Mindfulness

Landed in Milan, drove to Lake Maggiore. Chatted, had one on one, lunch by lake, and explored the summer town in frigid February. There is “Beast of the East” heading to Europe peolonging severe weather this winter. Before lunch I took a walk around the hotel Grand Dino, there is ferry operating that covers the lake. Beautiful and cold the town is with nobody around at the cobbled street. What a beautiful Lake Maggiore.

Unexpected Delay

Some thing in life is just unexpected. As I am sitting on plane in tarmac of Istanbul airport.
I’ve never been to Istanbul. Although exotic, and I almost planned for transit here enroute to Helsinki for this year’s summer holiday. We are here due to emergency stop for a passenger, on way to Milan. The lady seemed of advanced age. Thankfully she is concious next to her gentlemanly husband. They are seated on the same row 32, as I am in Premium Economy. Two medical doctors onboard heeded call and spent hours caring for her. I can see their reassuring faces, gestures, as they move to calm patient and attend to her with oxygen mask.

So I am on window seat, next to left wing, and I can see the dark sky of Istanbul sky outside at 6am. Planes landing on runway just behind us.

Trips and all best plan is nothing compared to matter of lufe and death so what if we might miss a call or two or missed some connections. The probability of potentially, saving a life is precious.

I reflect on that as well as I see the anxious faces of the doctors, relieved, but also showing stress for first time. Now that the patient is in better care in land of Istanbul staff.

Will to live

I have been going through bouts of sadness. Like I would lie awake in my bed, in the middle of the night, and start to shed tears. Am I depressed. I asked myself sometimes.

But I want to live. I feel so grateful to live. I am grateful for my life. That I have comfortable home. I am grateful for my parents, who loved me and care for me. And that they are healthy. I am grateful for my family. Grateful for my health. Grateful that I have a good job, good manager, and good team. Grateful that I can afford all nice things in life, own houses, and can happily know I would be unlikely to starve if I am prudent. I am grateful for opportunities to learn, to laugh, to stretch myself and be happy.

CNY 2018

Chinese New Year 2018. Went out for Buffet lunch at Oscar's Conrad Centennial Singapore. During the journey, and the long 2-hour buffet lunch, and subsequent train travel to Bishan to see Koko Ching Lien, and travel home, we got to chat. I realize how older Pa and Mom are. They are more sensitive, easily upset, and a bit..senile. I realize that I have not spent time at home lately due to travel and that worries me. Time passings like sand that is irreversible.

Koko Ching Lien looked a bit thin. And perhaps worry about Uncle Edy who is stubborn and having heart issues. He had a poor prognosis, and even was expected to life only 3 months... and turned out he is still dragging on, despite losing will to life. Koko has been very hard, and tough. She was sitting in the living room, without lights on but with company of a few young women, one is her god-daughter, and another pair of mother-daughter neighbor from China. We stayed for around 30 mins and chatted about life in Singapore and certain scam and recent child kidnapping in Singapore and China. Thanks for tradition like Chinese New Year we have the opportunities to visit our relatives home and say a few standard greetings but I suppose the art is in the fact of keeping in touch once a year, no matter how superficial the conversation is, the connection of relative and tradition is nonetheless kept alive.

My relative remarked on how fair Henry looked, and so is chubby me. We as a family looked radiant. "Thanks to all the nutritious food that Dad cooking", says me. "No... it is because we think positive and does not do harmful things to others, in action and in thoughts", added Mom. Henry was just quiet and walk agreeing along. I am not sure if Dad listens, given condition of his ear but I am happy Dad has satisfactory lunch at buffet which is his super favorite. At home, I quickly had shower due to humidity of Singapore - after my month-long business trip, I had troubles adjusting to. "Dad is so happy because every time we mentioned buffet, Dad eyes light-up like sparkes", teases me to Dad. Dad quickly mentioned "No no no,.." while shyly turning away to take a nap at his favorite spot, by the window.

10KM Post India trip and Marina Bay

This is after my 10km marina bay run. Timing 1:20 as usual for 10km run, and they are my usual pace. Hit the wall after 3km at 530pm oh so hard. I pushed myself to complete the course. Flew back from India Friday noon, and so arrived 8pm tonight. I missed the Future of Sales and Operations summit at Andaz, Delhi, but I stayed in the morning to chat and do meet and greet. And also the Asia LT call that Simon presented to Ralph's. But the journey back is worth it.

My Thursday night was tiring. And filled with dreams of strange characters that must be a manifest of my thought and instinct. But the partners meeting with SI, local partner, cloud partner, and OCP GTM team had been very informative and interesting.

Morning over Bengaluru

So glad to be home.

This week in India

Downloaded Anthony Robbins, documentary around his session on "Date with Destiny". I watched part of it during my flight from Singapore to Bengaluru, and then finished the other half of the 2-hour session during the flight to Delhi.


Really moved by people in the session, being moved, belief shaken, and I think the term being used is How do you want to rebuild your life. I guess the feeling, the hunger and desire to aspire to grow stays with me. The desire to do something more with my life. Beyond contraints and live with better courage. It also encourages me to look at my life experiences, the stacking of my "breakthrough", my discoveries, and the grace I received throughout my life. The moments in life when I feel the most blessed, that define the points of my life when I am lifted, elevated to different level, beyond expectation and vision of myself.


I must be affected, even more deeply than I realized. Because I carried this feeling of discontent within me. And wanting to apply the energy to new drive. New desires. New height.


A couple of questions that I should ask myself.


What is my life mission?
What values do I subscribe to.
What is my relationship vision.
What am I.
What is my vision of the life I want, desire, deserve, and work super obsessively to achieve.
What drives me?
What are my triggers?


I carried this discovery - no, the sense of wanting to discover, even deeper meaning of my subsconcious drive. And life with more courage. And more love. I understood that I might have been afraid to love, and withdraw love because of my childhood entitlement. Afraid to commit because of fear of rejection and more importantly of failure. And I need to open up myself and examine what's within.


And I carried this energy, and sense of hunger and frustration, even into the session right now when we are preparing for my manager's session for Asia leadership update. I kept of asking myself "What am I doing with my life?", I want to do more. And I got angry, so easily, by lesser standards - unreasonably. I need to recognize that and grow up. But first, understand and love myself who has this strong desire and passion.


And I feel much better, after writing all of this down...

Healthy Relationship

I like what this article says. Healthy relationship requires space, but it must face the same direction and strengthened by communication.

Disneysea December 2017 Day 1 of Trip

"A healthy relationship means separate containers (life space), facing in the same direction (common outlook on life), and faning the fire in between (earning trust)."

Busy week in China and Stronger

We had a super busy business trip in China, Beijing. After our 360 meeting Monday morning, we flew to Beijing SQ806 landed on 2300 flight, stayed at Westin Chaoyang. And flew back home Friday SQ807 A3801640 flight landed 2300 ahead of schedule. On flight, I watched Stronger, a very strong movie with Jake Gyllenhall about the survivor of Boston Marathon bombing.

The movie deals with feral and frank qualities of human post-recovery. The movie stars Jake Gyllenhall as Jeff Bauman the young, working class, man whom became instant celebrity due to photograph of him in the aftermath of explosion and his identification of the bomber. He became an instant hero and symbol of the Boston recovery surrounded by his hard-drinking, family who expects much of him without having full appreciation of what he went through. His only salvation is his girlfriend Erin, played by Tatiana Maslany. He dealt with his injury in quiet, obliging manner but kept his frustration bottled up inside in such a raw and fine performance by Jake, who is the clear star of this movie. A fine performance by Miranda Richardson as Patti, Jeff's mother provides the emotional cortex as the representation of family's expectation on Jeff but unable to provide support and sanctuary that Jeff so badly needed to deal with the hardwork and pain that Jeff will need to deal with for the rest of his life.

It is one of the amazing movie that I have watched recently, and it is ultimately touching and satisfying. It will be great to see how the box office and award season deal with this movie.

Boxing Day, Nostalgia and Illness

Spent this morning cleaning up my CD archive. The time spent during my university holiday at the computer center collecting anime episodes and mangascans. Wow - what amount of time spent labelling, copying, downloading, and burning those CDs. After 15 years, most of those CDs are corrupted. Thanks to my prodigious labelling (with color-matching markers!) I was able to skip through the CDs after my dear bro reminded me "Why?" and after the initial batch of copying and failing reading.

I also found some nostalgic files, such as, lame 90's songs belonging to A1 and Backstreet Boys. Songs which I lamely still adored, by the way. Also faded cringe-worthy photos of my awkward youth. There is one particularly memorable during bad make-up Indonesia prom-nite in 2003.

Most of the time, listening to mom complaining about, or rather commenting bluntly about her relatives. We are so worried these days about 4i's eldest son, Jensen. He was diagnosed with cancer stage 4, already attacking his nerve. Avoiding chemo, he was now seeing the shaman who is my cousin in the family, and there was a conflict when he recently discovered blood in his urine... So worrying. His health is an example of period of realization for me, when I was busy travelling for work, jeopardizing my health, but also made me unavailable to my family even when they were in Singapore. Imagine the regret if I never ever see him again. He is so young, 5 years younger with 2 very young sons and such a world ahead of him.

So there, my true feeling. Like speaking to myself, when I felt this way when peeking on diary that I found through those disks, of myself talking in the diary in 2003 at SMA, around fourteen years ago.

Christmas Eve 2017

Tonight is Christmas Eve 2017.

This year so far.

I started my new job.
Started new relationship.
Had a wonderful bonus and start of new career from August.
Getting to know new business and new team.
Stretch myself and my capability.
Getting to know so many new people.
Southeast Asia new market team in SE job.
Went to holiday onsen in Japan in December and January.
Seeing new dawn of new year in January for good luck.
Traveled so much.
Had this on my computer Wallpaper.
Fell ill twice already with my current boss.

August, September, October, November 2017

Oh my gosh Christmas 2017 is approaching. From late October, the Christmas trees were up at shopping arcades, and decorations started appearing. Looking back, I am happy that 2017 had been a joyous year, and a fruitful year. I had a look at the "fortune-telling" website which advised me that this year would not be a good year due to influence of bad factors. However, thanks for hard work, planning, good heart I managed to navigate the year with superb outcome.

They say that life is 80% hard work versus 20% of destiny. I am the living proof of that. So if anyone reading this blog feeling down, trust me that destiny will turn. The wheel of fate means that when  you are looking down, things will turn up soon. The more down you are, the upside is most likely at the corner. It means you will have to work hard, and continue to persevere.

Looking back, I had tough year full of uncertainty. My work was full of re-org and having to navigate business performance at the start of the year, and quell the noises were hard. My management had shaken-up and it was hard to see how I would be successful this year. I looked out and had one conversation about an interesting role in Business Strategy that is aligned to my passion, and a role that will stretch my muscle in business management and people managing up. I had conversations to try stretch role in a emerging market subsidiaries with people that really worked hard and had to navigate an organization like this. I grabbed opportunities to play dual role, even when I had to build my network and brand within AHQ, but I worked very hard to double up. The result was being able to grow in a subsidiary role, while adding value and impact by providing clarity of execution and focus, was immense. and very satisfying.

After a very discouraging conversation (and after verifying people that were close to me did not go after the role) I approached the hiring manager of this role. I went through interview loop, still went through a period of uncertainty, and finally were offered the role and a promotion. I was so happy and blessed.

Even then, my journey continues to promote this role and my new business unit. I had multiple conversations with my manager, skip, and skip-skip about my decision to move. It was very tricky conversation. I think the loyal part of me wanted to stay but the opportunity the new role offered with the promotion, interesting scope of responsibility, in business applications that is close to my heart, and new areas of learning made this a "no-brainer" in crude manner.

So here I am 4 months in. I had settled in the role. Period of adjustment of this support role versus owner role. Starting to build my network within and outside the team. Continue my connection. Build business management structure. And reignite the passion for business growth. My new manager is a good person to work with. Yes he has a lot of things to adjust to.... nobody is perfect. But I spent a lot of time making adjustments and pushing back to influence adjustments on my manager's side - because it works both ways.

I was out this week for illness. I contracted shingles, again. Luckily doctor gave me medication antiviral that contained the outbreak and the pain. Need to avoid "heaty" food, or in scientific terms, food that contains amino acid arginine vs lysine. That means avoiding nuts, chocolate, oats, and try instead to have more fruits and fresh unprocessed food: vegetables, red meat, and fish.

I dropped by in office on Friday, after being out on Wed and Thurs - missing December 360. It was stressful missing out. I was in for LT meeting, and All Hands, and quickly ducked out again to rest. I saw TCM uncle on Thursday, and I did risk my health by having a period of taking both the antiviral and TCM concoction that were crafted for my shingles. Hope I'm okay.

12-Hour Work day

It used to be that 12 to 14 hours work was normal. I used to build my life around work. I enjoyed my weekend to recover and catch up on my sleep, so I can start another week of rigorous work week. Wow what a life. I have changed my perspective sooner and slowly but surely. In particular when I hit 30 and start to learn more about life, learn more about human behavior, and more importantly, learn more about myself. I think self-help expert called this self awareness, the top quality for EQ (Emotional Intelligence).

Anyway, I digress. I just finished a Monday, an another 12-hour work day, when I swore to improve. But, there is no point beating yourself up about it. I have learnt that although I make mistakes and still trying to learn to take care of myself, the most important thing is to love myself and forgive. Forgive.

This is what I am reading today.

Me in Singapore Egg hunt Easter 2015

Happy Mother's Day 2017

This Mother's Day, the Singapore version falls on the second weekend of May. I signed up for an exclusive Shiseido photoshoot with mom that took place at Park Royal hotel Pickering, Presidential Suite at 14th floor. The Shiseido team was pretty professional and thorough to make the experience enjoyable with mom. Upon arriving, we saw that the line to reception is very long, so we called Shaz a lovely lady from Shiseido who went to lobby to pick us up. The concierge of the hotel was very helpful too, so upon knowing that we have been waiting, he took us to the lobby - and because of this we passed each other with Shaz.

Upon arrival, we had our make up done and hair. Then photo shoot for 6 to 7 shots and then proceed with our lovely canapes with sweet and savoury decked in a 3-tier hi-tea arrangement.

Here is the result!

Spring 2017 update

A lot has happened in spring. Mostly related to acquiring new experiences. I went to see play "Normal" a Singapore play with Edrina today. Last night spent on binge-watching Netflix "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" Rachel Bloom is so good in acting, a great show.

I am mostly recovering from QBU plus the week-after of my 21k run with 2XU. I am somehow plague with issues on my digestive system lately. Maybe the lunch today (with free-flow Prosecco and Bellini, whoohoo) at Aura was too heavy. But who cares, I do need to recover soon though.

As for life improvements, I did improve on cooking. I had an improvised omelet, with asparagus, bellpepper and grape with 3-yolk worthy eggs this morning. And, I made carbonara with green peas and bacon last weekend for my carbo-loading. I am definitely psyched about restarting my run training again, and eager to do well in JP Morgan later this month on 26th.

Oh, I had also booked my birthday trip to Krabi. Checked all the resorts, and decided to stay with Holiday Inn Resort Ao Nang beach, than Rayavadee this time round. Let's see.

Tallulah

today is the first Sunday after Chinese New Year 2017. A sleepy Sunday morning started with netflix movie, Tallulah. Grabbing on some connection to the earth. It has meaningful story headlined by a story about women connection, between the drifter Lu (Ellen Page) a young woman finding meaning in her life who wants to take care of the baby she then inadvertently kidnapped, Margo (Allison Janney) who is grasping at the life after divorce and loneliness that follows, and Carolyn (Tammy Blanchard) the trophy wife trying to get her sense of dignity back from her pre-baby look and sense of being a new mother.

Cantucci

One of my favorite desserts from Italy is Cantucci with Vin Santo. It is a simple serving of a couple of cantucci (which is almond biscotti) with the sweet Italian spirit vin Santo. The spirit is called holy wine as it is the exact same type of wine used in Catholic mass to consecrate Christ' body in bread and wine ritual.

I love the fact that cantucci is storing well, especially in the humid Singapore weather. A bag of cantucci di mandorla that we bought from train station in Venice taste so good, in November, a full 3 months since the end of our vacation. Ahhh, the sweet taste of Italian holiday right at home.

Let’s bake!

Beautiful morning outside

What a beautiful Sunday. Off my cold! 630 a-wake. Yakun kaya toast set breakfast with Kopi-O, a refreshing shower and steam at gym (mom went for a swim), and home-cooked lunch of char kway teow with fishball soup (Papa's creation). Only a run is missing.

Divine chocolate

Here is my new favorite chocolate bar, Cafe Liegenois Noir by Galler bought in Brussels.

Guide of buying chocolate
To choose a high quality chocolate bar, please check the list of ingredients. In this case, the dark chocolate bar has cocoa mass, listed as first ingredient, followed by sugar. Watch out for that because I have encountered numerous chocolate bar where sugar is the main ingredients. :(

GALLER CAFE LIEGEOIS: bittersweet dark chocolate filled with a light coffee mousse. Galler is Belgian royal warrant holder. 2 x 70gr

Ingredients
chocolate: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, emulsifier: soy lecithin, natural vanilla flavor. Cocoa content dark chocolate: min. 60% cocoa feed. Sugar, vegetable fat, dates mash (mashed dates, inulin), mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes and apple juice concentrate juice, sugar, thickener: pectin, citric acid, antioxidant: ascorbic acid), whey powder (milk), cocoa mass, natural coffee flavor syrup pears and apples, cocoa butter, emulsifier: soy lecithin, natural vanilla flavor.

Country of origin
Belgium
Manufacturer's Address
Galler Chocolatiers SA 39 Rue de la Station 4051 Vaux-Sous-Chèvremont Belgium
Allergens
Containing Milk, Soy-bean Soy.
May contain eggs, nuts, Wheat, Gluten

Gym-ing

Oh my mind was full of task lists. Speaker bio! Summit deck! 360 briefing! I am so sick of noises. So I went and exercise. 10mins run at 820am Friday. BodyBalance followed by Zumba with Eunice on Saturday morning. Swim 10 laps Saturday afternoon with mom. Alright!

I woke up this morning at 630am with aching but well body. Off to Dublin now via London Heathrow on A380 SQ308 followed by Aer Lingus to Dublin arriving 1940! My whole Sunday on flight :( I guess time to do my 360 homework (argh!).

Fireside chat with Toni Townes-Whitley

Earlier today, I went into office especially to attend a special fireside chat session Microsoft Corporate Vice President for Public Sector, Toni Townes-Whitley, even though I was feeling unwell and lethargic after particularly tiring start of the week.

Penning my thoughts, I am not particularly articulate, I am walking away feeling inspired by this lady. She is articulate and great speaker, but all CVPs do, otherwise that is a necessary skill to be in that role. However, what I found refreshing is the open conversation, the authenticity, and when she brought forth various topic such as fear-based management in a company full of smart people. When asked about strongest skillset to look for, she talks about consultative skill, which I think meant by active listening but also ability to listen, absorb, digest, and bring forth simplicity out of complexity.

It is also clear that she has been a public sector person when she talks about her family and the culture to serve the society and also change the world. It is also clear that she understands people motivation when she talks about giving ourselves a break and celebrate, and also when she challenges that things have to start from customers, but also when she said the challenge for everyone in sales facing role is to bring the inspirations to people internally that external view.

Later on, I found myself reading a blog about someone who decided to quit his high-paying job in Microsoft because along the way, he lost the way while gaining status within the organization. The link to the blog is here to read further.