KINDNESS is in every corner

I was excited. Returning home after talking about the topic of habits with my associates, I took my motorbike and went about 50m before I realized that it was out of air on both tires. It was late at night so there was no longer a car repair shop open. So I went back to the parking lot to ask to park the bike overnight, and come back tomorrow to fix the tires. The man at the usual parking lot suggested that I go to the adjoining courthouse for overnight parking. I went there, parked the bike and prepared to get a grab home.

I rarely park my motorbike in this building, so I'm not familiar with the security guard, but I could feel his kindness. He asked me what happened with my motorbike and how far I was from home.

Seeing that I was struggling with my bag and badminton clothes, the parking attendant said – “You can take my motorbike and go home, tomorrow you can return to me my bike after fixing your bike”.

I don't know who he is yet, and he doesn't know who I am, but there's one thing I know about him - his kindness and care.

KINDNESS is in every corner and in you. Do you see and bring it out each day?

KINDNESS is in every corner

KINDNESS in every corner, u see it?

After our hike, we went to get some water in a small shop. While we were queuing in the shop, we could see that everyone was leaving with a big grin. The closer we got to the counter the grin on everyone’s face was bigger.

When it came to my turn, I saw a big smile and lovely voice from the woman behind the counter. I could see how much sunshine poured out from her smile.

She gave everyone compliments and wished them a beautiful day, genuinely. It was just infectious. Nobody could resist being happy talking to her.

"I love your smile, you made everyone feel happy," I said.

"Thank you. It is Friday night; everyone should be happy after a long working week. I hope I can make everyone feel happier," the lady smiled.

It is just beautiful, isn't it.

Beauty is in every corner of our life.

Paradigm shift - when we change how we look at things...

"PARADIGM SHIFT", are you experiencing it?

(Thanks to this story that was told to me by my great friend in Penang, Malaysia…years ago…).

Li was at Munich airport and waiting for the flight. He was so hungry so he decided to go to buy a packet of biscuits. Li then went to sit at a chair which was near to an old man.

After settling down, Li grabbed the packet of biscuit on the chair. As he was grabbing the packet, he saw that the old man stared at him. He started opening the packet, the old man stared even more at him.

Li felt so weird but he kept opening the pack and then started eating one piece at a time. The old man also took a biscuit after Li took one piece. Li then took one and the man took another one. The last one, he saw the man take it before him and then he broke it into 2 parts, gave Li one part. Li took it and ate and could not understand how it was possible that the old man took his biscuit and felt free to eat like that. Li thought what happened with this man, the same happened with people in this country.

So, after finished the biscuit (just a half!), he decided to go to buy another pack and felt a bit angry and weird about the man somehow. He put the new biscuits in the bag and tried to find a place to stay alone. He opened the bag and eventually saw another biscuit inside.

He figured out he had actually eaten the biscuit of the man, not his biscuit.

A paradigm shift happened to Li, the weird person/impolite person was not the old man but himself! How nice the old man was!

Have you ever felt a similar paradigm! Things are not that bad as you think. Things can be very beautiful if you see it from other side.

Without needing to experience an experience like Li in this story ^^, we can still experience life differently. When you change how you look at things, things change! If we are open, don't let our silent assumption take over, we can learn and see the beauty of things and others.

The kindness of a passing stranger …

The kindness of a passing stranger …

..I was writing in my favourite coffee shop in the company of my laptop and my journal as usual.

Suddenly I heard someone say, "Excuse me, I don’t want to interrupt you but I just want to say that it is so nice to see someone is still using writing paper. I believe you will do well whatever you do!”

I was stunned to receive the praise. Deep down I felt a flow of fresh and warm energy receiving the pure kindness!!

We can make the day of someone by telling them that we believe in them.

Let’s do it from today!

…

The smiles of strangers

**************************

I woke up with a headache. A part of me told me to just chill out and not read or exercise as I would normally do. But another part of me told me I had to keep going. I convinced myself to just write my daily journal and then I went for a run.

I was wondering about my thoughts and my headache while running.

"Hi, how are you!"

Somebody whispered with a sweet cheerful voice, it was a young school kid. She was with her other two friends, laughing and running to chase each other. With her big grin she wished that I had a great day and she cheered me for running.

It was like a warm beautiful feeling of engaging with the beauty of life. If I didn't crawl out of the house to engage with life, I would have missed the smiles.

I forgot about the headache. It was an illusion, it was gone.

Let's encourage ourselves to engage with life again, to be kind to others. Just a smile can make somebody’s day.

ABUNDANCE comes with our abundant giving mindset

I have learned from Michael Roach to have abundance:

• Find 10 people who want to achieve the same thing like us

• Help these people to achieve their goals

The power of I am sorry, thank you...

It comes when we say “I am sorry. Thank you! I will…”

Every morning, I can hear the broom sound of the neighbor across from my door while she cleans her yard and our alley. It is very kind of her, but I find she rarely smiles and her face seems serious that I don't feel I should start a conversation with her to say thanks as I normally would.

Her house and my house are both shaded by a big tree. Every morning when I go home from running, I jump rope in front of my house. That day, I was jumping and a motorbike came. I went ahead and jumped to reach my daily target before the bike arrived. The jump rope touched the leaf clusters of the old tree, so the leaves fell onto the road. I swept over to clean the leaves and went into the house to continue my exercise.

Half an hour later, I heard the familiar broom of my neighbor sweeping the street. And accompanied by the sound of brooms was a grumbling sound…I couldn't hear anything clearly, but my heart rose – was it because I dropped a leaf in front of my house while jumping rope…

I heard my own voice trying to explain “but I did sweep…” – I tried to comfort myself that his nagging wasn't about the leaves. However, deep in my heart, I knew that was the cause…I told myself – no need to think about it, go on with your morning work and forget about it. But there was still a certain uncomfortable feeling.

I decided to go see the neighbor. Walking downstairs, not knowing how to start, but I knew if I let it go, I wouldn't be comfortable.

Approaching the door of the neighbor's house, I saw that she was talking with some other friends.

"I'm sorry, I jumped rope in the morning and dropped the leaves, I didn't clean it well, thanks for your help. I'll be more careful," I confided.

"Ah, that's it, I just said that whoever dropped the leaves didn't sweep it well, i thought about you - the little girl often does exercise... pay attention next time little girl, thank you...", the neighbor smiled wittily, welcoming accept my apologies and thanks.

I felt relieved, and I felt the warm from her heart rather than the coldness that I found before…

So every time I see her, we smile and greet each other…She often lends me a bicycle pump when I need it…

I have a friendly neighbor…the door opens to that friendliness has a lot to do with the words“…I'm sorry…thank you…I will…”

Apologies and thanks are gifts we can give to anyone, every day…

3 times of seeing a challenge

You see it as it is - so it is not bad as you think

You see it with a better you in 10 years - so it becomes not that a big deal - u mentally get out of it

You see it with the first step to move toward your future - u physically get out of it

The poem of your great state of mind

Step into the unknown… And keep experimenting…

Pause and reflect from time to time… Become willing to make mistakes and learn from them…

You’re capable of far more than you think… Because you are far more than you think… Discover your path by walking it… And be grateful for the highs… Graceful in the lows… And do your best… To enjoy yourself… Every step of the way… Secure in your increasing understanding… Of how the system works…

We can fly anywhere...Will we?

Last week I watched a video of Tom Biley - the founder of Impact Theory, and what he said stuck me: Birds can fly but stay at the same place because they are used to it. We also can do great things even we cannot imagine yet if we want it bad enough and we are committed to take action, but we tend to keep doing the same thing every day.

If we feel not happy about our life, if we have felt it for long, we want to do something about it. If we have felt numb about life, we want to spark the lights again.

You are not lazy, you need a compelling reason

Have you ever told yourself “I am lazy. I am putting off doing things” …because you find that you want to do something but you don’t do it for some reason? Or maybe you do it once or twice, and then you stop.

You may have reasons or excuses of not doing something. But after reflecting on it, you realize the reasons are not true, so you start blaming yourself. And that doesn't work either. You still don't do the things you need to do. You spend hours in front of the laptop, but you don’t type, you don’t take the first action you need to do, no matter how simple it is.

But you also experience moments when you are tired but you gear yourself up to take the action needed because a project is important to do.

You are here because you know you can change. You have to change something but maybe it is not clear what is the "something" and how to start it and then to make a lasting change.

I remember 3 years ago, I got involved in a project – managing the quality of the program – I just needed to send an email informing people about the program – asking about their involvement – but I didn’t! but I completed a book! I would argue the book was more difficult to complete (or at least taking more time)…I completed it.

Have you felt like that? There is something maybe something simple like sending an email, not that challenging but you don’t do it. But how is it that you could do something more difficult?

Why?  It is because you don’t find the compelling reasons for doing it or you don’t create compelling reasons for doing it.

But before that, you want to have a good starting point – an empowering way of looking at you – your own identity – to direct you from a delaying person into an effective person.

Let’s break it down how can we tackle it:

1.Changing how do you tell yourself about procrastination. (The word means, putting off things, maybe being lazy about doing something.)

Changing from I am a procrastinating person to:

“I am learning to take action on time”.

“I  am an effective action taker” and I identify the habits of the on-time person.

2. Choose the one procrastinated thing to do first.

List all the things you need to do but you postpone doing them, and choose the most important thing to finish first.

3. Identify the reason why you want to do the project.

4. Break the project down into pieces.

5. Schedule what you need to do + Create triggers to remind you.

Set our best self before ach activity

Master the transition time

“Do you ever carry over any negative energy from one activity to the next?

Do you keep the sense of presence and appreciation for life and others throughout the day?”

(High performance habits, Brendon)

These things are challenging for most of us, as we go throughout a day with a full schedule. But as in the book “High performance habits”, the practice of mastering the transition time can do a great help – we can release the tension after each activity and set intention for the next one to maintain our vibrancy, positive energy and focus.

It is common that we tend to ring the energy from one activity to another activity. After arguing with a friend, we bring the energy to the next meeting and feel uncomfortable. After having a trouble at home, we go to work in a down mood, not feeling engaged with our work or our co-workers. After going home from a long working day, we are tired and we don’t feel present with our kids or wife/husband. When we master the transition time, release the tension of the previous activity and set the intention for the next activity, we can re-energize and engage in the next activity.

HOW?

There are different ways of releasing the tension and setting intention after each activity. I remember a friend, Peter, our Vice President of Membership in our speaking club told us his interesting way of maintaining his compassion when going home after a long working day: he took a nap at his car before going home. Feeling rested, he released the tension from the long working day and spent quality time in the moment with his family. Another friend, Ms Huong, an entrepreneur with 5 businesses but always spending quality time with family, told me her way to master the transition time:  “I go to the gym before going home to release the tension of the whole day before going home. I make sure my family has the best version of me as my work does”.

What is your favourite way of releasing the tension after each activity to make sure you don’t let the previous activity to influence the next one?

Here are some ways to release the tension after one activity before starting to the next one:

-        Use block time to divide your day into different chunks of time:

o   You intensively focus on one project at one block time (around 50 minutes)

o   You take a break 5-10 minutes: release tension, set intention

§  Going for a walk around your block

§  Mediate

§  Going to ask your co-worker about their day

§  Paint

§  Journal

§  Listen to your favourite book

§  Listen to music

§  Re-connect with your dreams/exiciting goals

o   Set intention for the next activity

§  What outcomes you want to achieve

§  What feeling you want to experience

§  What values you will bring

Hope you have a wonderful day, mastering your transition time to maintain your super loving energy!

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Count 5...4...3...2...1 then move to choose courage over fear

You have a dream, you have a goal, you want to be more confident, you want to be healthier, you want to feel lively…You want to develop a skill, you want to read a book, you want to take a challenge, you want to speak up in front of others, you want to wake up to do exercise...but you don’t feel doing it.

There are something stopping you call it either fear or doubt or lack of confidence. You know you need to choose COURAGE over FEAR to take the very first step:

“cour-age

/’kerij/ noun

The ability to do something that is difficult or scary

Stepping outside of your comfort zone

Sharing your ideas, speaking up, or showing up

Standing firm in your beliefs and values

And some days...getting out of bed.”

— The 5 Second Rule

HOW to choose the courage over fear or hesitation?

5..4..3..2..1…counting down to re-direct your focus on the action is a technique mentioned in the best selling book “The 5 Second Rule” of Mel Robbins.

When you want to do something, but you don’t take action, you hesitate, you have a window opportunity within 5 seconds - if you don’t move physically to take the first action, your brain will kill the opportunity.

You count 5-4-3-2-1 that activates your brain’s prefrontal cortex that gives you the control of the situation! When you want to raise your hand to speak up in front of a group of people, you hesitate, count 5-4-3-2-1 then stand up at the same time or raise your hand at the same time or shout “'I”, you let courage go beyond fear - doubts and fear disappear!

And each time you do it, you become more courageous - your confidence muscle gets stronger and stronger!

So let’s count 5-4-3-2-1 more today to take action to be more confidence to reach your full potential instead of reaching full of the fear!

S.A.V.E.R.S of your day

You want to feel excited and energetic throughout the day. But you may get distracted by randomness.

The following habits will be your SAVERS of the day:

Silence:

Start with gratitude in the morning - what do you feel thankful for;

Take a break by going for a small walk or doing meditation between different activities;

Reflect after the day - what do you feel thankful for, what did you do well and what to do differently

Affirmations

Re-affirm and write down:

• your goals in the long run

• your daily goals

• your daily action to achieve the goals

• Start with the first action in the morning

Visualization

See, feel yourself overcoming the challenges, distractions of the day and achieve the goals - how will you think, how do you behave, who will you talk with?

Exercise

• wake up your body in the morning with exercise

• take a break between the day

Reading

• having a reading list for your one month, one week and daily

Scribing

• Journalling about your day

(According to MIRACLE MORNING MILLIONAIRES book)

My beliefs about you

Our dominant beliefs about ourselves

Leading to our habits

Leading to results

Leading to how we perceive ourselves

My beliefs about you: you are capable, worthy, courageous, loved, kind

"Aggressive Process" = Mastery

You have certain skills to master.

It is a progressive

1. Choose a skill that you need to master;

2. Re-affirm the important of mastering this skill: Which goal you want to achieve by mastering the skill? Why

3. Envision yourself when you master the skill: what values you give, who you give the value to, who you will network with, how do you behave, what do you feel

4. Identify bad habits that hinder you develop the skill and good habits to replace

5. Schedule your practice of the habits: when will you practice it, where, with whom and practice on what

6. Surround yourself with the network that helps you practice it

7. Measure the progress

8. Improve based on the results of the measurement: get feedback from different people

9. Raise your standards

10. Teach others

11. Document the teaching in videos, books or courses

Have you practiced this?

You reflect?

Unplugging yourself and reflecting on your week, to envision a great coming week. Do you do it?

Reflection is like a friend that helps us to travel back the past to give us perspectives on what we did and why we didn’t do some things. It then bring us to the future we want to create. Without reflection, we keep doing the same thing without having better results. Reflection is the door to raising our awareness.

Research by Giada Di Stefano, Francesca Gino, Gary Pisano, and Bradley Staats in call centers demonstrated that employees who spent 15 minutes at the end of the day reflecting on lessons learned performed 23% better after 10 days than those who tended to forget the lessons.

A study of UK commuters found a similar result when those who were prompted to use their journey to think about and plan for their day were happier, more productive, and less burned-out than people who didn’t. (According to HBR, 2017).

To reflect effectively?

- Re-affirm what is important to you: what is your main goal or dream?

- What did you do last week that helped you move closer to your goal/dream? What habits to double down in the coming week?

- What did you do last week that didn’t hinder your getting closer to the goal/dream?

How to do things differently next week?

- What did you discover about yourself, your loved ones last week?

- What decision to make now to make a positive change next week?

- What do you feel thankful for?

KINDNESS

“HERE IS YOUR HELMET…HAPPY HOLIDAY…”

A stranger cares!

Walking out of my house, I saw families and group people excitedly preparing to visit their hometown for holiday. The thought of being reunited, and all that warm hugs delights the loving feeling within me. I took my motorbike and went to my favorite shop, feeling loved. After riding for some minutes, my helmet fell off…I stopped the bike on the edge of the road to go back and pick it.

As I was walking to where my helmet fell, a lady is already holding it and handed it to me …She smiled and said “happy holiday…”

A stranger cares!

Kindness happens everyday, either done by people around us or ourselves. A simple act of kindness can make a person’s day.

Hope you have a great holiday! And yes, don’t forget to do random acts of kindness with a stranger or take a step back to observe it around you.

Love

Jen,

Some great sayings and facts about kindness:

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” — Mark Twain

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” ― Henry James

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” ― Dalai Lama XIV

A 2018 study focused on employees at a Spanish company. Workers were asked to either a) perform acts of kindness for colleagues, or b) count the number of kind acts they received from coworkers. The results showed that those who received acts of kindness became happier, demonstrating the value of benevolence for the receiver.

1.   Kindness releases happy hormones

2.   Kindness can reduce anxiety

3.   Kindness may help alleviate certain illness

4.   Kindness can reduce your stress levels

CURIOSITY & CONFIDENCE and more...

You want to be more competent at certain skills such as speaking?

You want to be more confident about you, your dream.

But there will be time you may feel doubtful about yourself, feeling scared of giving a try? or maybe you feel lack of confident when seeing others people who are so good at what you want to learn and you think maybe “it is for them, not for me?”? or maybe you feel scared of judgment?

Because of these doubts and fear, you may not take positive action to develop you to be more competent then confident!

How can you turn these doubts and fear to become EXCITEMENT to make you then take action then be better - more competent then you feel more confident about you?

One of the practice is to use CURIOSITY to trigger that EXCITEMENT!

• When you feel doubtful about yourself: be curious to ask yourself “why do I feel that?” and listen to the story behind the feeling - you acknowledge the feeling and its story. Right after that, tell yourself that you don’t need to be in that state of mind, change your focus to another question “what is the one thing I can do to make me feel better, right now?’ The one thing can be going for a walk, thinking about one achievement you did in the past or right away practice a technique to be better at what you want to be better.

• You are not confident about you when seeing other successful people: you may start your learning journey, you look for expert and you see their performance, you start comparing yourself and feel “you are no where now” and you overwhelm yourself with that comparison and jealousy. Acknowledge these feelings and be curious about “what is the one thing I can learn from these people” or “what is the story behind their achievement”. When you ask the curious questions, you have the answers of the process that creates their success, you choose one action to take, one step at a time.

• You are scared of judgement: maybe you want to speak up but you are scared of people judging you - you imagine about it and get overwhelmed with it, you decide to protect you by not trying. At that time, be curious about the feeling, acknowledge it and be curious “what is the one thing you can learn from their feedback to be better?” Always being curious to listen and critically evaluate to see if you want to take their feedback ultimately to be better.

Have a curious week my friends,

My favourite way of practicing curiosity (coming from the book

“Spend a half hour in a coffee shop being curious about everyone in the place. Without actually talking to anyone at first, release your curiosity and pose the following questions to yourself: I wonder where they are out of balance in their lives. I wonder what they value. I wonder what they are missing in their lives, what makes them laugh, where they have constructed self-imposed limits. What do they like about the day? What are their life dreams? What empowers them? What do they like about the people they’re sitting with? At the end of the half hour, find someone you can spend a little more time with and actually ask that person the curious questions. As you ask the questions, be aware of what is happening with the other person. How does this person respond to you when you are curious? Then look at your own role in the conversation…

Afterward, be curious about your own curiosity. What did you learn about being curious? What was easy? What was hard? What made it easy or hard? How could you be more curious? What would that give you?”

ASKING QUESTIONS

GREAT QUESTIONS!

WITHOUT A GOOD QUESTION, A GOOD ANSWER HAS NO PLACE TO GO. _ Clayton Christensen

Asking questions is challenging, asking good questions is even more challenging to practice daily because we tend to talk more and give advice - yes, we want to help and we love to share. But we also know that, the more effective way to connect and help people is to listen and understand more about them. To facilitate for that process, asking questions is a great starting point, asking great questions is even an extraordinary place to start.

I hear stories about great questions triggered a turning point process of people. In an interview with Ms Van - the founder of Elsa, she told me the question made her know what she wanted to do in life is "What matter to you?". She was a Vietnamese student, going to study in the US and she was never asked before when studying in Vietnam. She didn't know how to answer at first, but by being asked many times, she went to a deeper reflection of herself and became more aware of what she wanted to do in her life.

What questions have triggered your process of change? What questions have you asked to help others to trigger their changing process?

In this morning, I am reading the book :The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More..." of Michael Bungay Stainer; it was interesting to trigger myself in practicing better the coaching habit when talking to myself, my team, my partners.

Here are 3 powerful questions to trigger our awareness about who want to become (in the book - Habits of high performance people, Brendon Burchard):

• Three words that describe my best self are...

• Three words that could define how I want to treat other people are...

• Three skills I am trying to develop most in my life right now are...

Three questions to ask to trigger an intentional productive day are:

• Three main outcomes of today are...

• One think I could do today to demonstrateg exellence or real value is...

• One thing I could do today to challenge my limit is...

Three questions to ask people to trigger their changing process:

• What habits do you need to break?

• What old stories or dated ambitions do you need to update?

• What beliefs about yourself do you need to let go of?

...

Many more about questions to share...

What is the question or what are questions that trigger your turning point in life?

Get excited each day with your "Golden Goal"

Habits that matter

#happyhighperformancehabits #jencoaching

When it comes to goal setting, people often talk about SMART goal. It is a great framework to really helps us identify what to work on to achieve the goal. It is even greater if it does come from a bigger picture – a place of serving of sound “impossible dream”.

A great goal that helps us grow and feel fillfuld has to come from our sound “impossible dream” which makes us feel excited but at the same time scary because we dont know exactly yet how to achieve it because we have never done it before.

For example, when i was a kid from the countryside of Vietnam, the “impossible dream” was to get full scholarships to learn abroad to open my mind then i could be more helpful. It was impossible for people around me because no-one did it before. The sound possible goal at that time would be to just get to a normal university and get married. I achieved the sound “impossible dream” because it fueld my energy and my effort each day and i made it happen.

Your goal has to be “golden” – making you feel scary and fired and worthy putting effort, great effort. It means you will tap into your great potential – what you didnt know before and add tremendous values. After having that golden goal, you are now using the SMART goal to break it down into short term action plan.

Goal is just a measure of our growth, effort we put out there – in exchanging you achieve the goal. The person you become matters!

What is your “golden goal”?