THE HI-FIVE

THE HI-FIVE

A peaceful loving day, what beauty have you witnessed?

I was sitting in my favourite coffee shop, writing as usual. After a while, I could see that someone was watching me. I looked up and I saw big bright eyes with a big grin and a curious face. It was a little boy, about 7 years old.

I smiled back at him. He then ran away, going back to his parents’ seat.

I continued writing.

An hour later, he came closer to me with a bigger grin – expressing his curiosity when seeing me sitting for such a long time with my laptop with all the mess of notebooks and water- bottles…

I raised my hand to hi-five him and he gave me a great hi-five back with a bigger grin – it cheered me a lot as I continued with my work.

Sometimes it is nice to just be like a child - brave, curious, caring...even with a stranger.


THE PIC

THE PIC

- Jen: what do u like spend time on?

- Mary: taking pictures.

- Jen: what makes taking pics special.

- Mary: I could capture the great moments of life.

- Jen: did u take any pic recently?

- Mary: I got one. (should be, “I have one”)

Mary showed me a picture with lots of wire – a typical thing In Vietnam – wire made as though it was a net – it looks dangerous somehow. Behind the wire is a place with lots of houses – old houses.

'I find it is beautiful despite the old and seemingly not clean houses with a net of wire. I live there and I am happy', Mary said.

The beauty is from within.

We make it beautiful from the inside.

THE LEADERSHIP JOURNEY

THE JOURNEY

of Gareth & I from 2017 to 2022

& 9 influential factors on Leadership Development

In 2017, I had the opportunity to experience a 12-week course to study leadership as a part of my master’s degree in International Management in the UK. Earlier to that, I always associated leadership with something big, just for someone in a big organization or a country, and ambiguous. The leadership perception wall was consciously and subconsciously socially constructed. Each day, each brick in the wall was slowly taken down to open a diverse picture of leadership.

It seems that when we focus on something, opportunities start showing up. I was invited to be a speaker in a collaborative leadership conference. My journey of leadership development moved to the next chapter when I met one of the most experienced professors on leadership topic - Gareth. He guided me in my study interviewing different SMEs' owners/managers to be able to publish the leadership book 'The leadership development journey'.

The book aims to give you a clear big picture of different perspectives on leadership in literature/practice and the common patterns that help the interviewed leaders develop their leadership capability/identity in SMEs’ context. The book was published in 2018.

After publishing the book, I still wanted to publish our study in an international paper, I however went back to Vietnam in 2018. My focus changed to my biz in Vietnam. Gareth was not giving up on helping me to reach out to different international journals. We got turned off by 3 different journals, Gareth didn't give up on me.

Yesterday finally we got accepted by the Journal of Management Development.

It is a beautiful journey, isn't it? Having someone trusting your vision and not giving up on your vision with you.

HOPE YOU NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR JOURNEY!

---About our study---

Based on interviewing almost hundreds of entrepreneurial leaders, we found that: the leadership development journey in this study is a self-development process embedded in a social learning environment. The study found nine influential factors on leadership development:

• Social factors: parents, teamwork sport activities,

teachers, role models, mentors/coaches, community-based

networks

• Self factors: self-learning, experimentation,

self-reflection

Connect with an awesome friend today

HABIT: CONNECT WITH AN AWESOME FRIEND

PAUL & I

Yesterday was a joy, I got a chance to re-connect with my mentor-Paul in the UK and share what's going on with my life with his students.

I met Paul in a distinguished talk in 2016 at my university in the UK.

I found he had a lot of wisdom and a great sense of humor. While doing different biz, he still wanted to share these with students so he became a lecturer too. After meeting him, I wanted to learn from him. I went to his office the next day to meet him.

Later on, I insisted to go to Paul's office every week, I would share ideas and Paul would ask questions that were difficult to answer but helped me grow.

When a student is ready and 'hungry' to grow, a teacher is always willing to help.

Who would be the awesome friend that you connect with today?

Choose an abundant mindset

ABUNDANCE Thanks to today, we have another day to choose to live with an abundant mind:

- Choose unlimited thoughts in limited circumstances;

- See the possibility in the impossible;

- See the potential of you & others beyond the current circumstances;

- See great success comes when everyone is successful;

- Feel grateful for what you have

#happyhighperformancehabits #jencoaching

9 success habits

9 HABITS
shared by the sisters/friends in my book 'Under the Iceberg of Success' that make their 'success' - who they are proud of when they become.
9 THÓI QUEN
những người chị/người bạn trong cuốn sách 'Dưới tảng băng của sự thành công' làm nên 'sự thành công' - con người họ tự hào khi họ trở thành.
---
THINKING
Habit 1: Think Big (Think Big, Dream Big)
- the "amplifier" of success)
Habit 2: Growth mindset (Continually growing
yourself - the guide of success)
Habit 3: Contribution mindset (Giving, kindness)
- happy source of success)
FAITH
Habit 4: Believe in yourself (Be yourself
- unique advantages to success)
ACTION EVERY DAY
Habit 5: Seek Clarity (Know What You Want,
Who are you, what skills do you need to develop - a yardstick for
necessary efforts to lead to success)
Habit 6: Choose the difficult path (courageous, daring
- launch pad of success)
Habit 7: Commitment (Perseverance, self-discipline)
- means of success)
ENVIRONMENT
Habit 8: Sharing (Connecting to the environment
- replication of success)
Habit 9: Gratitude (Connecting to the Present
– connected with success).
-----
TƯ DUY
Thói quen 1: Tư duy lớn (Nghĩ lớn, ước mơ lớn
- bộ “khuếch đại” của thành công)
Thói quen 2: Tư duy cầu tiến (Không ngừng phát triển
bản thân - người dẫn đường của thành công)
Thói quen 3: Tư duy cống hiến (Cho đi, sự tử tế
- suối nguồn hạnh phúc của thành công)
NIỀM TIN
Thói quen 4: Tin vào bản thân (Là chính mình
- lợi thế độc đáo để thành công)
HÀNH ĐỘNG MỖI NGÀY
Thói quen 5: Tìm kiếm sự rõ ràng (Biết bạn muốn gì,
bạn là ai, bạn cần phát triển kĩ năng gì - thước đo cho
những nỗ lực cần thiết để dẫn đến thành công)
Thói quen 6: Chọn con đường khó (can đảm, táo bạo
– bệ phóng của thành công)
Thói quen 7: Cam kết (Kiên trì, kỉ luật bản thân
- phương tiện của thành công)
MÔI TRƯỜNG
Thói quen 8: Chia sẻ (Kết nối với môi trường
– sự nhân bản của thành công)
Thói quen 9: Lòng biết ơn (Kết nối với hiện tại
– kết nối với thành công).

KINDNESS of strangers

A simple story of KINDNESS that warms our hearts

This is a story from a scholar sharing her experience in the UK touched my heart, and I hope it warms your heart too.

[Câu chuyện về lòng tốt của một người lạ]

I opened my pocket to get my phone when I got home, but I couldn't find it. I was terrified, wondering where I had gone.

I returned to the school to look for it, but it was nowhere to be found. After returning from school, I go to the park to sit and observe the surroundings. As I reached the stone bench where I was sitting, I noticed two people sitting there in the distance - the same two people.

So, I approached them and attempted to explain things to them.

" My phone has been missing for more than two hours!

When one of the two strangers heard what happened, he questioned.

Is that your phone?

'We noticed it here and didn't know who it belonged to, so we sat for a moment and waited for someone to come and get it before we handed it to security.

Wow, a warm feeling ran through my body as I stood there for a second.

Isn't it lovely? Someone from the outside is concerned. '

We may notice many lovely moments and stories in life if we take some time each day to observe; or we can create our own.

ONE THING THAT YOU DO TO TRIGGER THE JOY THIS WEEK?

ONE THING THAT YOU DO TO TRIGGER THE JOY THIS WEEK?

SMILE (^^LAUGH)

" I like your smile with the white big teeth so I will let you go ", the police said to Sub. (A habit of being friendly with a big smile can create a great power of persuasion?)

Sub came from the US. He has a contagious smile - if he walks in a meeting, people will feel the relaxing friendly energetic vibe from his smile and they will also smile.

One night, Sub got caught by police while driving his car to town. On that day, he didn't bring his driving license.

The police asked him to look for any other paper having Sub's face in it. Sub tried to look at different corners of the wallet and down to the very bottom of it - but he could not find one.

The police then asked Sub "Hold on a minute, I saw a paper with your face and with a very big smile".

Sub got confused for a second, but still smiled friendly as his nature, and then tried to go over one more time different items in his wallet...

"Yes, that one", the police pointed at an item in Sub’s wallet.

"Oh, this one", Sub surprised.

"This teeth checkup appointment card?", Sub got even more confused and he even started to laugh at himself because he didn’t believe that the card would be able to replace the driving license.

"Yes, exactly", the police said.

As the police said, he picked up the card and also started to laugh "Wow, you had a very white big teeth, indeed". While looking at the card, he looked at Sub and continued “Yes, it is you. The white big teeth man, you can go now”.

"Come again", Sub could not know what was happening.

"I like your smile with the white big teeth so I will let you go", the police said.

"Next time, bring your license and drive carefully to make sure you can protect your nice teeth", the police winked and left, leaving Sub not knowing what to say, just kept smiling.

Our community had great laughter when listening to this story of Sub. And yes, we could somehow understand the police's feeling when seeing the contagious smile of Sub "it is really nice, indeed". And the smile came from his caring, friendly soul.

Have you experienced a similar situation where you could see the magic power of a smile? Have you used the power of smile to connect with people?

Takeaways from the story:

- When you smile, you release the tension, you set an intention to see situations with a positive attitude

- You tend to take positive action

- You make others smile too

Do you know?

- “British researchers found that one smile can provide the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2,000 chocolate bars; they also found that smiling can be as stimulating as receiving up to 16,000 Pounds Sterling in cash” (Forbes, 2011)

5W TO FEEL THE 'MOMENT'...

5W TO FEEL THE 'MOMENT'...

I learned an interesting lesson about 'feel every moment' through a friend in the US back in 2011. This friend came to visit Vietnam and stay nearby my house in Hanoi.

When we went out to eat, it often took 2 hours for him to finish his meal while it took a minute for me.

'Eating slowly is like meditating, enjoying the moment', he often told me.

He often arrived at home late even he left his work early, it was because he walked home, walking and meditating at the same time.

He generated a very calm, friendly vibe whenever he went. He made everyone feel heard and understood. He taught me to feel every moment. Wow, it is still a challenge when we get into intensive days, but the moments are always there for us, to feel.

You feel every moment each day?

----------------------

I am using this 5W model to increase the being present every moment:

W: where are we?

W: what are we thinking?

W: what are we doing?

W: Who are we with?

W: What do we feel?

Thanks for being present with this post. Till now...Love

RAISE OUR STANDARDS

RAISE OUR STANDARDS

Change starts with a desire to make a change. To know 'where' to change to, we need to define the 'where' and it has to be in a higher standard compared to where we are now.

What areas we should raise our standards?

You can think about 5 areas that you want to raise to other levels that you feel better that can lead to any other areas better.

1. Joy

Associate the joy with the process of raising standards and in daily activities.

2. Health

When you are healthy, you feel energetic, you are more focused, you are more productive. You know if you have everything but not health, it is not meaningful.

Everyday your decision of what you eat, drink, sleep influences your health.

Remind yourself when you choose the apples or the fast food; Coca-Cola or water; use the staircase or elevator; an exercise in the morning or sleep longer; yoga and going to the gym or going to party to drink

3. Focus

Focus on one thing at a time, do not let the phones and laptops work against you, let them become your weapon, use them to set alarm to remind yourself to take a rest after each hour of intensively working.

Forget about multi tasking that does not advance your life. Work intensively for one task and take a break to get back focus.

4. Kindness

Be kind to others, challenge yourself today to go out to:

- Say 'Hi' and smile at a person you meet on the road

- Give a compliment to your loved one and a stranger

- Give a compliment to a person in a coffee shop or restaurant that you normally go to

- Share the cake you make with your neighbor

- Write a thanks card to your co-workers

5. Courage

Enable to raise your standards in any area, you want to be more courageous, even you may feel scared, but you will do it anyway.

The more you do it, the more courageous you become.

You will make the muscle of courage stronger each time you overcome the fear and the doubts to do things that advance your life, to be more joyful, to more healthy, to be more focused, to be more kind.

Our new standard should come with a higher standard of the community around us.

What are your new standards?

What is your new network to help you achieve the standard?

I AM IN LOVE...AND YOU...

I AM IN LOVE...

AND YOU

Hope you had a great day of giving and receiving lots of love, not just today, but every day. Today is like our great ‘friend’ who 'reminds' us of the importance of love every day.

In the past few days, I have had an interesting time looking back on my coaching journey of working with clients (I love to call them as ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’) from the UK, Iran, Vietnam, Poland, India, … . There are many different stories, and all often come with the goal of solving problems related to business life. But in the process of working with them, the deep-down and great challenges for them are their love life. When they tackle these challenges, their business also improves. The love life - the relationships – with husband/wife, parents…and more importantly with themselves.

When they appreciate and love these close people more, they look and act differently – their relationships with others are better – good energy is well-used to handle things better.

Are you loving yourself? Fill your 'cup' with love and respect yourself so that 'water' overflows from your cup. Will the 'fruit' from the seed you sow be love and respect?

Wish you today, every day, love. And appreciate yourself more...And also not forgetting then loving others and sending love to them.

Let's be in love each day with ourselves, what we do, with others and life.

---My 10 favorite ways to develop our love ----

1. Dream big for ourselves and others

2. Be disciplined

3. Acknowledge then let go of limiting beliefs and doubts; replace by empowering beliefs and action

4. Acknowledge, then forgive for the mistakes of us and others, exchange by takeaways and appreciation

5. Be 1% better each day

6. Add values to others, make a contribution, do something that matters

7. Keep a gratitude journey

8. Don't compare yourself with others to limit you, compare to learn and grow together

9. Create a community of people who see your great potential and their great potentials

10. Send love to yourself and someone each day...

(Another thing would be: Do something crazy once a while, surprise someone once a while...)

5W model to build a new habit

WHAT NEW HABITS WILL YOU INTRODUCE TO YOUR 2022'S VERSION OF YOU?

(You may replace new habits with 'bad habits' but the most challenging part is for 'good habits' which are no longer good for your new version. But you did it before, so do you it now.)

Building a new habit can be a challenge, and this '5W model' can help you to do so:

• What: What do you need to do?

• Why: Why are you doing it?

• When: When will you do?

• Where: Where did you do it?

• Who: Who gets you to do it the best you can? (Because you want to do it yourself for that person, they may not know and they don't force you.)

This 5W together with the following would help you maintain your new habits:

- Celebrate your accomplishments every day with that habit.

- Share and help others to change habits with you.

#happyhighperformancehabits #jencoaching

Happy High-Performance Habits - Time Blocking/Pomodoro

Time Blocking/Pomodoro - Do you still keep practicing this classic, proven, productive habit even during the most intensive and tough times?

Why Time Blocking/Pomodoro? To sustain the level of energy and focus throughout the day by intentionally focusing on one project at a time and taking a break between important projects.

How to use Promodoro or Time Blocking technique?

• List projects or activities you need to do each day

• Each important project/activity will be allocated within a certain period of time (research suggests it will be about 50 - 90 minutes before our brain loses its most lucid state).

• Between different projects/activities, we will take a break, relax for about 5 to 9 minutes (walk or meditate or wash our face or talk to someone).

The break between activities will help us detach from the energy of the previous project and recharge energy to move on to the next project.

A friend of mine suggests an interesting way to relax is to walk 100 steps. Why 100 steps? It is specific so our brain likes that.

You will be the one to try it and see which relaxation method suits you best! (I like to walk around or jump rope or go to the toilet ^^).

We can set an alarm clock every 50 - 90 minutes to remind us to stand up to relax, recharge before we run out of “battery” without knowing! You can also download an app to build this habit.

If this is your first try, you may not be familiar with it yet. But like going to the gym, you'll get used to it and your "muscles" will become firmer - you'll get used to it and it will become a habit when you allow yourself to continue doing it even if you don’t feel like doing it in the coming days.

And if you're familiar with this method – share it with 3 friends who think they can benefit from using it.

Have a productive day!

KINDNESS – THE BIG COW, ALMOST BUTTING ME😅 AND HIS LOVING EYES🥰

KINDNESS – THE BIG COW, ALMOST BUTTING ME😅 AND HIS LOVING EYES🥰 [T.Việt ở dưới]

It was the 4th day of Tet (commonly known as Lunar New Year). As is my habit, I run in the morning. During some first days of Lunar New Year, I could run in the fields in my hometown – from my village to the next village, connected by a concrete road and paths through the fields.

The running route is a circle. On the way back, I usually run from a concrete road and down to a field – this is my favorite part because it is near a river associated with my childhood, herding buffalo and fishing with my brother.

‘Wow…’, I was startled because I was running down the riverside road when a big cow with big round eyes ran out into the middle of the road where I was running. In my hometown, people often tie the cows with a rope tied to a sturdy stake driven into the ground – unattended buffalo/cow will graze around the area the length of the rope can cover.

'Ohh, it looks like it wants to butt me!' Seeing the big animal, even though its horns were not sharp, I still imagined it butting me because when I was a kid I was often butted by cows or buffalos, sometimes I was so scared, running and calling for my brother and sister to save me; sometimes my siblings laughed because I made it more serious than it actually was. I found that the more I ran, the more they wanted to chase me. Sometimes we ran from my own fear rather than from the actual animals.

'Heyy, but this animal doesn't seem to have any malicious intention, its eyes are big but it looks kind..., I'm just imagining it…,' I thought to myself. And I started thinking about different scenarios.

‘One, I'm going to run really fast on this side - but it’s rope is long, it could run after me and knock me into the sky...😅'

‘The second scenario, I could talk to it, tell it I'm passing, without affecting its eating of grass,' I told myself with another option...

After these logical thoughts, my intuition told me ‘Love and kindness can tame wild animals…’. This made me laugh to myself😄 because this saying would be a bit weird for some. But I believe and have experienced lots of times that love and kindness have changed people, including things in nature...

So I stopped, stayed still and waved ‘hi’ to the cow ‘Hi, Happy New Year’.

I looked at his eyes, then took some fresh grass from the side of the road, fed it and wished him Happy New Year again ‘Hi, Happy New Year. Let me go by this side’.

The cow's eyes lit up, and when I passed, it kept looking back at me until I ran out of sight.

There can be many interpretations, many ways of analysing this story. For me, it's an interesting experience to appreciate more about the power of kindness…no matter who, human, or natural… Don't you think?💕💕💕Have a productive joyful week ahead.

----

SỰ TỬ TẾ – CON BÒ, GẦN HÚC MÌNH 😅VÀ ĐÔI MẮT YÊU THƯƠNG🥰

Mùng 3 Tết (Tết theo lịch Âm, thường được biết đến là Lunar New Year), theo thói quen, mình chạy vào buổi sáng, những ngày này mình được chạy trên cánh đồng ở quê mình – xuyên từ làng mình sang làng bên cạnh được nối với nhau bởi đường bê tông và đường bờ ruộng.

Cung đường chạy là một vòng tròn, trên đường về, mình thường chạy từ đường bê tông rồi xuống một cánh đồng – đoạn đường mình thích nhất vì nó gần một con sông gắn với tuổi thơ chăn trâu bắt cá của mình và anh trai.

‘Wow…’, mình giật mình vì đang chạy xuống đường bờ sông thì một con bò to – hai mắt tròn to chạy ra giữa đường mình đang chạy…Ở làng mình, mọi người thường buộc bò hay trâu vào một dây thừng được cột vào một cái cọc cắm xuống đất – con trâu/bò không cần trông, sẽ ăn cỏ xung quanh khu vực mà độ dài của sợi dây thừng có thể bao phủ.

‘Wow, hình như nó muốn húc mình, hix’, nhìn thấy con bò to, dù sừng của nó không sắc, mình cũng tưởng tượng đến cảnh nó húc mình vì hồi bé mình hay bị trâu bò húc, nhiều lúc sợ quá – vừa chạy vừa kêu cứu, anh chị mình nhiều lúc cười phá vì thấy mình sợ quá mức. Sau này mình nhận ra chúng ta càng chạy, con bò/con trâu càng đuổi theo. Nhiều lúc chúng ta chạy vì nỗi sợ của chính chúng ta nhiều hơn là chạy vì con bò/ con trâu đuổi theo chúng ta.

‘Hix, nhưng con bò này hình như không có ý định húc mình, mắt của nó to mà có vẻ hiền…, mình chỉ đang tưởng tượng…’, mình tự nhủ. Mình cũng nghĩ đến các tình huống có thể xảy ra.

‘Một là mình chạy thật nhanh ở dìa bờ bên này – nhưng dây buộc của con bò này dài, nó có thể chạy theo mình rồi húc mình lên trời…😅’

‘Hai là mình có thể nói chuyện với nó, bảo nó là mình đi qua, không ảnh hưởng đến việc nó ăn cỏ…’, mình tự nhủ với một phương án khác…’

Ngay sau những suy nghĩ logic đó, linh cảm bảo mình ‘Yêu thương, lòng tốt …có thể thuần hóa thú hoang…🥰’. Mình mỉm cười vì suy nghĩ đó có thể được gọi là ‘bất thường’. Nhưng mình tin và từng có rất nhiều trải nghiệm về việc tình yêu và lòng tốt có thể thay đổi con người, kể cả vạn vật thiên nhiên…

Thế là mình đứng lại, khoai thai, bình tĩnh, vẫy tay chào con bò, rồi chúc mừng năm mới con bò, rồi mình lấy mấy ngọn cỏ ngon tươi ở bên đường, mớm cho con bò ăn và nhìn vào mắt con bò bảo – ‘Chúc mừng năm mới, bạn cho mình đi qua đường này nhé’.

Mắt con bò dường như sáng lên, và khi mình đi qua, nó vẫn ngoái nhìn mình đến khi mình chạy khuất bóng.

Có thể có nhiều cách giải thích, nhiều cách phân tích về câu chuyện của mình. Với mình, đó là một trải nghiệm thú vị để càng trân trọng hơn về sức mạnh của lòng tốt…dù với ai, con người, hay vạn vật thiên nhiên…Bạn nghĩ vậy không? Chúc bạn tuần mới ý nghĩa hiệu quả và nhiều niềm vui.

Principles

PRINCIPLES After experiencing things, we reflect, we create principles to experience greater things in life. We make principles become habits. Principles of our happy high performance friends: Principle 1. Take 100% responsibility for your life, and cheer for others when they do so Principle 2. Make personal growth your daily purpose Principle 3. Decide what you want and commit to it Principle 4. Believe it’s possible, believe in yourself and others Principle 5. Set a worthy goal to measure what you need to do to become the person you want to be Principle 6. Take Action, learn from feedback, improve action Principle 7: Choose who to spend time with, choose what to spend energy on; and build a community supporting your goal Principle 8: Set intention before each year, month, week, day and activity Principle 9: Finish the things in mind before doing the things in the reality Principle 10: Develop others, appreciate others and make others successful Principle 11. Feel thankful, daily #happyhighperformancehabits #jencoaching #happyhighperformancehabits #jencoaching #day25 #extraordinary2022withjen