Happy Easter to ALL.

May the spirit of Easter bring you hope, revivial and triumph :>

Yesterday I ran into a colleague who heard about my book. When I “naturally” prompted him to purchase a copy, he replied “I am quite motivated myself already, so I don’t think I needyour book.”. I explained to him (and to all blog readers) that my book is not just about motivation. The book focuses on the psychological aspect of an adult learner as well as suggestions/examples/exercises on the practical side of learning.

Today I asked a colleague if he had read my book. When “push came to shove”, he said he has it next to his bed and will read it when he has problem falling asleep. I explained to him that he might be disappointed (not the content of my book). It is because another colleague “confessed” that he did exactly that and read four chapters before concluding that it was not a function of my book.

Well, my book can be used in many different ways but I am afraid putting people to sleep is not one of them (as far as I know).

Daniel Goleman has given the following advice on how to be good leaders? (p.238, Focus – The Hidden Driver of Excellence)
“* Listening within, to articulate an authentic vision of overall direction that energizes others even as it sets clear expectations.
* Coaching, based on listening to what people want from their life, career and current job. Paying attention to people’s feelings and needs, and showing concern.
* Listening to advice and expertise; being collaborative and making decisions by consensus when appropriate.”
Well said and I can’t agree more.

SEL is an educational program that promotes emotional intelligence at school. Singapore has become the first country that made it mandatory for students.

The 5 key competences of SEL are: Self-awarness, Self-management, Social awareness, Relationship skills and Responsible decision making.

In his book “Focus – The Hidden Driver of Excellence”, Daniel Goleman quoted an example based on Susan Butcher who reinvented the Iditarod (a race that sled dogs compete over a distance of more than 1,100 miles of Arctic ice for over a week). Her method is running and resting alternately in 4-to-6-hour periods around the clock instead of 12 hours on and 12 hours off which give her very time to sleep as she needs to prepare for the next move as her dogs sleep. Her husband David Monson explained “Keeping your attention up during a highly exhausting and stressful time means you have to methodical and well practiced, so you make the right decisions under duress” (p. 163)

This point echoes with the 2 main sections of my book on psychological preparation and practice.

With a 12-month sales target of 300 copies of my book, it means 32 copies (268 copies sold so far) need to be sold by the end of Sep, which is approx. 5 months away. I have a plan :>

I will target 50% of sales, 16 copies, by asking friends and family to ponder if they need more copies. My executive assistant/friend Gary is already in “consideration” mode (perhaps it is what I called a “British no”) upon my request. For the other 50%, I will target at new readers myself. In other words, I need to sell roughly 1 copy per week myself.

Game on and let us stay focused.

I have been battling with the recovery of my shoulder/arm injury for 5 months. Besides inconvenience and physical discomfort, something else actually bothered me as well. As I don’t want to jeopardize my recovery, I am not able to offer a helping hand to my fellow commuters who are in need (with luggage and strollers up the stairs). I feel bad for my incapability to help, but that has given me an additional source of motivation to restore to a position that I can help others.

I am taking a few days off from work and this morning I decided to visit Hampton Court Palace. Worried that the Prosecco in my fringe might go flat soon, I had a glass for breakfast before embarking on my journey.

When I arrived at the train station, I could not find the platform for my train. Then I asked the staff and he politely replied, “According to the paper you showed me, you should go to the Waterloo station and this is the London Bridge station!”. I said “thank you” in an equally Britishly polite way and swiftly took the underground to the Waterloo station. For some strange reason, I could not find my train again. The staff (obviously not the same person as this is no joke) said “This is Waterloo East and according to your paper, it says Waterloo. They are not the same.”

Well, perhaps Prosecco breakfast was not the best idea for me :s

I would like to share some insights from a key figure in the field of Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goldman based on his book titled Focus – The Hidden Driver of Excellence. He quotes the organizational psychologist Marcial Losada in his book and suggests “Analyzing hundreds of terms, Losada determined that the most effective had a positive/negative ratio of at least 2.9 good feelings to every negative moment”(p.173). That is roughly 30% (bad vs. good).

To extrapolate that ratio (approx. 30%) into the space of a week: I can accept 2 bad days if I have 5 good days. I am usually happy on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That means from Monday to Thursday, I should have the capacity to “survive” 2 bad days. In other words, I need to make sure that I have at least 2 good days during Monday and Thursday to stay at my top performance assuming my weekend plus Friday are good.