I wasn't Expecting That!

The last couple of weeks have been busy. I've been working with CEOs, Department Heads and teams in Hong Kong and Singapore to create Vision, Goals and Action and also coaching several individuals on how to succeed in their personal and professional lives.  I've been 'flying at 60,000 feet' enjoying discussing strategy, facilitating positive outcomes and focussing on what gives me passion and enjoyment:- re-energising organisations and individuals to grow, overcome their limits and achieve what they want. I've haven't been in Bali at all, but Bali has been in touch with me, as if to keep me grounded and to say 'don't forget that life isn't always straight forward and expect the unexpected.' Does this sometimes happen to you? You're making great progress in one direction and at the same time there are some diversions or distractions that call for your attention.

I had it all planned perfectly, my mother-in-law kindly offered to look after our children in Bali, while I was working in Hong Kong and she would fly to Singapore with them so that we could all be together for their school holiday. We briefed my mother-in-law on everything that could possibly happen with customs at Bali airport.  I wrote a set of specific instructions so that nothing could go wrong.  All went well until I received a harassed phone call from my mother-in-law who had been held back with my 3 daughters in a smoke filled immigration office. I tried to explain in broken English, over a crackly telephone line to the immigration official that my daughters' visas were all sorted, but he would have none of it.  My mother-in-law tried the 'I'm British' line, attempted to offer the official a financial incentive (he said he was paid enough thank you) and my 5 year old burst into tears, crying for her Mummy, all to no avail. I had no choice but to try and get in contact with our assistant in Bali who happened to be on leave and flew to a wedding in Java on this particular day.  After some frenzied texting and phoning, I managed to get in contact with her and she spoke to the official in Indonesian.  My eldest daughter re-assured her stressed Grandmother "don't worry, we've been here before with Mummy." This time, however, immigration was in the right and we were in the wrong.  The long and short of the story was that we had to pay a big fine and I was relieved to read the text from our assistant which said 'they have been released Ms Janet', as if they had just got out of jail. I was both relieved and annoyed that my hard earned money was filling the coffers of the complicated Indonesian visa system when we had been misinformed about the visa regulations.
 

While my mother-in-law had been in Bali, she had to deal with a snake with a big frog in its mouth, so big the snake couldn't slip back into it's hole. The house staff promptly killed the snake with a bamboo stick and the frog hopped off with a bit of a wobble and just 3 legs. My mother-in-law was further shocked that the dead snake was thrown over the hedge into the river and the blood was cleared up with a tissue. Then on the very same day, my mother-in-law had to deal with a near drowning situation.  She heard frantic shouting and screaming from the villa next door and discovered the villa staff trying to resuscitate a 3 year old boy who had fallen into the pool.  They were standing him up and rubbing a strange, brownish coloured ointment on his stomach.  Seeing that the boy had swallowed lots of water, she used sign language with the Indonesian staff to lie him in a recovery position. She told them to call 999 for an ambulance and they looked at her blankly of course, a 999 service is a luxury that doesn't exist in Bali.  Instead, our driver took the boy to hospital where they pumped out the water from his lungs. My mother-in-law is now famous in this part of the neighbourhood for having saved a boy's life.

Meanwhile, during all these strange goings on and juggling a hectic workload facilitating key strategic initiatives with multi-nationals, Bali  kept me in touch with the fundamentals of life i.e. garbage. I was trying to understand the complicated matter of why we owed 2 years outstanding garbage collection fees for our villa, when we had been quite happily paying the truck driver on a monthly basis. After many emails (I had to print off the emails in the end to understand the full story), it transpired that the truck driver thought we were giving him a tip (a pretty generous tip!). Putting my justice hat on, I informed our assistant that the driver should be sacked for such an offence. The problem was that there wasn't one driver.  There were several different drivers and amazingly they all thought that we were paying a tip.  If we didn't pay up, the truck owner threatened that he would take this issue to the Head of the Village and make sure that our rubbish wasn't collected. Not happy with this unhelpful response,  I suggested that we use another garbage collection company and was informed that companies outside of our territory were not allowed to do the pick up. Hence I was forced to capitulate and pay a negotiated downwards fee of US$50. I rationalised with myself that at least that wasn't too much money for 2 years garbage collection and there are times when a principled, justice mindset is just my own cultural bias and we have to move on rather than get distracted by these interruptions in our life.

There's an expression that says 'attention goes where energy flows.'  It's good discipline not to get consumed by things that happen to us that we were not expecting.  Instead, find a way to deal with it (in my case I used laughter), move on and direct our energy to things that are worthwhile. Later on in the week, I was pleased and relieved to read in a book called 'Obliquity', by John Kay that 'our objectives are best pursued indirectly.'  Rather than be derailed by interruptions and inconveniences that can happen in our work and life, we can still achieve our goals by continuing to pursue our sense of purpose, values and direction.

As Michael Jordan said:-

"If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up.
Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."


Janet

A Day Of Silence

Have you ever spent a day of complete silence, rest and relaxation where you don't even watch TV?  In fact you can't use electricity, cook, make a noise and you can't leave your home for a whole 24 hours? In Bali, they call this day 'Nyepi'.  I have to admit that last year, I ran away from it and escaped to urbanisation, thinking I would go stir-crazy if I was forced to keep quiet, have no electricity and not be allowed out of my own home for a whole day and night, having only a candle to light up the darkness in the evening. Even the airport is closed for this day of silence. This year, I decided to give 'Nyepi' a go and had my perceptions trasformed.

Nyepi means silence. The event starts on the day of Bali's lunar New Year. During the run up to Nyepi, the Balinese people spend ages painstakingly making 'Ogoh-Ogoh', which are big, monster looking statues that represent evil spirits. On the eve before Nyepi, these statues are paraded along the streets by the Balinese people who make lots of noise, setting off fireworks to create a huge din. After all the evil spirits lurking in Bali are awoken and many of the 'Ogoh-Ogoh' are burned, there is complete silence the 24 hours - 6am to 6am the following day. The purpose of this day of silence is to fool the evil spirits into thinking that nobody lives on the island, so they will go elsewhere.

So two important life lessons from Nyepi for me:

1. It's really is good to force yourself to slow down, take time out, relax and enjoy silence, even sitting in the darkness as night falls and then seeing a way more incredible array of stars. The sense of silence on the day, was quite palpable, like a blanket over the whole island, no background noises of cars, motocycles, or even airplanes.  It enables and encourags you to slow down, you even start to move quietly and appreciate the peace and silence, being happy with how simple life can be.

2. The second thing is; rather than getting worked up about being 'forced' into a situation, I could choose how I responded.  We all have a choice on how we respond to what happens to us. Recently, my 10 year old daughter asked me why do the local people of Bali look and smile at her. I explained that with her blonde hair and blue eyes she did stand out just a little and that they were being nice and friendly. Her response was that they smiled at her because they were laughing at her.  This was simply her interpretation.  It was only real to her because she made it this way. She had a go at choosing her response and it was far better to think of these people smiling at her in a welcoming, rather than a laughing way. Sometimes it helps to put on different lenses and see a better perspective.

"Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content."
Helen Keller

Take time out for yourself and enjoy a real day of silence.

Janet

Be Who You Want to Be

Last week, I presented with my talented NoLimits colleague, Maureen Koh, to a group of people who were interested in using 'Neuro Linguistic Programming' (NLP) in Business, at the Hard Rock Cafe in Singapore (thank you Lindley, the President of the NLP Association in Singapore, for inviting us to present and for the wonderful venue).
Three bands were performing on the same night and I almost felt like a 'rock star' with all the guitars and musical memorabilia that were hanging from the funky red walls. In such a 'buzzy' environment, I felt the pressure to deliver an exciting presentation, so I kicked off my presentation with a story (one of the best ways to capture attention).
The story was about why it took me so long to set up our training and development company 'NoLimits'.  I didn't really think of the story as that exciting, but it was a personal and genuine account of how I first came across NLP and how NoLimits uses it to add 'spice' to our executive coaching and training workshops, as well as how NLP has helped me through the rough times of global recessions and losing 80% of our business overnight. It wasn't until the next day, when I was coaching a wonderful coachee, who always inspires me (she thinks I inspire her, but she's the one who enthuses me) and she said "why don't you blog that great story you told last night?" My response was that it hadn't even occurred to me to blog this and was it interesting enough?  On reflection, I thought well why not because there is one big life lesson in my story and it's to do with being who you want to be.

It took me 10 year to set up my own training and development company. I dreamed and talked about it for years and years, but I always had something else to do first and then I would be ready. First I had to get more work experience, then I had my children, also I had to study lots of qualifications to gain the credibility to be able to do what I wanted to do.  The list went on and on for at least 10 years, until one day my husband jolted me into action by saying "So when are you going to start this company that you keep on talking about?" I could have slapped him in the face, as I had just had our third daughter which I felt was quite an achievement, but what he said was one of those defining moments for me. Even though, at the time, I found lots of valid excuses to defend myself, I was putting off something that was important to me because I was too 'busy' finding other things to do. The danger with this approach is that the 'one day' may never happen, if we keep finding reasons to delay who we want to be.

Determined to show my husband that I wasn't just talking hot air, I called the company 'NoLimits' because our limits can stop all of us from being and doing what we want to do. My husband liked the company name so much, he gave up his well paid corporate CFO job to join me.  Now we had to make my dream work. I was finally forced to take a step off the starting line and set up our company for real. Was it an easy step?  No.  Was it an overnight success?  No.  Was it challenging?  Yes.  Was it rewarding?  Financially - still working on it.  Enjoyment, playing to my passions and strengths and courage 150%. Was it worth it?  Most definitely.

A few months before we launched NoLimits, I told my husband that I had 'just one more training programme to attend and then I would be ready!'  It was something called 'NLP'.  I didn't have a clue what it was about.  All I knew was that my HR Director had been on a two day NLP workshop, over 10 years ago and subconsciously I remembered the two words she said about it. "It's about the brain. It's fascinating."  10 years later I finally attended a NLP Practitioner programme and was blown away by it, wondering why I hadn't studied it before.  I was there to learn personal development techniques to help others in corporate organisations and soon realised that I was there to help myself. Coincidentally, NLP covers so much about overcoming our limits, my company name suddenly had even more meaning.

As part of the NLP programme, I was introduced to the 'BE + DO = HAVE' concept.  If you be who you want to be, you'll do what you want to do and so you'll have what you want to have.
I had spent over 10 years following a different, limiting concept called 'DO+ HAVE= BE'.  If I do a job in a corporate organisation for so many years, do my qualifications etc, I will have enough qualifications and money to one day 'be' who I want to be.
This new concept of 'Being' was so simple and yet a huge 'aha moment' for me. By changing my thinking and approach I could now be on top of the world, rather than under it and I could BE the person I wanted to BE, so I would DO what I wanted to DO and then HAVE what I wanted to have.

So it was good-bye to just Doing and Having, so that one day I could Be, as 'one day' may never come. Who do you want to be? What can you do to start being who you want to be, doing what you want to do and having what you want to have?

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, Begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
W.H. Murray paraphrasing Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Enjoy being who you want to be.

Janet

To find out more about NLP and turning around your thinking, join our next public programme in Bali from 30 May - 5 June 2011 click here for brochure

Also, connect with the Singapore NLP Association here

Simplify

Do you ever find that your life is over-complicated? The various responsibilities that we take on, people we have to deal with and possessions that we own, make our lives complicated. I swear that if only we automated everything at work and didn't have people involved, things would get done so much more quickly and efficiently! To complicate matters even more, there's our own thoughts that bombard us like a swarm of bees (apparently 70,000 of them per day), constantly re-playing what we need to do, what we haven't done, who did and said what to us, what we're worried about etc. We can easily become tangled in a thick web of unnecessary complication.
 

I was reminded twice this week about the power of simplicity. Firstly, my colleague shared with me his presentation called the 'Simplicity Project' which he based on Edward de Bono's book 'Simplicity'. After sharing and talking about the concept of simplicity with his team, they reduced their long, arduous and complicated communication chain in Operations to a simple and more productive one.

The irony being that often we don't realise how complicated we have made things for ourselves until we are made aware of the power of simplicity.

Secondly, while on an early morning walk with my two dogs and my Dad who, with my Mum, is over in Bali from the UK, he was amazed to see how simply the rice famers lived and yet they seemed happy. Their homes were a few makeshift tents made out of plastic fertiliser bags, supported by branches of wood, with a couple of stones to make a fireplace for cooking their rice.  One Balinese woman was washing her clothes in the stream that flowed into the rice fields and another woman was standing there naked washing herself. Such a simple, basic life and yet these people go about their daily lives smiling and content. My Dad couldn't understand how they could look so happy and care free when all they have is a 'home' made out of a few plastic bags, a handful of grubby looking clothes and one or two battered pots and pans.  My response was their life is so simple, they have few possessions to worry about and so they can be happy.

Life is so much easier and enjoyable when we simplify it. Hence a short blog from me this week! Hope you like it.

"As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler, solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness."
Henry David Thoreau

Keep it simple!

Janet

Pray, Eat and Get Very Wet

You may have heard of Elisabeth Gilbert's international best seller that has hit Bali like a tsunami. If you haven't read the book or seen the film, it's about a woman who leaves her husband to find her true self and she does this by eating in Italy, praying in India and finding love in Bali.  My version is a little different as I found myself praying for my safety and getting very wet last weekend.  I did, however, eat well.

Have you ever done something that goes against your conventional self, but you know that if you don't give it a go, you'll never know?  When my family and I moved to Bali, we had a dream. We said "Let's move to Bali and buy an old jeep so that we can go exploring." It took us 18 months to work out whether this would be a wise move, to build the right connections and to save enough money. Last week we were bold enough to make the move and purchased a 1966 soft-top Toyota Land Cruiser 'jeep' from a trustworthy and highly reliable source (most important to do this Bali).  Our reliable source's name is Jon and he is fanatical about this vehicle, having purchased it himself a few years ago and 'done it up' until it was time for him to pass onto somebody else who could have just as much fun in it.

We decided to take the jeep into the mountains at the weekend.  As we were preparing to leave it was raining. This, in my experience, didn't bode well for the mountains. "Rain in mountains?" I slowly and loudly asked our Balinese staff member so he would understand.  He looked at me blankly for a few moments and responded "no rain," as if he knew what he was talking about. I was dubious. Regardless, we set off on our adventure.The engine of the jeep roared like an army truck. We bounced along the pot-holed roads like a mechanised kangaroo as my husband fumbled to drop down a gear.  We blasted past the endless stream of motorbikes and threatened to steam roller any slow vehicle that came into our vision. I ducked and dived, pressing my foot hard on the brake as I pretended to drive on the passenger side. The windscreen wipers furiously clicked as they tried to keep up with the vast downpour of rain, until one of them had enough and flew into the air. I couldn't see out of the passenger side anymore and maybe it was just as well. While attempting to look through the fogged up and rain patterned windscreen, I resorted instead to praying that we would 'make it' alive.

As we approached the base of the volcanic mountains, our five year old daughter shouted "look Mummy, there's smoke coming out of the mountain." I hoped that it wasn't volcanic smoke and could see that we were about  to climb into a big, white cloud that was so full of rain, it would be like going through a high pressure car wash. One hour later we arrived at our destination feeling a little worse for wear and very wet. The good news was that we had stayed at this destination before -Puri Lumbung Cottages - even though the accommodation was basic, the food and service was excellent. We enjoyed some late lunch and with true optimism set off for an afternoon tour of the area in the jeep in the still pouring rain. My husband suggested that we visit the Giant Tree, which was only 3km down the road. Quite a few more kilometers, landslides and floods later we gave up on finding the tree and more importantly tried to find our way back. As the torrential mountain rain thumped against the canvas roof, leaked though the passenger door and I still prayed for our lives, I quite frankly didn't care whether I saw a giant tree or not. To distract ourselves from getting lost in the jungle, we decided to play a 'name the jeep' game. Our 12 year old daughter unanimously won and our jeep was now called 'Jenny Jeep or 'JJ' for short. She had been well and truly bathed in the tropical rain as part of her initiation ceremony.

That night the unabating rain continued to beat down. While shivering in bed fully clothed and feeling very damp, I wondered why we didn't take 'JJ' for a trip along the sun drenched coast lines of Bali. Where would the sense of adventure and fun be in that though?

The next morning, the rain had temporaily stopped. As we looked out over the panoramic views of the green tree mountain valley, we noticed an extra large tree. The Balinese waiter confirmed that it was the Giant Tree.  It was gigantic and towered above all the other trees, like a skyscraper.  How we missed it, I do not know.

The rain obviously distracted us.  Similiar to life, we can get so consumed with what else is going on, we fail to see what is staring us in the face!

While checking out I mentioned to the receptionist that it looked as though it was going to rain.  She agreed with me and said "it's been raining for the last year."! There was no chance that we were going to hit a heat wave, so we drove further down the mountain to where all the fresh strawberries were grown. We feasted on lots of strawberries, bought a kilo of fresh strawberries from a trustworthy source and then were tempted to buy some beautiful, plump red strawberries from a couple of female street vendors for a great price.

We were proud of our tough negotiating skills, but as we drove off discovered that we had been conned. What looked like two layers of strawberries was only one. The bottom layer was stuffed with cardboard!

Ah well, we still had fun inspite of the rain and being conned. Who needs love when you can pray, eat, get very wet and still laugh.

'Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.'
Anthony J. D'Angelo

Janet