Mar 20
2010
2010
Archive for March, 2010
I recently had a chance to take a peak at this book called “Survivor’s Club” (Japanese 
translation) at Kodansha International office while waiting for someone. In this book, the author Ben Sherwood showcased several survivors of catastrophic real-life events in attempt to examine what it takes to survive such an event and to gain insight of “the secrets and science that could save your life” which is the tag-line of this book. It looked interesting and I scanned through it for a few minutes, and I came across this web-site URL:
www.opportunityisnowhere.com
What did you think about this URL?
According to the author of this book, this works as a simple yet effective test to see if you have “glass half-full” or “half-empty” type of mentality. You might have read this as “opportunity is nowhere”. Well it’s not very encouraging, right? The other way to read this is “opportunity is now here”. Remember, your brain will look for evidence of your beliefs – whether it is true or not. Look for opportunities and you will find them, it’s all around you. Same goes for love – look for love, and it is all around you. Look for supportive friends if you are going for your dreams, and I can assure you, you will find them. I suppose you can also guess which type of people is more likely to survive in the catastrophic events. Do you have what it takes to be one of them?
Mar 16
2010
2010
How Do You Measure Your Work?
I have heard that you should measure your work in terms of your output, and not your input. In other 
words, you should measure your work not by how many hours you’ve put in, but by how much you’ve produced as a result of it. I’d even go further and say that you should measure your work by the impact you make with your output. Obviously, your personal satisfaction is really important, but what is also perhaps more important is what kind of value you are creating for other people.
Last year when I was about to be ready to announce that I’ll be officially leaving the Japanese school I had worked for 4 years, a colleague of mine told me that she was feeling somewhat resentful that I had created my business while still working at the school. She said, “While I am giving my 100% into this job, it seems like this job at the school is something ‘on the side’ for you”, implying that I was giving less than 100% into it. I didn’t know how to respond to her comment at that time, so I just replied to her with “Thank you for telling me how you feel” and left it at that.
After pondering about what she said for a while, I came to the conclusion that true value of your work should be measured by the impact your work has instead of how much hours you put in. This is why there is certain security for working for someone, but in most cases, there is also a limitation for the impact you can make as well as how much you get for that. From now on, I’ll be always measured by how many people benefit from the services I offer, which is the ultimate indicator of the value I am creating for other people – not how many hours I put in, or how many courses or products I’ve created. In a sense it is very scary, but I am also excited to know how far I can go. How about you? How would you like to be measured?
Mar 7
2010
2010
Just By Being There
A few days ago, my friends from Japan who live here in San Diego called me to 
let me know that they were heading to the hospital to have a baby, and that they’d call when they need my help with translating (English – Japanese). Sure enough, about an hour later, the husband called back as they needed some help at the hospital triage. He handed his phone to the nurse and she started asking me some questions. Unfortunately the phone line was breaking up, and before I could translate anything, it got disconnected. They somehow managed to get their point across without my help and by the time he called again, they were already taken up to the room where she’d deliver the baby. I went to sleep at midnight. The baby was born early the next morning. Today I visited them at the hospital and got a chance to meet with the brand new baby boy. He was sleeping so peacefully and I got a chance to hold him. When I apologized to my friend for not being able to be of much help when her husband called, she said “It was enough to know that you were there on the other side of the telephone”.
Later that day I looked back at that visit and thought, how nice it was for her to say that. Even when I couldn’t be of much of help on the phone, they appreciated me. The mere sense of my presence where they couldn’t even see or hear me gave them some comfort and confidence to get through one of life’s major events. I think that we sometimes don’t give enough credit to ourselves for how powerful we all are, and how much of a positive impact we are making to other people’s lives just by being there. If you happen to feel sad or discouraged, remind yourself that your showing up or even just a smile might have made someone’s day brighter today. If someone made a difference in your life today, or you are the receiving end of someone’s kindness, why don’t you tell them know what it meant to you and how much you appreciated it? Trust me, it feels good to be appreciated!
