Have you ever wondered to yourself 'What next?' After a succession of events, you wonder what else could possibly happen? This is certainly how I felt when we had a succession of snakes arrive at our villa. The more we focused on them lurking around in our territory, the more they arrived en masse, which is inevitable when I was almost stalking them. There's a saying that attention goes where energy flows. No wonder I couldn't help but think to myself 'whatever next?'! Surely this was the ultimatum and nothing worse could happen? There's no chance of the Bali tiger popping in as it is now extinct (apparently it wasn't people but the snakes who made them extinct. The snakes frightened the baby tigers so much that the mothers stopped having babies). I was hoping that now I can live alongside snakes (at a distance and as long as I don't find one in my bedroom, like the time I found vermin droppings and urine stains in my bed while I had been away for a few days), this would be the end to all shocks, worries and surprises in Bali.
More recently while staying in Singapore, my temporary escape to city life made me feel protected by hiding in my ivory office tower which is 10 floors above any wild life that lurks around at ground level, so I didn't need to worry about what was happening in Bali. I could simply shrug off all responsibility and if a snake or any other strange creature of the tropics appeared at our Bali home, in my absence, it wasn't my problem. Well I was wrong. Another problem or for want of a better word 'challenge' emerged in Bali, one which I wasn't expecting and I couldn't shrug off all responsibility, simply because I wasn't there . So another life lesson for me. My Bali life could still catch up with me in Singapore.
I expect you're wondering what this challenge was? It all started with a frantic email sent by our team assistant in Bali. It was marked as urgent and said 'Cream missing'. Cream is our Bali dog. We adopted her as a puppy and she has been with us since the start of our new adventure in Bali. While we were enjoying the New Year's celebrations in Singapore, Cream had gone missing. We have two Bali dogs and they were both afraid of the New Year's Eve fireworks that noisily cracked and exploded in the neigbourhood. It transpired that on this same evening, two cows had gone missing in the neighbouring field and some stray Bali dogs that usually 'hung around' the local neighbourhood had also disappeared.
It felt like an Indonesian version of Cruella De Vil had kidnapped our dog, two cows and some other local, street roaming Bali dogs. I thought of our well-fed, fat, posh Bali dog mixing with the male 'tramp' dogs or ruffians as my Mum used to refer to and years later, I can now understand her concerns about who I mixed with! My mind wandered all over the place about what could have happened to her. I read between the lines and interpreted our assistant's message as it was all over. This is Indonesia, someone had stolen our dog and she wasn't coming back. We had to prepare ourselves for the worst. My mind wandered further. Knowing that dog is eaten in Bali and our Cream was as fat as a pot-bellied pig, she would make a wonderful meal. I couldn't take it any longer and decided that we couldn't sit back and accept her destiny, like a jury's verdict that hadn't listened to a fair hearing. We had ways, means and resources to do something about it. I asked our assistant to talk to everybody in the neigbourhood, to contact our local Banjar (they are like the local mafia, they have eyes and ears open everywhere, have a strong say about their village / neighbourhood and will help protect you, provided you pay into their fund), the dog rescue centres, the vets and to display posters with a reward.
As the days went by and my angst increased, I started to assume the worst. My 10 year old daughter quite rightly told me not to be 'negative' and that she would turn up. This simple and straightforward comment reframed my thinking and quickly put me in a positive state of mind. Sometimes being an adult can get in the way of us remaining positive. Young children have a wonderful innocence and lack of preconceptions, that can get in the way of adults thinking the best. On the fifth day, my 10 year old daughter informed us that she had dreamt Cream had returned and I thought to myself 'I wish it could be that easy.' At precisely 6pm that day, after I had dropped off my daughters for a sleep-over with some good friends and jumped in a taxi, I noticed a text from Bali on my phone. Our assistant was pleased to inform me that Cream had returned all on her own. She was dirty but healthy. I happily shared the good news with my taxi driver, who reciprocated my happiness with a furrowed brow as if he were a little perplexed why I was so ecstatic about a dog. I called my friend and could hear my children leaping with joy at the good news. I phoned and sent texts to all the people I had told about my misfortune which was quite a few people. What a relief! As they say, all is well that ends well.
The next day after months of abstinence from the gym and with no children around in the morning, I decided to attempt my walk/jog on the treadmill. As I listened to my IPOD, all the songs reminded me of my early morning walk/jogs in Bali with our two dogs. It just wouldn't have been the same going out with our one dog. It would have been like having lost a leg. There would have been no verbal obscenities as I attempted to get our wildly excited and bouncing dogs under control on their leads. There would have been no tangling up of leads and bodies, as if we were playing a game of 'twister' on the narrow rice paddy lanes. There would have been no two dogs crossing over and causing total mayhem as something sparked their interest on the other side and no tripping me up in the process as I dodged the pot holes. How dull that would have been!
I couldn't stop smiling on the treadmill and it reminded me how good it is to get out, do some exercise and get active, rather than let things spiral down into a dark, lethargic 'thinking the worst state'. The life lessons I learned were to stay positive, keep moving forward and think the best outcome, rather than let our adult experiences and preconceptions influence us to think the worst. There's an English proverb that says:-
"Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but it doesn't get you anywhere."
I spent far too many days sitting on that rocking chair, worrying about the fate of our dog. Luckily, I had a happy ending to get me off it. Even if the prospects don't look good or the ending isn't what you wanted, get off that rocking chair, think positive and enjoy the now, rather than worry about what next.
On this blog, I've included the song that played on my IPOD that made me smile on the morning when I returned to the treadmill. The words 'The best in life is free' resonated with me. Enjoy your special moments, memories and remember to think the best about what could possibly happen next.
As I look out over the stunning city view of Boat Quay and the Singapore river, the Fullerton Hotel and the latest developments of the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resorts Hotel from my office in Singapore, it's hard to believe that I have the other tropical, jungle like 'Green Life' in Bali. During my month long stay in urbanisation, I breathe a sigh of relief while residing on the 10th floor of a hermetically sealed, air conditioned office which is bug, reptile and vermin free. I don't have to deal with snakes, rats, mice, frogs, termites, pre-historic looking insects whose trajectory just happens to coincide with mine, nor the latest outbreak of moths come to devour our clothes. Fed up with the sight of all my daughters wearing grungy tee-shirts with holes like emmental cheese, I've swapped them for brand new tee-shirts that for now will stay fresh looking in Singapore and yet will eventually take on a grey, off-white appearance when they return to their rural existence in Bali.
I'm loving this sense of urbanised security where I know that we'll all scrub up clean, I won't be surprised by unfamiliar tropical creatures, power cuts or intermittent internet where the signal comes and goes as if it's dependent on the wind (which it most probably is). When I have moments of comfort and pleasure like this, I wonder what possessed us to move to Bali in the first place, and yet I know it has been one of the best learning experiences we have ever had. After 9 years of living in in Singapore, I became very comfortable with my lifestyle, so much so that I took its efficiency for granted. The antithesis of Singapore, Bali has given me the new found expereince of taking nothing for granted, dealing with the unexpected and being flexible when things don't go according to plan. Bali has taught me that you never stop learning. We are all still 'green' and there is always new knowledge and wisdom to discover. It's often when things go wrong or not as you had planned, when you learn the most.
Continuing the theme of new knowledge, our Indonesian team assistant gave me a wonderful Christmas gift. She gave me a wooden sculpture, hand made by the gifted, local Balinese craftsmen. The sculpture was of Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge and Arts. What a perfect gift. My assistant knows my voracious appetite for reading topics on personal development, knowledge and wisdom. She puts up with my moaning, sighing and somewhat impatient incredulity when peculiar things happen such as the vanishing snake catcher, who six weeks after the first sighting of a snake has still not turned up at our home, versus a 10 minute wait for 6 men in a van when a 12 inch, harmless snake was first spotted in our garden in Singapore! Perhaps the snake catcher has had an unfortunate accident in the course of his work. There's also the peculiar situation where our internet provider can not understand why for the last couple of months our connection comes and goes and we have to go slow for 20 or 30 minutes in our working day, while we wait for the connection to come back to us again. Will we ever get to the bottom of this? I do not know. Maybe a miracle will happen. Our assistant stays remarkably calm and it's as if she knows that I will eventually learn from all these happenings.
Saraswati has four hands representing four aspects of human personality in learning:-
Mind
Intellect
Alertness
Ego
Saraswati holds sacred scriptures in one hand, a lotus the symbol of true knowledge in the other and with her two other hands she plays the music of love and life on a string instrument called the veena. I'm beginning to wonder whether my helpful and knowing assistant is Saraswati herself!
Adding to Shakespeare's words 'Let music [and knowledge] be the food of love'. We are never too old to stop learning. No matter what happens to you, whether good or not so good, accept the flow of wisdom and knowledge you gain and continue to grow as a person.
As my eldest daughter's (currently clean) tee shirt says:- "Don't let today's disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow's dreams."
Life can sometimes feel like a game of snakes and ladders. One moment, life is looking good and it feels like you are making progress up the ladder. The next moment, it can feel like you’ve come hurtling down a slippery snake and gone back quite a few paces. Just when I was thinking that the Bali wildlife of rats, mice, lizards, beetles, cockroaches, ants and pesky mosquitoes didn’t faze me anymore, snakes of different shapes, sizes and colours have turned up at our home. Over the last couple of weeks, there have been eight sightings of different snakes, from babies to adults and poisonous to non-poisonous varieties. I was most alarmed when my five year old daughter told me that she saw a baby snake reading one of her books in her bedroom and that she and our Balinese helper killed a long, green poisonous snake in our garden as if it were merely an everyday occurrence!
We've also witnessed a death in the family - Buddy Bird, a baby, who was rescued from drowning himself in the pond. Instead he gently passed away in a make do nest built by my daughters out of a cardboard box and a bed out of cotton wool. We looked up on the internet how to feed him and made some bird food out of egg and bread which he seemed to enjoy very much. We left him in the capable hands of our eldest daughter and her friend, while we braced the Bali traffic and did some errands at the weekend. By the time we got back he was pronounced dead. He died of severe haemorrhaging and we think our Bali cat, Mango, may have had something to do with his ailing condition. When I asked my daughter and her friend if they had buried Buddy, their response was 'no'. They had thrown him in the river and if he hasn't been eaten by a snake or some other wild Bali resident, his corpse will be floating in the sea by now. He had exceptionally long legs, so must have been some type of wading bird and being thrown in the water was most probably the best way to go. Our girls bemoaned the fact that he only had a short life, although they understood he was now out of pain and they learned the life lesson, how precious life is.
Apart from the customary power cut and internet failure, I discovered that even though I have plans A, B, C, D and E and 6 staff in Bali who work at our villa and for our company NoLimits, I have no staff to cover me next week when it is both a Muslim and Hindu holiday in Bali and I have a workshop to run in Singapore where there are no public holidays during this time. I was told that maybe I need a Christian house staff member so that I'm covered for all eventualities! The joys of running a company in Singapore and living in Bali. My patience was finally tested when my 3 girls were sent home from school with hand, foot and mouth disease. Because next week is a long holiday, they will be off for 9 days before going back to school! Oh the joys of being Mum and juggling work responsibilities! As leadership guru John Maxwell says:-
“You don’t overcome challenges by making them smaller. You overcome them by making yourself bigger.”
Even though we have experienced quite a few snakes recently, there have been ladders too. My daughters and I had a wonderful sleepover with a friend and her 3 daughters in Ubud - we had a memorable girls’ weekend and our children learned how to do Batik painting. My friend is a fellow Brit, she recently moved from Singapore to Bali with her husband and family, and we can joke about all our ‘snakes and ladders’ in the usual British self-deprecating manner. We happily talked non-stop until 2am Friday night / Saturday morning! I've learned that in spite of my attempt for order, structure, and contingency planning, things don't always go according to plan. Sometimes it's a case of simply finding an alternative ‘ladder’ to reach our outcomes.
Another 'ladder' has been watching the TED Video on the Green School by visionary founder John Hardy. I'm proud that our girls are experiencing the Green School, a once in a life time opportunity for them and a wonderful, creative way to learn. We've met some fascinating people who have broken the traditional corporate ‘ladder’ approach and are travelling through Bali on their world trips, have taken time out for their children to experience the Green School or have innovatively set up their own businesses either in or outside Bali. I was fortunate enough to be working with a young group of ‘techies’ in Singapore this week, who seemed to think I was 'cool' by living in Bali and running a business in Singapore. A great compliment for a middle aged woman who is old enough to be their Mum!
I have learned from the sad demise of Buddy Bird, life is too short to get stressed about snakes, no internet, not having enough staff to cover public holidays. As perfect timing to my 'what could go wrong next?' thoughts, I came across a quote that inspired me:-
"Make each day your masterpiece."
John Wooden, American Basketball Coach
Make something a masterpiece in each of your days and you’ll easily overcome challenes by being bigger than those snakes.
Living in Bali gives me many unexpected surprises, which on reflection are usually quite humbling and remind me to respect what is important in life, not only for myself but for others too. Over a period of four successive days, I experienced a 3 hour power cut when I was about to cook lunch; the next day no gas when I wanted to cook dinner; the day after that no water when it was time for my children to have a shower; and on the fourth day no internet when I had arranged a skype coaching session! I have to admit that by the fourth day, I was starting to get impatient, but I did find ways around these challenges and realised that on reflection these little things that can easily irk us are not important when it comes to the bigger picture of living life. When people say, 'One day, I'll laugh about this', why not laugh now?
What I do enjoy about living in Bali is the complete contrast of the everyday situations I deal with, compared to working in the modern world of commercialisation, technology and business. In my work, I find myself talking strategies about where organisations and their people want to be and then I return to my home in Bali I find myself talking strategies with the house staff about how to prevent snakes from entering our home. Apparently a snake was spotted slithering along the wall that is the boundary to our home. To prevent the snake from returning again, I was asked if I can make a monthly contribution to the Balinese offerings that will be placed in our home on a daily basis. The irony is that, in my world, these little square palm leaf trays containing flowers, incense, rice and small cookies will surely attract the snakes and vermin. It's like putting out a snack for these animals to feast on. In the Balinese world, these offerings will placate the mischievous demons and express gratitude to the good spirits so that harmony in life can be maintained. To add to this, we now have an offering placed on our cooker every evening, as the cooker unexpectedly stopped working for a few moments one day. I thought it may have been to do with the loose gas connection from the gas cylinder to the cooker, while to our Balinese staff it was the sign of a demon. I can't help but wonder if the rats and mice who pop down from the rice fields have a party every night on our cooker, but I know the offerings are important to our house staff so I respect them and willingly give my contribution to keep the spirits and demons happy.
These type of humbling situations in Bali remind me about recognising what is important in our lives. What is important to you? Do you prioritise and balance what is important or do you let life go by without giving it much thought? Do you get caught up in the trappings of trivia, 'busyness' and nagging emotions whirling around in your head, rather than focus on what is really important? Recently, I ran an Effective Planning and Organising workshop with a group of 25-35 year old IT Consultants. You'd think that technology offers them more than enough planning and organising tools and yet they were missing the vital ingredient that makes our planning and organising most effective. They hadn't stopped to think about what was important. They were too caught up feeling important with all the urgent stuff that they had to deal with, to the extent that they hadn't planned the most important goals in their jobs. You can have all the latest technologically advanced planners and organisers available at your disposal, but if you don't spend some time at least reflecting on what is important, how can you plan, let alone balance your priorities?
I asked this group of IT Consultants, "When you retire what will you tell your grandchildren you did?" A good question to ask yourself too. These consultants didn't have their own children so stretching them to think of grandchildren was quite a challenge for them. This question, however, turned out to be the most poignant for them. They were so caught up with dealing in the here and now, they hadn't given themselves the time to think about what were their important goals to achieve both in their work and life. They were so busy doing, they weren't being. One of the participants confessed that she had no social or family life because she put everything into her job. A job is of course important and it's equally critical to prioritise what else is important so that you can live a balanced life.
In ten years time, how will you remember this year? Will it be the number of emails you sent, the phone calls you made, the number of meetings you attended or how busy you were? Make time to plan and prioritise what is important and take the time to understand / respect what is important to others.
Management guru Stephen Covey (who is a grandfather to 52 children!), tells a story of two men chopping wood. The one man worked hard all day and took no breaks. The other chopper took several breaks during the day and had time to have a nap after lunch. The chopper who took no breaks was disturbed to see that at the end of the day, the chopper who took breaks had cut more wood than what he had. "How did you chop more wood than me?" asked the chopper who took no breaks. His companion said "When I took a break, I was sharpening my axe."
What are you doing to sharpen your axe? Make sure you plan what is important. As Stephen Covey says:-
"If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster."
Janet
To find out more about our NoLimits Planning and Prioritising workshops contact Sandra Lai on +65 6232 2466 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting +65 6232 2466end_of_the_skype_highlighting or email sandralai@nolimitsasia.com
The theme for me over the last week has been about 'Breaking the Rules.' A note of caution here, I do not mean breaking the law, I am referring to how good it feels when we sometimes go against the rules of convention, tradition and protocol. Having returned from a week long trip in Hong Kong, where I was running two consecutive workshops and which is a favourite NoLimits programme of mine, 'Presenting for Leaders', it brought back memories and nostalgia of the days when I used to live there. There is something about the pace, buzz and sheer rudeness of the taxi drivers and some of the people in Hong Kong that I find captivating, thrilling and unconventional.
My first reminder of the unconventional was when I jumped in a taxi to drive me to my hotel. I immediately sensed there was no time for pleasantries when I didn't get a response to my polite, 'pleased to meet you' hello. Many taxi drivers in Hong Kong do not speak English, so I was already equipped with a print out of the hotel address and its location. Using sign language, which consisted of the taxi driver grunting with a firm nod, we both knew where we stood. In no time at all we were on our way. We sped off, as if we were going to race the Formula One circuit, tyres burning, engine screeching, as I and my hand luggage were flung across the back seat of the taxi and I clung onto my seatbelt, desperately trying to fasten it. It was if we had no time to lose at all.
Although Hong Kong is Chinese in so many ways, such as the towering concrete blocks, unconventionally built in an ad-hoc fashion, with their characteristic poles hanging out washing like flags saluting the city; the seemingly rude behaviours where people push in (rules about queuing are virtually non-existent and even when there are attempted planned queues, people still push in); as well as their direct bargaining approach, where you are left wondering whether you did get a good price; it does have some 'homely' and 'conventional' characteristics for me that date back to its British colonial days. The buses, for example, are double-deckers and the fire engines look just like the British ones. It made me smile when one of the Hong Kong participants on my workshop told me that she spent her honeymoon in the main cities of Europe and particularly liked London because the double-decker buses reminded her of 'home.'
The old fashioned Hong Kong tram brought back memories of Europe, until the taxi driver decided to break tradition and beat the congested traffic jam by driving along the tram lines! It felt like being in one of those action packed, car chase movies, where we would do anything to get ahead.
The two storey colonial buildings that nestle at the feet of the ultra-modern, tall, gleaming and architecturally exquisite masterpieces against the dramatic backdrop of the tree covered mountains, demonstrate how the untraditional can mix with the traditional. The rules of keeping the 'old' with the 'old' and the 'new' with the 'new' have refreshingly been broken and can similarly be applied with the way in which we manage our work and life.
While running our NoLimits' 'Presenting for Leaders' programme, I encouraged participants to 'break the rules' of their traditional Powerpoint presentations and stand out from the crowd by using visuals with few words, pictures and no bullet points. I also encouraged them to use metaphors and stories to present their key messages with clarity, impact and confidence. Just because your boss and colleagues use a deck of 68 slides with enough data and words to sink a battle ship, doesn't mean that you have to do this too.
As the great inventor, Thomas Edison said:-
"There are no rules here, we are trying to accomplish something."
Sometimes it's good to break the rules to accomplish what we want and to help us get to our destination quicker, just like the Hong Kong taxi drivers did with me!
Janet
Find out more about 'breaking the rules' of the conventional PowerPoint presentations and how to stand out from the crowd by contacting Sandra Lai on sandralai@nolimitsasia.com
