katrina Markoff is an inspiring entrepreneur!
# FIND TIME TO DO NOTHING. BREATHE. An advice by Tim Park, the author of Teach us to Sit Still: A Sceptic’s Search for Health and Healing.
# Remove dust! Dust can cause your TV, computer, laptop to overheat and reduce its life span. When you do house chores of vacuum cleaning, empty the dust bag when it is half-full. With a fuller dust bag, the machine has to work harder and risks overheating.
# To extend the lifespan of your mobile phone, use its appropriate charger, simply because the voltage is different. Do not charge your phone overnight.
# commit to 30-day challenge of writing a book. Thank you Matt Cutts.
# refuse to let work compromise what my body needs: nutritious, regular meals, 7-8 hours of sleep, 3×10-minute exercise.
# hit the road less traveled with a backpack like Paige Chua. She went for her first solo trip to Beijing & Inner Mongolia in 2007. Interesting reflection: city dwellers seek a simple life when travel, but rural dwellers (e.g. of Inner Mongolia) aspire to move to cities (e.g. Beijing).
Quotes that I like:
# "No one shoots you if you’ve got a smile on your face." ~ Alan Wicker, travel journalist.
# "When I visit somewhere new, I always absorb it first as a human being, then photography it as my hobby and then consider if it’s interesting enough to share with other people through Twitter, Facebook or my blog." ~ Ben Southall, Winner of Best Job in the World (2009), caretaker of Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef.
# "Don’t forget that frequent business travellers are often the most frequent leisure travellers." www.businesstraveller.asia
Blueroselady: The next time someone (e.g. CV) tells you and me that he is busy travelling on business trips, he is likely to include sightseeing and leisure activities too!
A life lesson from a fallen fruit cart: resilience
The inspiration below is adapted from the story shared by Subroto Bagchi, a co-founder & CEO of MindTree Consulting.
Imagine a busy road junction in a developing country (e.g. China, India, Indonesia) during the peak hour.
The smoke from vehicles.
The burning hot sun.
The dust that hurts eyes.
Everyone is rushing and rushing.
But it has become worse on a particular day.
A fruit seller’s cart has overturned.
His fruits are everywhere on the street floor.
The rushing vehicles are crushing his fruits.
His business for today is over.
Everyday, he woke up at 4 am before dawn or sunrise,
to buy his commodity from the wholesale market.
Then, he walked pushing his cart over a long distance.
Commodity like fruit is easily perishable,
he must sell them by the day.
Sometimes, he has not been successful because of bad weather.
Sometimes, he consumes the left-overs.
Sometimes, he just gives them away.
When unfortunate things like today happen,
he losses his capital,
and has to borrow more money from moneylender – who normally charges neck-choking interests.
Reading his story is like a wake-up call for my friend S who forward it to me.
S has a comfortable job, with stable salary, bonuses, and health insurance.
However, she often finds herself worrying about the future.
Her progress has been slow mainly because of her maternity leave and feeling of inadequate.
I asked S what the worst that can happen?
Her job contract will not be renewed.
Then, I asked S if this means that she can explore possible endeavors that she always dreams of but was too afraid to explore.
Unlike the fruit cart seller who has no financial safety net,
S still has some savings that can last her for at least half a year,
a supportive spouse.
What S needs more is resilience that she can learn from the entrepreneurial fruit cart seller to deal with life.
Energy levels matter
I met a friend who told me about his high-flying colleague CH.
CH is very healthy, has high energy levels, can lead multiple projects simultaneously, a father of 3 children.
He can survive by sleeping little,
because of good health.
He can multi-task, by delegating.
My friend does not like to undertake too many projects, because once he starts, he will continue doing until completion. In the process, his energy is over-drained.
This makes me to reflect on the followings:
Know yourself.
Know your energy levels to decide where to compete.
Sometimes, my friend’s wife who has been raised with a value of contributing (to others) feels stress that she is not doing enough.
Her case reminds me on an advice by Deepak Chopra (in a children book):
Your contribution (dharma) may serve many people, or just few people.
It does not matter, as long as you give / contribute.
DO what you LOVE, LOVE what you DO
Do what you love and love what you do sound simple, but appear complex in practice.
How many of us do what we love for most time of our lives?
How many of us love what we do for most of our doings?
For many people across different ages and roles of life, here are possibilities:
Dreams change.
Goals change.
Plans Change.
Do you love a doing because you are good at the doing?
Would you still love the doing if you are not (yet) good at the doing)?
Would you still love the doing if you are not (yet) good at the doing (even after 10,000 hours of practice)?
A quote by Steve Jobs shared by Jeff Moore:
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.
Don’t settle.
As with all matters of the heart,
you’ll know when you find it."
When I was in high school,
I love (or perhaps prefer) science subjects because my linguistic skills are limited (reason #1).
Apparently and consequently, I did better in maths, chemistry, biology, physics than in language subjects. People love doing things whereby we have a sense of mastery, do you feel so as well?
My native Chinese-speaking classmates who have learned writing and reading since early age, are at ease in the Chinese class.
My Eurasian classmates who have a native speaking father / mother, or those who have English-educated parents, seem to write English so fluently.
They had read thick novels / non-fiction books and easily won the essay writing and elocution competitions.
For me,
to write an essay in English or Chinese,
I had to start from simple structures.
When I have an exam topic of essay to write,
I would quickly jot down some ideas in point form and elaborated on them later as my writing progressed.
Normally, I would write explanatory or argumentative essays, and very rarely narrative essays, simply because of my limited vocabularies.
Reason #2
There are high certainty in science subject exams.
1+1=2. If the answers are right now, they will be right tomorrow.
We love things that we do well.
But in real life (including the real scientific fields as my scientist acquaintances point out),
the rules of game are uncertain.
The rules are not constant; change is the rule of the rules.
That’s why life is the only known example of infinite game is life, according to James P. Carse.
On contrary, examples of finite games are debates, sports, schools, receiving a degree from an educational institution, belonging to a society, or engaging in war.
The surprise in infinite game is the triumph of the future over the past.
So, when you are uncertain about what to do next, an easy step is to
always choose infinite games.
Winning should not be the final goal because after winning, the game stops.
Life is a game that is meant to be continuously played.
Aunt Florence shared some profound advice on how to play the game of life, you may want (and I need) to revise and remember them,
as resilient shortcuts in the moments of negative feelings and events.
Although I honestly feel that my writing is still not up to standard (set through social comparisons with people of similar professional credentials to mine and authors whom I admire),
I will continue writing.
I think this is an example of "DO what you LOVE".
Sometimes we may have to do things that we are not interested, so it is hard to love what we do.
However, the good news are interests are malleable,
they are formed through our past experiences (including education),
so we can change them through learning and unlearning.
Revealingly, you can re-program your minds and interests through conscious efforts,
this attempt will also beneficial to discard some preferences that we would not want to have if we think carefully about them but others manage to incept on us — think of the 2010 science fiction film entitled Inception.
For example, I know a number of people who have focused greatly on their careers,
hate doing house chores or parenting tasks,
but I believe that if they want to,
with right conscious efforts to shift their interests,
they can love what they do.
How to continue love what you do (even if you feel tired / bored / disappointed / frustrated) ?
My friend Tracy suggests using positive feedback loop.
You can establish positive feedback loop when the rewards / pleasure of your doing outweigh the sacrifices / pain.
To DO what you LOVE, you need willpower and courage.
To LOVE what you DO, you need positive feedback and inner security.
Inner security that I means here is not worrying so much about achieving certain levels of success.
More real-world examples:
# Joanna: becoming a mother at age 48
# My friend Leo highlights that people rule out the possibility of great change, because it appears unrealistic.
Finally,
"Do what you love, love what you do & deliver more than you promise!" ~ Harvey Mackay
Reflections on Coursera: 7 reasons I love it
This post is not a review of Coursera.
My sincere appreciation to Coursera for providing me an opportunity to learn many interesting subjects and to improve the quality of my life.
These are seven reasons I love it (as of summer 2013).
1. FREE.
Coursera courses are free as of summer 2013.
Some of the best things in life are free,
for example the love of parents to their children.
2. An opportunity to practice GRATITUDE.
According to Thomas Paine, human beings tend to take things for granted.
“That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
It is dearness only which gives everything its value.”
By being grateful, we can live happier and more fulfilling.
3. FLEXIBILITY.
The Coursera lectures are presented in short videos which are ideal for the following people:
workers who want to improve their knowledge and skills.
breastfeeding mothers who have to attend to young babies.
commuters who have to travel far on public transports.
4. SOCIAL & ECONOMIC ENABLERS for those who cannot afford to o for schooling due to their earlier life circumstances.
A friend of mine mentions that he prefers to hire those who have completed Coursera courses* (and are able to apply what they have learned) to those who present traditional educational certifications.
He reasons that those who strive to upgrade their knowledge & skills on their own initiative, need to put efforts & discipline.
* Statement of Accomplishment can prove that one has completed a Coursera course.
Indeed, MOOCs such as Coursera have a great potential to unlock career and educational opportunities, and find new life pathways for people of all ages regardless of current social economic background.
5. an opportunity to practice perseverance, discipline, the art of prioritizing (doing first thing first), and to experience the joy of learning.
Top Ten Reasons Students Didn’t Finish MOOC:
- Takes too Much Time
- Assumes Too Much Knowledge
- Too Basic
- Lecture Fatigue
- Poor Course Design
- Clunky Community/Communication Tools
- Bad Peer Review & Trolls
- Surprised by Hidden Costs
- Shopping Around
- Want to Learn, Nor for Credential
6. MEET NEW PEOPLE.
Coursera offers a community of fellow students / learners hailed from worldwide.
This satisfy human beings’ need to socialize.
7. ENTERTAINING.
Some of Coursera courses that I have attended have offered a delicious treat to our senses: visual, audio, tastes, odor, and touch.
For example,
(i) from the Coursera course on child nutrition & cooking instructed by Maya Adam (Stanford University),
I have learned how to cook delicious & healthy pasta with homemade sauce.
While watching me cooking in the kitchen, my baby experience the fragrant smell of pasta,
and in the near future he will be able to taste it too.
(ii) Coursera videos feature instructors from different regions worldwide (mostly Americans as of summer 2013).
These videos also serve as an avenue to learn e.g. American English.
What’s next?
Udacity
edX
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Ten Inspirations from Dato Sri Tahir: an entrepreneur & banker
Dato Sri Tahir / 翁俊民 is the founder of the Mayapada Group, an Indonesian-based conglomerate.
Literally, Mayapada is an imaginary kingdom in Mahabharata.
I first knew Tahir through Forbes. He was born in Surabaya on 26 March 1952.
Below are ten (10) inspirations that I learned from him:
1. Dare to dream.
To quote Tahir, "One is not afraid of failure, one is only afraid of being fearful to dream. Life is like a competition / race with many participants and few winners. If you do not run faster than others, you will never win prizes"
Transform our dreams into our beliefs & vision / 异象.
With vision, we can exercise self-control.
2.Turn adversity into advantage / 逢凶化吉.
Once I attended a talk by Professor Lui Pao Chuen who also advocates turning adversity into advantage.
In the words of Tahir, "I come from a poor Chinese family," the tycoon says of his roots. "My parents used to make becak (a three-wheel rickshaw / pedicab). My father would assemble the parts while my mother painted them."
3. Be resourceful & courageous to make positive use of our resources.
"His wife, Rosy, the daughter of another Indonesian tycoon, Mochtar Riady, recently started h2h Charity, which has a vintage shop in Jakarta, proceeds from which are donated to help provide schooling for underprivileged children in Indonesia."
Tahir’s father-in-law rescued him from bankruptcy in 80s. Having wealthy (and most importantly keen & willing to help) family or friends may be helpful.
Sometimes, we may know wealthy associates but the timing and place are not right for them to assist us.
Do not blame them.
When the people, timing, and place (the spatio-temporal dynamic context) are right,
and we obtain assistance in the forms of any or some financial ($), intellectual resources,
these people become 贵人.
Make positive use of 贵人, even the best universities and Google stand on the shoulder of giant.
4. To win,
one must continuously learn, absorb, observe, and practice.
自强不息, 力求上进.
Practice makes perfect.
Practice creates talent.
It takes 10,000 hours of practice to give birth to an exceptional talent.
5. It is essential to pursue and support education.
Tahir’s Formal Education:
2008 : Obtained Doctor Honoris Causa (an honorary doctorate degree) from Universitas Tujuh Belas Agustus 1945-Surabaya (Major in Small and Medium Enterprises)
1987 : Obtained Master in Business Administration with GPA 4.00 from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, USA.
1976 : Obtained Bachelor’s degree majoring in business from Nan Yang University, Singapore
Tahir has also been appointed as a Board of Trustee at the University of California, Berkeley, becoming the first man from Southeast Asia to hold this position.
On April 2011, Tahir donated $1 million to the University of California, Berkeley for international student fellowships for students in the fulltime MBA program at Berkeley-Haas.
In my humble opinion, education is not entirely equal to schooling. I will write more about their differences.
6. Abide by the rules.
Competition has rules.
If one does not follow rules, s/he will face extinction.
Tahir cites an example using his banking business that strictly follows rules and regulations of the banking world.
"The Mayapada bank went public at the Jakarta Stock Exchange and weathered the 1997 economic crisis (when many banks became bankrupt due to not following rules) and managed to expand even more aggressively after the crisis. With foreign investment partners from the US, UAE and Singapore, the bank now has over 100 branches throughout Indonesia, and in 2007 has been voted as the second best public bank outside state-owned banks by InfoBank magazine, an influential banking magazine in Indonesia."
Though rupiah (IDR) collapsed in 1997, his bank (The Mayapada Bank) was spared because it was small and had not borrowed in US dollars.
7. Self-know.
Know ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses.
Know our level of competence.
量力而为.
If you are of 50 kg, you should not compete in the 100 kg class.
8. Win over your greatest enemy: yourself.
The only challenge Tahir faces, he says, is within himself: "I have to overcome my selfishness, my improper ambitions and greed."
Tahir could say so because he has successfully journeyed through the climb.
For many of aspiring entrepreneurs,
we first have to overcome laziness, faulty pride (e.g. the need of approval from others), negative mindset.
9. Build strong & solid platforms / foundations.
To quote Tahir, "I don’t build deals, I don’t build transactions … I build foundations or platforms."
Tahir has built the following platforms:
financial services (Mayapada Bank, Zurich Insurance Indonesia and Nipponkoa Indonesia).
Duty Free Shoppers.
real estate business (several buildings in Jakarta, hotels in Bali and Batam, and a new tower in Singapore).
healthcare (Mayapada Hospital).
media (Guo Ki*, Forbes Indonesia, Topas TV).
* the largest Chinese newspaper in Indonesia, with a circulation of 30,000 copies.
10. Make others happy, especially let others happy in their last moment.
Perhaps Tahir has lived long enough (as compared to young students) and seen many death to say: "The most enjoyable moment of my (life) is when I help people, especially when you give pride and honor to a person who is in a crisis in (the) last moment of his life."
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Dear Dr Douglas Prasher, You are my Hero
A friend of mine who is a scientist shared with me about Douglas Prasher’s story. When I was a little kid, I consider the following careers very cool / glamorous / glorious : pilot, adventurers (e.g. Columbus, Everest), scientists, astronauts, … and many others.
However, my friend said that being scientists is not all glorious, there is no guarantee that one can meet one’s basic survival needs (according to the Maslow’s hierarchy) of food, clothes, shelter / home, even after one has done high quality work that deserves Nobel Prize like what happened to Douglas Prasher.
In brief, the Nobel Prize I am referring to is for the discovery and engineering of fluorescent proteins – molecules that can glow in the dark. Sound so fun!
The fluorescent proteins are powerful research tools and have become the foundation of a multimillion-dollar industry.
Prasher was not included among the Nobel laureates, as only 3 individuals can share a single Nobel Prize. “The glow of the GFP gene may have illuminated biology, but Prasher has remained in the shadows.” The humble ^ Laureate Martin Chalfie credited Prasher’s contribution:
“(Douglas Prasher’s) work was critical and essential for the work we did in our lab. They could’ve easily given the prize to Douglas and the other two and left me out.”
^ To share the best of the best to you dearest readers, I have carefully studied Nobel Laureates and summarize their strengths that worth emulating.
My friend J, who is also a scientist and used to work 7 days a week from 9 am to 11 pm daily, shared with me that there are sadly numerous unacknowledged contributions in science. She told me that a lady called Rosalind Franklin also deserves a Nobel Prize but she died too early. J told me that she cried reading the story of Prasher.
To quote discovermagazine, the vanishing act of Douglas Prasher “provides a glimpse into what it takes to flourish in modern-day science, where mentorship, networking, and the ability to secure funding can be as important as talent and intelligence.”
Dear aspiring scientists (especially graduate students), I hope that my sharing provide you with additional perspective. One of a leader of a science research institute sadly told me (in a chance encounter in a public transport) that in the past only the rich can do scientific research because they do not have to trade their time to earn a living. These people were for example the landlord who receive passive income ; they have the time (one of the most priceless commodity in the universe), the brain energy & physical energy to carry out scientific experiments.
He also shared with me about his personal experience, he was previously trained as a medical doctor (a career that may guarantee a better earning), but later switched to become a scientist. Few years down the road after he has children, he woke up in the middle of night sweating and worrying on how to finance his mortgage. The good news is his children are now grown-up.
Dear aspiring scientists, your professors and successful scientists you meet would rarely tell you such stories because they need workers. Graduate students are very cheap to the extent that they are free to the professors. You will rarely meet unsuccessful scientists because they are no longer around in the labs / meetings / conferences to warn you / to be naysayers for you who will eventually become successful scientists. Do not give up on your chosen career easily. After all, scientists will meet countless failures (positive people prefer to refer a failure as a learning experience) because they are at the frontier of discovery and innovation. You really need perseverance in the pursuit of science, science needs you, our world need you ; but one must not neglect what is entrusted to him by the Universe / the Creator / God, e.g. young children to feed, nurture, take care.
Dear aspiring scientists, do not be disheartened by what I share here because if you are really passionate about science, you want and you should give it your best, until you really meet dead ends. You can be like Douglas Prasher, to be humble and willing to take other kinds of jobs, including being a bus driver at $8.50 an hour. I respect bus drivers, they provide essential service to many people, and I personally rely on them often. I view them as my everyday heroes who courier me safely from a place to another. But to be honest, one who had worked as a scientist must have to endure the words of their past colleagues on becoming a bus driver. If you master the art of endurance, are willing to work hard and have integrity in life, no matter what you do / your career / job, you will have inner happiness, which is much more important than prestige (e.g. awards) / glamor. If you want to be successful in a particular career, perseverance * and resourcefulness ^ are essential.
* “Doug doesn’t have the ‘Goddammit, you’re not going to stop me’ attitude,” Ward says.”
^ “It was the kind of resourcefulness that Prasher seemed to lack.”
After all, there are many things that Prasher can be happy and grateful about: his supportive wife, his children, his home-grown vegetables & finally a return to science.
Dear my readers, all careers are similar in the chance of success; they just vary in the steepness of the climb. My kind friend shared that the climbing field for being successful scientists started relatively easy for students who have done well academically / with exceptional scholastic ability, but become very very steep toward the higher place(s).
Final reflection:
Let the (use) value that we bring to ourselves and others through our work / pursuit / career / vocation shine itself.
Do not pursue recognition / award as a goal because it is beyond our control.
Even one of the most deserving Nobel Prize winner – Gandhi, never receive it.
Dear Dr Douglas Prasher, thank you very much! You are my Hero!
Related:
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/30-how-bad-luck-networking-cost-prasher-nobel
http://galette86.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/the-inspiring-story-of-douglas-prasher/
http://www.bio.purdue.edu/lab/leung/blog/?tag=douglas-prasher
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Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won’t Teach You at Business School by Sir Richard Branson: 18 take-home messages
“The Virgin Group is a constantly evolving aggregation of companies operating in over 30 countries, totaling more than 50,000 employees and serving millions of customers every month.”
There is a RICH in the name of Sir RICHard Branson, but being financially super rich apart, I view that he has other aspects of wealth that worth understanding & learning.
Seeing the video filmed by the London Business Forum in Westminster Central Hall reminds me on many useful talks that inspired me in UK.
Here are the take-home messages:
@~@ Branson focuses on high-quality services.
@~@ Branson praises his employees, creates a sense of fun + reward / appreciation + belongings in his company.
“A company where the staff overuse the word ‘they’ is a company with problems.”
@~@ Empower / treat your employees well and they will do the same to your customers.
@~@ Branson highlights that his employees “should never feel like hired hands but fellow entrepreneurs”
@~@ Fun is a serious business tool. I view that if your personality is not funny, do not try to be so funny; but you can get a fun-spreader as your team mate.
@~@ Focus on your strength, not limitations. Branson never lets his early dyslexia deter him.
@~@ Business is not only about $, but about creating things; this view sounds like inventors / engineers to me.
@~@ Branson carries a little notebook with him. I think carrying notebook alone is insufficient, what Branson infers is that one needs to record ideas / inspirations for action.
@~@ Branson is interested in people, spends a lot of time talking to people, listens to people (e.g. Virgin customers).
@~@ Simple & clear communication. “Try using a Twitter-like template to refine the essence of your concept into just 140 characters.”
@~@ Branson encourages discussion / debates / dialogues.
@~@ Branson & his team tests out new ideas.
@~@ Branson has a stunning personality, a reviewer wrote “charismatic irreverence”. My friend J shared with me that she admires Branson’s combination of bad & good guy personality, he seems to have a deep understanding of people.
@~@ luck; yet I view that luck favors the prepared.
@~@ “If death and taxes are the only sure-fire things in life, then the only certainty in business is that one day things will go wrong. One of your priorities has got to be emergency planning.” Plan & preparation are critical.
@~@ Branson views his entrepeneurship as a vocation, he has no plan to retire. I always encourage my team mates to pursue their passion, not only a job, a career, but a life-long pursuit of excellence.
@~@ Branson concludes that “My story is a very personal one; my strategy will not work for everyone.”
I would like to elaborate that different (sometimes opposite) strategies work for particular people, at particular timing and location. The spatiotemporal context matters.
@~@ Branson gives hope to my dream of space travel, which I believe is also the dream of many of yours. To quote Jules Verne from his Around the World in Eighty Days, “Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.” I look forward to a book / movie / song entitled “Around the Space in [insert a stunning number here] Days.”
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How to keep and realize your lifelong dream? inspirations from Ang Lee
Have you watched any the following movies:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
Brokeback Mountain,
Life of Pi,
Eat Drink Man Woman
?
If yes, you may wonder who the director is.
He is Ang Lee or 李安.
Recently, I read an article about him from a sharing of my Burmese friend through facebook.
Hearing about the Buddhists-Muslims violence spreads in Myanmar,
made me feel sad,
I can only pray that may peace prevail in Burma,
the land of gold.
Back to Ang Lee, although I do not like his movie Lust, Caution, the biography of Ang Lee is inspiring.
Ang Lee: "In 1978, as I applied to study film at the University of Illinois, my father vehemently objected. He quoted me a statistic: Every year, 50,000 performers compete for 200 available roles on Broadway. Against his advice, I boarded a flight to the U.S. This strained our relationship. In the two decades following, we exchanged less than a hundred phrases in conversation."
Often, people perceive the strong-willed as being stubborn, rebellious, as hard as a stone.
Blueroselady thinks that Ang Lee is among strong-willed people, and only the strong-willed can succeed against the odd.
But being strong-willed alone is insufficient.
Ang Lee: "Some years later, when I graduated film school, I came to comprehend my father’s concern. It was nearly unheard of for a Chinese newcomer to make it in the American film industry. Beginning in 1983, I struggled through six years of agonizing, hopeless uncertainty. Much of the time, I was helping film crews with their equipment or working as editor’s assistant, among other miscellaneous duties. My most painful experience involved shopping a screenplay at more than thirty different production companies, and being met with harsh rejection each time."
Blueroselady: we must have a THICK FACE to master THE ART OF ENDURANCE for rejection / humiliation / insult / fear / failure.
Ang Lee: "That year, I turned 30. There’s an old Chinese saying: ‘At 30, one stands firm.’ Yet, I couldn’t even support myself. What could I do? Keep waiting, or give up my movie-making dream? My wife gave me invaluable support."
Blueroselady: It is never too late to realize our dream(s). Colonel Sanders started selling his fried chicken recipe in his 60s, more twice the age of Ang Lee.
Think of 亡羊补牢.
"My wife was my college classmate. She was a biology major, and after graduation, went to work for a small pharmaceutical research lab. Her income was terribly modest. At the time, we already had our elder son, Haan, to raise. To appease my own feelings of guilt, I took on all housework – cooking, cleaning, taking care of our son – in addition to reading, reviewing films and writing scripts. Every evening after preparing dinner, I would sit on the front steps with Haan, telling him stories as we waited for his mother – the heroic huntress – to come home with our sustenance (income)."
Blueroselady: Behind every successful man, there is a strong woman. I also personally listen to this advice from the successful German / Switzerland entrepreneurs in 2009, 2010.
I pray that my sons, my brothers, my male readers will find a strong woman like Ang Lee’s wife, who love her husband and children.
I am grateful that my father has a strong woman – my mother.
"This kind of life felt rather undignified for a man. At one point, my in-laws gave their daughter (my wife) a sum of money, intended as start-up capital for me to open a Chinese restaurant – hoping that a business would help support my family. But my wife refused the money. When I found out about this exchange, I stayed up several nights and finally decided: This dream of mine is not meant to be. I must face reality."
Blueroselady: Ang Lee is a film-maker, a narrator of life.
Thre is a saying that 人生如戏 , 戏如人生.
Perhaps, only when one knows and experiences what sufferings mean, s/he can makes movies that touch human soul.
Sufferings are not always bad,
of course there are intolerable sufferings,
e.g. victims of the cruelty / crime of others,
but some sufferings enable people to leap / bounce higher than ever possible,
because these sufferings act as a spring with momentum.
Ang Lee: "Afterward (and with a heavy heart), I enrolled in a computer course at a nearby community college. At a time when employment trumped all other considerations, it seemed that only a knowledge of computers could quickly make me employable. For the days that followed, I descended into malaise. My wife, noticing my unusual demeanor, discovered a schedule of classes tucked in my bag. She made no comment that night.
The next morning, right before she got in her car to head off to work, my wife turned back and – standing there on our front steps – said, ‘Ang, don’t forget your dream.’
And that dream of mine – drowned by demands of reality – came back to life. As my wife drove off, I took the class schedule out of my bag and slowly, deliberately tore it to pieces. And tossed it in the trash.
Sometime after, I obtained funding for my screenplay, and began to shoot my own films. And after that, a few of my films started to win international awards. Recalling earlier times, my wife confessed, ‘I’ve always believed that YOU ONLY NEED ONE GIFT. Your gift is making films. There are so many people studying computers already, they don’t need an Ang Lee to do that. If you want that golden statue, you have to commit to the dream.’
And today, I’ve finally won that golden statue. I think my own perseverance and my wife’s immeasurable sacrifice have finally met their reward. And I am now more assured than ever before: I must continue making films.
You see, I have this never-ending dream."
Blueroselady:
Never ever listen to naysayers that belittle our dream.
Perhaps, we do not have someone close to us who has the attitude like the Ang Lee’s wife.
You must protect your dreams.
Share your dreams to kind people who have achieved what you want.
They will share with you how they achieved it.
Do not share your dreams with naysayers.
When everything fails,
remember that as long as you are still alive,
you can fulfill your dreams.
Sometimes,
you may have to struggle for years like Ang Lee,
you may have to take a detour,
but a dream that keep on coming to you,
is a message from God / the Universe on what you are meant to be and to do in your life.
For me,
I re-realize that I love to learn so much
(through reading, socializing, traveling),
then think and analyze,
then appreciate and feel,
and write and share my thoughts.
One of my big major dreams is
to write and share thoughtful, helpful, inspiring writings
to over a million of people
and they benefit (even in a little thing) from my sharing.
In order to achieve my grand dream,
I feel that I need to gain diverse experience,
so that my sharing can be thoughtful.
Sometimes,
as a human being,
I do have the concern of financial security,
because I have dependents,
to feed, to nurture, and to love.
But I decide that I am going to take the risk.
Now,
I am taking care of my baby,
and in a few months,
I will prepare myself for the next career,
in order to realize the grand dream.
Please support me.
See also:
How not to listen to non-constructive criticism?
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