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.

The second lesson after hard work is focus. I happened to know a few actors and actresses (no Hollywood stars yet) and I am always impressed by their high level of concentration when they are focused. Come to think of it, it all makes sense. It takes hours if not days or weeks or months for them to rehearse their roles. When they are on the set (either on stage, TV, being filmed), they need to perform their very best at that moment. A director will not be happy (and you will soon to out of a job) if you waste his/her money (filming is expensive) and time.

That high level of focus, concentration and professionalism is very important in all lines of business. Let us do our best when it comes to our ‘act’ and not waste resources nor time of others and our very good selves.

Well, how should I start? The influence of Hollywood is gone far beyond entertainment and fashion regardless of whether you are a fan or not. I think there are some valuable lessons that we can learn from Hollywood and its “inhabitants”.

First of all, hard work is essential besides good luck. Acting is not the same as modeling. Good look can only take you so far. Actually there is a lot of hard work involved. Imagine memorizing all the lines (dialogues) that a lead actor/actress has to do. It is no picnic. The time involved in filming (could be as long as years) being away from your friends and family (if filming abroad and traveling) and the intensity of work. I know some people think it is very glamorous, but actually it usually requires a lot of hard work before one can get to the more glamorous part.

I have been traveling quite a bit for work lately and transportation delays have become part of my life. Here is my advice on how to deal with it.
1) Keep calm and carry on
2) Acknowledge it is beyond your control
3) No need to find someone to blame
4) Seek alternatives if possible
5) Inform the people that may be affected by your late arrival/departure
6) Pursue compensation if applicable
7) Make the best out of the “extra” time in hand; for example, retail therapy, a snack, a drink, read a book or even write a blog (exactly what I am doing now).

To sum up, often time we can’t control what happens to us, but we can always choose how to react to it. So make a positive spin.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend a few weeks ago on the subject of consensus.
One insight came out of the discussion is the relationship between consensus and mediocrity. As the group of participants gets bigger and everyone tries to reach a consensus, then the result will be mediocre.
I am not a statistician nor mathematician. However, I think that is logical. Imagine if everyone in the group is aiming to reach a consensus, there will be a convergence of opinions moving toward the average. In addition, as more people join the group with the same behavior, the group average will move closer to the average of the population (mediocrity).

I was “inactive” on my blog during the past few weeks.
Some people speculated that I was “retired” (too nearly?) or too busy with my new job (perhaps?) or exhausted with my stories (if that is possible at all).
To make the long story short (instead of the other way around which has been part of me): The truth is I ran into some technical problem with my website which was beyond my ability to fix.
Now I am back with my stories/dramas/thoughts/insights (not necessary in that order of importance) as a result of the generous help of my editor friend Geoff. A big thank you to Geoff :>

Recently I have reflected on the appropriate attitude towards people that I am meeting for the first time. It could be a stranger in the elevator, a fellow passenger on the tube or a friend of a friend. There are at least three important elements which I sum up with a acronym PEN.
P = Positivity. Always start and stay positive towards others.
E = Equality. Think of others as equal to you, no more and no less.
N = Neutrality. Don’t hold any bias in favor or against a stranger based on your own experience or his/her appearance. Begin with a neutral ground before forming your opinion of him/her. Avoid make assumptions and judgment.