duty vs passion

personally having been exposed to both train of thoughts:

 

1. “you gotta get it done, coz its your responsibility and duty to get it done”

2.”you should have passion in doing things, so you can get them done”

 

i believe that many have spent too much time thinking/discussing about passion in life. so many “success coaches” have spoken time and again about living life with passion. using examples of highly successful people as passionate ideals that we should follow.

however, i feel that they are the minority. and that the vast majority of the world’s population thrives on responsiblity and duty. for eg. a father will find that its his duty to bring home the food. without passion, without excitement, simply a duty. does he feel burdened with this duty? sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t. many at work, get work done simply coz its their job to get the stuff done.

many who have been exposed to these success coaches start failing in their life, start failing their basic duties using a “lack of passion” as an excuse. this is sad, as they would have done so much with a simple understanding that it is their responsiblity to get certain things sorted.

however, i do acknowledge that SHOULD someone have passion in what they do, they are likely to do better. a person who understands basic responsiblity and duty, WHEN he finds passion, will do fantastic and be great.

but what is scary is when individuals neglect duty in search for passion. ask your uncle who goes to work daily and gets his work done. ask the road sweeper that wakes early and gets the roads clean. who amongst them have passion for their work. i believe 80-90% of the world is driven by these “unmotivated people” who simply get the job done. should these people lose their basic understanding of duty and responsiblity in search of passion, the world will collapse.

be afraid. very afraid when you lose sight of the basic things in life.

pointing fingers

2010, a year that i went from having 1 consultant under my charge to 8.

i looked at other senior managers and directors and wondered, “why have they stayed stagnant for so long?”

i recruited zero from last october till march 2011.

i wonder, why these ppl so so unmotivated in a industry like ours. i realised, i’m not too motivated myself…. it takes dedication, discipline, focus to continue growing. yes, the team has improved structurally during that period, however, that is not good enough.

will do so. stay focused, stay targeted. =)

justifying forward? why not justify backwards!

We in our industry often hear consultants saying, “boss, don’t worry, it is coming in next month, when they want to justify and squirm their way out of explaining why this month was a lousy month”

question: WHAT HAS NEXT MONTH GOT TO DO WITH THIS MONTH?

if you really HAVE to justify, justify backwards! I find that the best people always leave themselves a trail of successes to back them up when things do not go their way. They have many months of huge successes to prove that they have got what it takes. focus on building that long trail of success so that when things don’t go your way, you can ‘justify backwards’. focus on building it, so at any point in time, you know, you are ready.

this serves you in many ways. 1, you are a success RIGHT NOW! those who keep saying that next month will be a better month are often mediocre and average. when you focus on building successes right now so you can justify backwards, you are an immediate success. and the best part is, if you keep doing well, YOU WON’T EVEN NEED TO JUSTIFY! you are just simply a success!

justify backwards! “boss, the last few months were fantastic, this month ain’t too good, but i’m sure its a blip, stuff will happen next month”

reap what you sow

you reap what you sow… sometimes, you just gotta keep sowing, and sowing and sowing and sowing before you finally reap what you consciously sowed.

” giving people who are clearly unequal, equal chances, is called communism”.

saw that on a blog. interesting….

skill/talent vs consistency/reliability

i recently helped a photographer with a commercial shoot. helped him with the reflectors and all.

he was using a wireless flash trigger. we got everything set up and waited for the client to come for the shoot. he was one of those people that were uncomfortable in front of the camera. as the shoot moved along, the wireless trigger started giving problems. many a times, the flashes did not go off. heard from the assistant that there are better/more expensive wireless triggers that do not have this issue, but the photographer felt that it was too expensive/of a different league. this resulted in many missed shots and further discomfort to the client.

this recent incident made me understand why professionals pay exorbitant amounts of money for quality equipment when other cheaper substitues work ‘just as well’. they are willing to pay 2 or 3times the price for that additional reliability and consistency, even though the cheaper one will work 90% of the time and paying 2 or 3 times more will only get it closer to 100%. an improvement of less than 10%.

this rule exists everywhere. imagine yourself as a photographer at the world cup finals. the striker scores the game winning goal and runs right towards the fans and you are a journalist, sitting at a spot between him and the fans. you pick up your short lens camera body and start clicking only to realise its not firing off. at that very moment, you will be willing to give away your 10,000 camera body for a 100dollar point and shoot camera. the technology(skill/talent) of the camera is completely worthless at this very important time.

if you look at professional soccer. managers buy and have consistent reliable players in their team. wise managers will not buy inconsistent performers who in one moment will so brilliant no one can come close and in another moment is a complete nobody on the field.  the manager makes such decision because you can’t build a team around inconsistent players. you can only have consistent results when you put 11 players whom the manager knows will perform their duties consistently. having one inconsistent player will result in a ripple effect, resulting in the manager not knowing how the game/strategy will turn out every game.

when i was young, my thinking was simple. just put all the most talented skillful players together, and you’ll have the best result.

i’ve grown to believe that to have the best result, you have to put all the consistent and reliable players together so you can carve out a strategy that works and is dependable for results.

Player A: skill-10, consistency 8

Player B: skill-8, consistency 10

i’ll take the player B anytime coz i can trust him to do his job. consistency/reliability before skill/talent.

i believe many business people make decisions like that. they work with the people that they can trust more than the people that are the smartest or most talented.

coaches comments

claudine: thanks for the very indepth sharing. =) believe it was very helpful to all those who read

qiaoyi: wonderful. you have officially been the 1st person to have gotten 25referrals on the very first ff. well done! anyways, appr = approach.

ravin: haven’t really seen you in action, but you’ve been improving your referral numbers. would like to see you in action more.

fitria: do share with the rest abit more about your “sudden inspiration on the train”. and do not wait for moments of inspiration to do things, coz such moments come and go. discipline stays with you. i’m happy for you that you decided to challenge yourself and declare it, and ask for my help. well done.

quit smoking

i was talking with one of my friends on msn today. his nick said “quit smoking!” so i chatted with him and he told me that he was “quitting”.

then i asked him more questions… “whats the definition of quitting smoking?”

if you have no more cigarretes and are no longer going to smoke, then you HAVE QUIT smoking! you aren’t quitting smoking. you HAVE QUIT! well done!

however, if you are “quitting smoking”, it simply means… YOU ARE STILL SMOKING!

so its pretty simple, you either are still smoking or you have quit!

this example about smoking is actually very relavent to similar decisions that we have to make in our life. to be a better person, to be fillial, to have integrity.

when we make a decision to do something, at that instant, we are it! when we make a decision to be a person of integrity, at that very moment, we instantly become a person of integrity! if we keep our integrity from that moment on, we would be a person of integrity! until we fail it!

there is no… ‘trying to quit’, ‘trying to be a better person’! there is no “quitting smoking”. you either quit, or you are still smoking.

you are either a person of integrity, or you are not, there’s no ‘trying’….

a beautiful mind…

we were all born with a mind…. a mind so pristine and pure…

then we started to hear….

then we started to listen…..

then we started to accept….

then we decided… that life’s just “like that”

that’s just sad….

we were all born with a pure mind.  we were all born with the RIGHT to fill it with thoughts that we want to. we were born with the RIGHT to have positive thoughts in them. but sadly… due to our ignorance and due to the fact that we were children, these right was given to the “adults” around us.

they started feeding us with thoughts and ideas whether or not we asked for it. “this auntie is such a miser”, “don’t work so hard la… we only got one life”, “don’t try too hard, you’ll only look bad when you fail”, “i hate working”, “i hate going to school”,”marry a rich man…. you’ll be taken care of”, “work hard and save”, “rich people are all cheats”, “you don’t get anywhere being a good guy”. some of these thoughts may be valid or even beneficial to one, some of these thoughts are far from being beneficial. but the one thing in common is that, many of us have been exposed to these thoughts whether or not we asked for it. were we robbed of the purity and cleanliness of our brain?

i believe our parents and our “seniors” have our bests interests at heart. but sometimes, good intention is not good enough. these ‘good’ intentions may just sabotage a person with the negative believe that successful people are bad people, resulting in him having a unwillingness to strive for success.

i was talking to a candidate today. she mentioned that her parents don’t want her to work too hard, coz it won’t be good for health over the long run. good intention. but what they don’t realise is that…. it is highly possible to have great health and work real hard at the same time! some parents say… “don’t need to work so hard la… just be happy…” with the true intention of wanting their children to seek for happiness instead of wealth. but if you look closely… you would realise that one can be:

poor & happy, poor & sad, rich & happy, rich & sad. it is not a zero sum game.

there is often a lot of leeway for improving the efficiency in the use of resources. one can spend 1hr a day with their parents over dinner with low/no communication. that is 7hrs a week. how is that compared with going out with the family once a week 2hrs, with high communication and joy? which would be preferred by your parents? life’s not a zero sum game, we just need to make it a good game for everyone.

please understand that i’m not trying to say that just because you are XXX years older than zero, its too late.

the good news is. you still have a brain. maybe not as pure, not as clean and definitely more polluted than you first began. but you still have a brain. you still have a brain that gives you choice. I’ve had friends tell me… “i’m like that… coz my mum brought me up like that….” “i know this is not good for me, but i’m like that coz that’s what i grew up believing”. i think it is absolutely disgusting that one blames one’s parents for one’s failures or negative mindset. you have a brain and you have free will to dictate what you are going to do next. you may have an inclination to do something you feel “natural”. but you have a brain to decide if that’s the best thing to do.

if you take away nothing else from this piece, i hope you at the very least take responsibility for your actions. and protect your mind from further pollution and seek ways to cleanse it. it takes just a simple decision to rid yourself of years of pollution. won’t be an easy journey, it’d be hard, but it’d definitely be worth it! =)

the power of association

when i was young, my dad once told me, “this kid is bad influence, don’t be too close to him”.

that was the first time and the only time my dad said that to me. i listened, but didn’t do much about it, he was a close friend. as i grew older, i understood. and am glad, that i didn’t get that close.

most of us have heard of the saying “birds of the same feather flock together”. but that saying is just a statement, that those that associate with one another are like one another, but does not identify or give hope to those that wishes to take action, to dissassociate from some and to associate with the selected few, hence ‘the power of association’ would be more appropriate.

its so easy to associate with the negative part of people. please note that i said negative PART of people and not simply negative people.  i believe you have likely experienced this…. been in a group…. hear someone complain about something(boss, spouse, sch work,etc) and everyone joins in. that happens more often than. “someone exclaiming how they love their work, their boss, their spouse etc…” due to these weird situation in society, people socialise with negativity instead of positivity. sad, but true.

i’ve also had the oppurtunity and the priviledge to be privy to the positive side of many =) i believe we each have our “sides”. you show your positive side to others and they’ll be more than glad to show their positive side to you. Due to conditioning, they may feel a little awkward or unnatural in the beginning, but they’ll be so glad to finally find someone to share their positiveness with.

to gain from the understanding of the power of association, you can:

1) surround yourself with positive people and  your role models

2) dissociate from people whom you do not wish to become

should you wish to challenge yourself:

1) be the beacon of light! and attract the positive side of people. provide the serenity and safety of an environment and partner that they can be positive with. be the person that others wish to associate with.

try them! =)