Don't wait! Have ever wanted to ask? Just ask

Have you ever tried to ask?

It is an exercise for you. If you are a person who desire of doing something that matter. You admire somebody and really want to reach out to them. However, you never actually do it. You may think you need to wait until one day you become somebody to ask. The fact is that there are no such ‘one day’ and ‘one day’ can be today.

I wrote an email to two top leaders in the UK to interview them and got their replies with willingness to share. My friends have shared same stories. When they started their businesses, they really wanted to partner with successful entrepreneurs, they wrote letters to express how much thankful they felt to be inspired by these people, and asked them for interviewing. More than 70% of them replied with willingness to help.

So my friends, don’t want for becoming somebody because you are somebody if you believe so. And don’t need to wait till ‘one day’ because the ‘one day’ is today.  

How to ask?

- Express your gratitude of being inspired by them

- What parts of their work that you get inspired, be specific

- Use the common community that you and the person has to let the person feel that they need to have responsibility as a member in that community ( For example: If you are in consultant community, present yourself belong to the community)

- Clarify the purpose of your asking, people are willing to help the people who have deep desire and know that they want to do and why they do it

- What are the benefits that the person you reach out can gain, is it just reputation, is it just expressing the kindness, is this more than that? Think for them, be a giver not only a taker

- Integrity

And if you don’t get response, try again and keep working on yourself.

I knew a girl made her dream come true – working with her mentor- after 4 months of keeping asking him. She didn’t get respond but she didn’t give up. She told him if she could work with him, she could leave her PhD study. She could do whatever it took to make it happen.

What is about you? Don’t wait! Don’t hesitate without action! You are somebody! One day is today!

nonstop love.live.give

 

 

Understanding our emotions at work

1. Emotions

Emotions are the signals for our decisions. All of our decisions are indirectly or directly connected with our emotions. Emotions are our responds in a particular context at a particular interaction with people or event. 

2. Emotions in organisations

Expressing emotions are not encouraged in working places. Expressing emotions are often seen as symptoms of weaknesses and may make us vulnerable. 

Emotions are also seen with negative aspects. Researchers have been developed different theories and seem to create more room for negative feelings rather than positive feelings. 

We may want to look at the emotions themselves in a particular contact but not social constructed terms. For example, anger can have a positive impact in terms of embracing changes and innovation. 

We may want to manage our reactions intentionally instead of impulsively emotionally. We don't need to and cannot stop our emotions but we can manage what we really response after having the emotions. Emotions themselves make us having feeling of belonging. Expressing emotions are considered as we can express our self.

Hence, organisation may want to create rooms for expressing emotions by being supportive by asking the reasons behind their emotions.  They also can give constructive feedback and give individuals more time to think about their decisions caused by their emotions. 

3. What and who influence emotions

Social constructionist theories have been more and more common compared to psychoanalytical theories. Our cultural and political context influence the emotions that we express, hide, and shape. Some culture aspects or gender, race, social class, city, etc also influence our emotions.

4. How to measure emotions

5. How to manage emotions 

We need to alter our emotional responses. 

Emotional intellegience has been a well-known theory for emotions management. 

  • Self-awareness
  • Self-management 
  • Social awareness 
  • Relationships 

Two limitations are found in the theories:

  • Not coming from original research so does not clearly identify whether really an intelligence (stronger evidence to link to personality)
  • Difficulties with measuring due to subjectivity of emotions (measuring by asking people around the person)

  • EI depends on context

6. Emotional labour 

  • Example of call center staffs who always need to follow a script.
  • A hair dresser who always need to be friendly with customers.

People have to express the feeling that you may not want to or have to suppress the feeling that you want to. And there are normally penalty for not following emotional rules. For example, getting laid off or complaining from bosses. Most interestingly, your self questions you whether are you really you or not. 

Conclusion: 

The study of emotions is central to our understanding of organisational behaviour and an increasingly important topic that is linked with other topics (Culture, Change Management, Leadership, etc).

Consulting both psychoanalytic and social constructionist resources about emotions, links the unconscious and individual biography –your own identity, your personal history as an individual – to…. group, cultural, political processes. We may privately process emotions at work, and we may have to perform our emotions at work

How to manage negative feelings: PAUSES model

 

Series videos - belong to the book 'Create your passionate career':

Negative feelings are the results of your reactions in a particular circumstances and you are the ones who perceive and feel that. Other people may see that but feel in different ways. Knowing negative feelings are contextually constructed by you, you can change it. Therefore, the big question is that which feelings that don’t benefit for your life anymore. If now you spend 10 minutes to list all the times you have emotions that lead to bad results, you may want to manage them.

Negative feelings can come when you wake up in a morning, when you talk with somebody. In any different forms, they are coming from the interactions with the outside world or inside world and it is the result of the difference between your identity and your perceived identity. If your identity is not well recognised, you tend to have negative emotions.
 
Therefore, we can manage that by still being ourselves and manage the negative feelings.

1st step: ACKNOWLEDGING knowing that you can change it, and it is a learning process, it has nothing to do with your true best self. It is exactly as doing exercise to gain muscles. The more you practice, the more you get better at it.

Ack that negative feelings don’t move you towards the person you want to be, don’t build up your relationships or better your life.

2nd step:  PAUSE to skip the impulsive self

Anytime you tend to respond in a situation with negative feelings, just pause. Instead of using the impulsive self, use your intentional self to respond.

Just take an example, think about a time you just said something and you felt bad about what you said. Simply, the intentional self is more calm and less impulsive.

3rd step: PAUSE longer to connect with your best self

Your highest self will react

Any day you think about a moment that you said something to somebody and you feel oh my god, I was mean. The longer the gap between simulating the situation to the intentional self, you tend to see the situation better. When you step back, you see there should not be any anger in that situation. Or just think about now, you read a situation of somebody gets super angry, you may not feel as angry as them. If you are, you need to practice more to change it.

Just ask your self, if you are in peace and fresh, would you re-act the same.

4th step: PAUSE to think from other aspects

Have you ever thought the situation is not as bad as you think.

The person may be not mean what you thought.

Only we think from other aspects, we can see the picture better. If somebody hits you on the road because he is hurry, he may go to meet somebody in urgent.

Maybe there are some mistranslation there.

5th step: Replacing negative feelings with positive feelings by creating positive feelings 

Download doc: 
Mp3: http://www.podcastgarden.com/podcast/jenvuhuong

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Transformation story: 

Are you letting 'negative feelings' build a wall between your BEST self and the world?
***********************
‘What are you doing here?’, I was walking pass by the lab in my university and saw An, a friend who I met in a social meeting 3 months ago. We clicked in at the first time we met as long-lost friends. It was a hurry meeting so I didn’t stay and talked with An but I had a strong feeling that we would meet again and we may establish a great friendship. An is a loveable person with a warm and bright smile and vibrant energy. 
This time I found An different. Her smile and energy were still there but were hold behind a wall. The wall created a gap between her self and the outside world. I felt she wanted to keep the wall there and not talking to people. Despite what I felt, I went to hug her and said how much happy to see her in my university which was far from where she lived and worked. 
The hug helped. She smiled. But the wall was still there. I said by to her and went to a meeting. I came back to the lab and didn’t see An anymore. I sit there for a while. Suddenly I saw An came back and prepared to leave. I went to say bye to her. She was skeptical. I hugged her stronger and said how much happy to see her again and asked about her new year. The wall started felling down. She started telling me about some problems have been going on in her life recently. 
And we met the next day to share with each other. 
An shared about her anxiety and panic she had during the last month. She used to have a great life style with networking, doing sports and loving her job. She felt she lost her self recently without knowing it. 
We wrote down the transition time to find the triggers for the shift in her feeling. And knowing that if negative feelings can come then positive feelings can. Knowing that negative feelings can be accumulated then positive feelings can be. We wrote an action plan to bring her best self back or to let her bring her best self out there everyday by breaking the wall that negative feelings built. 
Step 1: How to describe your BEST self, the one you want to live up to everyday (such as present, passionate, etc)
Step 2: Using HOOK (setting alarm, writing it on a paper, setting on your laptop’s wallpaper, etc) to remind your self living up to that person everyday
Step 3: Using ACCOUNTABILITY (mentor, positive community, etc) to keep you on track
Step 4: Keep GRATITUDE journal: write 3 things you feel thankful for everyday
Step 5: DO 3 things differently everyday to improve your skills, your jobs, or your health
The one thing cannot be rated is your CHOICE to practice it with consistency.

 

 

 

Always go the extra mile with boldness and integrity

Moment of the week: INTEGRITY + DESIRE + 1 SIMPLE IDEA + BOLD ACTION + GO EXTRA MILES = BOLD BUSINESS
It is the second time that I have a chance to listen to Karran speech (Chancellor of the University of Birmingham; founder of Cobra beer). His integrity makes his speech inspiring no matter how many times you listen to it. His integrity makes the timeless value of the speech. The success of a person may make us admire at first sight but, their integrity makes us admire them forever. 
The second thing I think we can learn from Karran is to have a desire of making a difference. We need to be determined by our desire. From that point, at a particular moment, we may see a simple idea and get it go as a business. Taking bold moves to get the business go. If we are not determined, we do not recognize the opportunity even it is surrounding us. When determination meets the opportunity, we have 'luck.'
Thirdly, Karran teaches us to control our thoughts because our thoughts shape our words, our words shape our actions, our actions shape our habits, our habits shape our values, and our values shape our reality. 
The one has struggled me the most any time to listen to Karran is to go the extra mile, always to do things better. Our momentum reaches its highest levels when we go extra miles. 
One last thing cannot be rated is the reason behind what we do. A big WHY helps us deal with struggles in our long journey.

Not only being inspired by experienced entrepreneur as Karran, but I was also inspired by a young entrepreneur who just opened his barber shop in our university after two years of convincing the university for the permission. He shared that he had the desire of opening his business for a long time before one day he went to the internet and searched for the nearest barber shop, he found the nearest one was miles away. The university has around 50,000 students, but there had never been in barber shop nearby. He started planning and staying in the process of convincing the university that they business would work. His persistence made his business happen.

Let's take a moment to reflect and question whether we can do things better? why we do what we do? are we really living up with our integrity - our best self? 
Are we taking bold action to achieve what we desire? Are we making contribution to the society?

 

chase the.jpg

Our thoughts shape our reality

Our thoughts shape our reality
The topic of ‘reality’ is often discussed regarding whether we can change the reality. The ultimate goal should be whether it advances of our life or not.
If you look at the collection of letters below, what would be your thoughts:
YOUARENOWHERE
Most of us will see it like ‘You are nowhere’ even it can be ‘You are now here.'
One seems to be negative while other is positive.  One seems to be de-motivation while the other one is motivation. So why don’t we use our ability to define the real events. 
---REALITY means our ABILITY to deal with our THOUGHTS  on the REAL events in life----


I remember my sister story – she had a lot of struggles in her life – motorbike accident – she had to stop her education – she felt she was unlucky and she felt miserable – Everyone looked at her and said wow poor her. I was, on the other hand, admired how she could over come the situation. One day she told me named her dog to feel luckier. She became more positive. She felt happy all the time. She had problems with her jobs; her legs got hurt, sometimes but she was so happy. She was positive. She shaped her reality by using accumulating her positive thoughts. Anytime she looked at the dog; it reminded her that she was lucky so she felt happy. The remediation was accumulated enough to become her empowering beliefs that made her happy.
1. Evaluation
With any events, you need to bench it to align with your positive thoughts and your goals.
If the thoughts are beneficial for your goals, keep them.
If the thoughts are not, redirect them or let them go. 
2. Accumulation
+ Remind to leave up to your best self everyday (using triggers on phone or bringing your best self note everywhere you go)
+ Surrounded by successful minded people
+ Read positive books
+ Write gratitude journal everyday
3. Take action
+ 3 things you need to do to move towards your goals (writing or speaking if you are working to become a writer or a speaker, etc)
+ When you get results, no matter how good or bad the results are, remember you have tried your best, and you can always get better everyday. Move on. Continous improvement process.
 
Our thoughts can shape our reality, so we need to give the power on only positive thoughts that support our mission.

Keep believing and taking action!
Nonstop love.live.give to achieve
jenvuhuong.com
 
Download: https://jenvuhuong.com/
mp3: http://www.podcastgarden.com/jenvuhuong
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Repurpose: create your best self

WHY DO YOU KNOW LOVE HELP
(PURPOSE-ACTION-YOU-ROLES-PASSION-GIVING)
Step 1: Write down 5 items for each upcoming mentioned element
5 skills that you master
5 activities you do most everyday
5 things that you love to do
5 things you can help or share with others
Step 2: Connect the “dots”
(Connect the links between
written items of the 5 elements)

Step 3: Re-purpose
- If you know your PURPOSE, repurpose
it with your ROLES, ACTION, PASSION, GIVING
- If not, keep taking ACTION on what you LOVE, 
improving the KNOW (skills),
GIVING more then
you will see the big picture
of your WHY and your BEST self
Step 5: Think BEYOND what
you think now
ACT bigger
to get bigger RESULTS