Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
May we be touched, renewed and transformed by the spirit of Christmas.
All the best in 2017 🙂

The third point from the voting reflection is communication.
For both the Brexit vote and the US presidential election, the messages of the losing parties (with perfect 20-20 hindsight) were only reaching certain groups of voters. For example, the messages from “UK-remainers” lobbying groups, intentionally or unintentionally, were too intellectual and complicated for the working class and/or the older generation in the UK. Consequently, the “UK-remainers” did not get a lot of votes from the working class and the older generation and lost when the voting results came out.

Applying this in our daily life, when speaking to people from different backgrounds and other walks of life, we may consider “tuning” and adjusting our communication style to suit the target audience. Delivering your message is only part of the process of communication and the other part is how receptive your message is. The message may “fall on deaf ears” if it is not “packaged” appropriately. We don’t want that to happen right, do we?

The second point from the voting reflection is avoiding complacency.
Most of us, me included, have a tendency to stay status quo and an inertia to changes in life.
It was revealed after the voting results which shocked many of us that the polls and surveys done in a conventional way might no longer be effective at this day and age after all the social as well as technological changes that we experienced.
To apply that in our life and experience, in particular our decision making, we may want to question and review objectively the information and framework used.
Are they still relevant this time around?
Are they anything missing?
What else can we do to improve it?
Food for thought!

The U.K. votes on Brexit and the U.S. presidential election votes have shaken the world and become the most talk-about topics in 2016.

My first thought is the issue of blindspots which is the core of life coaching. We all have a natural tendency to be more receptive to opinions and facts that are more agreeable with our own views. On the contrary, we are more inclined to ignore unfavorable facts. In other words, we are “blind” to facts that we don’t believe or don’t want them to happen.

In the case of Brexit, I, like many “remainers”, ignored many signs pointing to the “leavers”.

Before analyzing a situation, we should check our perspective to make sure we start from a neutral ground and stay objective. First check your blindspots before reaching your conclusion.

The final lesson from this mini series on Hollywood is to inspire others. Most movies that have long-lasting influence on audience are those inspire them and provoke deep thoughts as well as reflection. These movies all carry valuable messages to audience. Movies such as Citizen K, Schindler’s List, Harry Potter and Star Wars.
Through our interaction with others in our daily life, we can also seek to share our experiences, ideas, challenges and insights to inspire each other. What is your personal message you want other to remember?

Another lesson from Hollywood is the usage of your influence. Being public figures (at least for the more successful ones), some Hollywood celebrities use their influence in very positive way to bring greatness and love to the society. One example that came to my mind is Angelina Jolie. Though I am not a fan of hers, she has my utter admiration for her charity work, in particular human rights, education and women’s rights. Coupled her influence with devotion and commitment, she has made a world a better place.
We, as individuals, have own influence (may not be as strong as Angelina’s). We can also use our influence through our interaction with people around us and other means to change the world and help others. The more powerful a person is, the greater his/her responsibility is. Let us go forward and do our parts.

Reinventing yourself is the fifth lesson that I would like to share.
I am always impressed by actors and actresses that are continuously reinventing themselves. They don’t want to play the same role for the rest of their career. These actors and actresses challenge and stretch their own limits to take on different and often time difficult roles.

A contemporary example came to my mind is Daniel Radcliffe who is best known for his role as Harry Potter. After Harry Potter, he took a wide variety of roles which to me is simply mind-bubbling. Those roles include a medical doctor encountering a ghost in the Woman in Black, a gay writer in Kill Your Darlings, an eccentric man in Swiss Army Man that includes nudity and a FBI undercover in Imperium. Convincing the director and producer that you can play a new role and draw audience to the cinema is no easy job. Not to mention you actually need to do a good job once you are chosen for the role.

I think we can learn from these successful actors and actress like Daniel Radcliffe who actively seek new challenges and not settled for status quo.

About the same time I wrote my blog “Lesson from Hollywood (1)” focusing on the importance of hard work, across the “pond” in Canada, unknowingly, my lovely 15-year old niece Cameron chose a similar topic called “Is There Really Such a Thing as Talent?” for her English class essay. It is excellently written with conviction and maturity. She has kindly agreed to let me share it with my blog readers. Enjoy the great read :>

“Is There Really Such a Thing as Talent?” by Cameron Yung
If we take a look at celebrities, famous athletes, top students, or the people who we aspire to be, we always wonder how they got to be so good at what they do or how they got to where they are. Some of them have special talents that can help them achieve their goals, but the ones who weren’t as lucky to be gifted had to put in lots of hard work and time to achieve success. That begs the question whether talent or effort is more important for success. I think hard work is more important than talent, because if you had talent but didn’t try to improve or work hard at it, your talent would be essentially be useless in comparison with those who aren’t talented, but put in lots of hard work and persevere to better themselves.
Some people were blessed to have been born with talent, but those with no talent and hard work can surpass those with talent and no hard work. Those with talent get a small advantage, but when they don’t try to maintain or better their gifts, people who weren’t born with talents will work hard to compensate for having no talent, and keep climbing until they eventually achieve their goals. A great example of this is one of Aesop’s fables, “The Tortoise and the Hare”. The hare was naturally born much faster than the tortoise, and he bragged about how fast he could run. The tortoise, which is an animal known for being slow, challenged the hare to a race. The hare, who became too confident in his own abilities, ran ahead of the tortoise and took a nap. The tortoise kept walking and walking, and never once did he stop. When the hare woke up, the tortoise had already passed the finish line. The hare is a metaphor for a person born with talent. He had an advantage of being faster, and he stopped halfway at the race to take a nap. This is like when talented people don’t improve or work hard. They will stop their progress, and eventually, the ones who are determined and work hard, like the tortoise, will beat those with talent.
With talent alone, you won’t be going anywhere. But you could achieve anything you want if you had nothing but hard work. If you had both, you would be unstoppable, but in comparison, hard work is much more important than talent to achieve success. As Kevin Durant said, “Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.

Many Hollywood celebrities mentioned that they were “at the right place at the right time” to be “discovered” or given the opportunities for a major breakthrough in their careers.
“At the right place at the right time” probably does not mean sitting at home and waiting for the phone to ring offering you an Oscar-winning role in the next big blockbuster! My interpretation is network, network and network. You need to somehow let the right people know your existence. For job searchers, it would mean getting to know recruiters, hiring managers and people working in your area of interest. The current age of social media makes it easier or more difficult for one to network and get to know the “right” people depending on how much you are in tune with the social media.

There is nothing wrong with introducing yourself to others and ask for help. Sometimes that human element can make a difference. In addition, you need to be out there for “at the right place at the right time” to happen. Get off that couch and start networking now!

The control of emotion by actors and actresses is something that worth learning. Acting for a large part requires the expression and control of emotion at will (anger, sadness, joy, happiness, contentment and the list goes on). This skill can be very valuable in life as well, for example, anger management and building rapport. Keeping our emotion in check in a positive way is very useful in building relationships and communities. Sometimes, showing your negative emotion is not the best way forward.