Design your Career Life

Creating New Habits

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30 Day Sprint to find your niche

To develop our personal brand, many of us struggle to find our niche. What is an area that can define my expertise?

The best way to find out is to Ask!
1. Who is the person in the mirror? Ask yourself, do a personal reflection.
2. What is my preferred style?
3. Am Iikeable? Do I like myself? (Many people would rather do business with people they like, rather than with a jerk.)
4. Do I have access to people who need my services or products?

For anyone who is feeling a little lethargic after the New Year Break, here is a networking challenge for the brave hearted.

Let’s start your networking challenge

Day 1: come up with positive adjectives, strengths and weakness that describe me
Day 2: draft my personal brand statement
Day 3: come up with 5 ice breakers
Day 4: Bring my closest friends to lunch and ask positive adjectives describe me.
Day 5: start my daily list of 10 thanksgiving items. Creative positive energy.
Day 6: list my rewards or motivators on challenge. (Positive energy)
Day 7: Rest Day, Reflection
Day 8: write home call home (parents, siblings), plan next family gathering. If not convenient, send positive thoughts and thank them in mind. Send postcard.
Day 9: start my project of saying hello to a different colleague or classmate everyday for 30 days. Ask: what are you working on? What’s a trend that may bother you? What’s a skill you wish you had time to pick up?
Day 10: create a Linkedin account
Day 11: join a public speaking group such as toastmasters in your area
Day 12: identify an area of professional interest
Day 13: join a group in professional interest
Day 14: Rest Day, Reflection
Day 15: identify a person to start a personal friendship group
Day 16: List 5 latest books affecting your area.
Day 17: Arrange to have coffee with former internship supervisor or colleagues
Day 18: Keep in touch with (one) classmate from past. Repeat with different person next cycle.
Day 19: Sign up for a talk in area of interest
Day 20: join a group of personal interest, faith or hobby, eg. Mahjong or tennis
Day 21: Rest Day, Reflection – list 10 topics you have collected from conversations.
Day 22: Start a blog, write your first article
Day 23: List of social causes, pick one Volunteer for a social cause
Day 24: Congratulate a friend
Day 25: Rest Day, Reflection
Day 26: Update my Linkedin. Write my first post
Day 27: Celebrate friend’s birthday or anything worth celebrating!
Day 28: Compliment a service staff (stranger).
Day 29: Send postcard to relative
Day 30: Celebrate with loved one!

Repeat cycle!!

Photo: Visit to Adecco Singapore office with RMIT (HRM) students.

Telling our story

Last night right after class, I went down to the Singapore River, excited to catch the LightUp of Singapore River for the Bicentennial celebrations of when Raffles sat foot in 1819.

How different it looks at night. Sitting on a bumboat, enjoying the breeze.

Our Singapore Story began even before 1819, our location was useful to the Majapahit empire before, connecting people to the global trade, a rest from the Monsoon winds.

Reflecting how our story began 200 yrs and prior. How will our story end? What is your story?

How are you building bridges, connecting people? Taking a rest from the winds of disruptive change?

Head down to the Singapore river.

#buildingbridges
#iLightSingapore
#bicentennial

Goal setting 2019

Photo: an old carriage wheel in Kitahama Station, Hokkaido

Its the first weekend of 2019. The fireworks and champagne have been put away. Reality strikes. 2019. As my nephew put it, its the last year that has any teen in it.

My friend Joseph from Chinese Toastmasters club sent this greeting.

用真诚经营爱情 (love/ romance)
用执着追求事业 (career)
用善良对待朋友 (relationship)
用平淡对待磨难 (meditation/ spirituality)
用虔诚祈盼幸福 (fun/ joy)
用感恩回报人间 (social causes)

心随爱走，爱随心愿。
朋友一生幸福，永远快乐！

In every culture, the new year signifies hope, new beginnings.

Even as I meditate on this photo I took in Hokkaido, Japan of an old carriage wheel found in a displaced train station, where no one stops but is now a tourist stopover from a long drive. Horse carriage disrupted by trains disrupted by cars, disrupted by …

Time rushes on.

Disruption is the only constant.

What 3 major areas will you focus in 2019?
Financial goals
Learning and Growth goals
Friendship
New technology
New markets
Fun
Volunteer
Health/ fitness?

Can you combine any of these goals?
Join a fitness class with a friend
Walk to/ from work
Train for Machu Picchu or Camino de Santiago, Spain

I’ve finally signed up for a diploma on social media branding. My goal is to increase my writing and launch a podcast.

Q: Can”t I learn on my own?
A: I’m relying on a community to push me. We will see.

As Stephen Covey wrote in his book on 7 Habits of Successful people, put in the big rocks first.

Barriers/ Limitations
Time (Classes on Saturday)
Money (government subsidy)

What I need to do to make it happen:
Research on schools offering program (done)
Application (done)

Reflections on 2018

How has 2018 been?

As I sit at Shanghai Pudong Airport waiting to catch a midnight flight back to Singapore, I reflect on this photo I took of “New World” 新世界 outside the People’s Square metro I take everyday.

Its a strange new world of ups and downs. My friend posted a philosophical photo of a bird sitting in a dirty corner of pooh but sheltered from strong winds.

From an eventful Trump-Kim Summit to the US-China Trade War and nearer to home, our rough relations with our neighbours to the Tsunami.

There are many other things to be grateful for.

1. Loved ones
2. Clean hot water ( I recall bathing in cold water in winter in Beijing in 1985.)
3. Relatively peaceful world
4. Friends and great colleagues
5. Stretching myself in new ventures

What about you? How has 2018 been for you?

30 Days Networking challenge

Are you up for a networking challenge?

15 suggestions for a 30 day challenge. Just pick ONE activity and do it consistently over a 30 day or 4 weeks period. Bite sized.

If you chose a weekly schedule, decide how many days you want to commit to the activity. Who is the organiser? Structure? Platform? Venue?

Move out of your habitual social comfort zone.
Fight your social filters of your usual cliques

1. Grab a coffee with a different colleague classmate everyday for next 30 days

2. Write a blog post 3 times a week for next 4 weeks

3. Share a Linkedin Post everyday for next 30 days

4. Coffee chat with a new person in a sector I want to pivot into, once a week for the next 4 weeks

5. Network for a social cause: start something. Use network to support a voice

6. Network around a problem: get a group of people who will help you solve a problem

7. Network to learn something: breakfast group that discuss “exchange rates” ( sthg for headlines).

8. Book club: discuss a book relevant to the industry of your choice

9. Network with your former colleagues

10. Network with your professional association

11. Network around a theme: eg visit the top attraction sites in Singapore

12. Around an idea: raise funds for …

13. IE-SMU Alumni group

14. Goal: Climb Mt Kinabalu in Malaysia, round a group to train together once a week

15: Goal: run a marathon – form a running group

Think aloud:
1. What is my Goal
2. Who is in my community? What are their challenges?
3. How do I structure my networking: schedule, platform
3. My Buddy: accountability and feedback
4. Reflections: what have I learnt about myself

Photo and quote done by my 10 yr old niece. Desert is of course spelled with one “t”.