Monthly Archive for September, 2007

Being a great customer

Published on 25 September, 2007 in Lifestyle and Stories. 1 Comment

Sometimes you get great service. This morning I grabbed breakfast from my usual local cafe – the BaBaiBan Waga’s. It’s seven minutes walk (yes, I timed it) from my front door and on the route that I take for my usual morning walk. I always get great service there – I know greeted Lisa (the barrista) by name this morning and was pleasantly surprised that she even remembered mine! I guess I really am a regular…

My dear friend and great mentor, John, taught me by example how to get along with service staff. He showed me how to chit-chat, greet them as people (rather than ‘servants’ or machines as they often get treated), and how to show sincere appreciation for their work. It’s become very much part of how I live and think, though this morning this HBS article helped make my understanding that much more explicit.

If we want to get great service – like I do there and at my local restaurant in particular – we can try being demanding, respectful, reliable, surprising and engaging. Just five things that make all the difference…

Oh – and my cappucino was absolutely the best that I’ve tasted anywhere in the world – Lisa really worked a miracle with firm froth and a rich yet smooth flavour :)

It’s a damn small world

Published on 23 September, 2007 in Self-awareness, Stories and Travel. 0 Comments

I was in an outlying suburb of Shanghai on Friday afternoon, and of all the people that would walk up to me was my best friend’s brother-in-law! We met once – at his sister’s wedding – back in May, and we headed out last night :)

In London two years ago, I walked into Sarah, one of my dearest friends from law school, as we walked down the street in opposite directions – but a lot more of my friends or associates have ended up in London than here in Shanghai.

There are two things that this really made clear to me:

  1. The world is really really really really small, and
  2. Shanghai is an increasingly cool place to be. 

Certificates make great wallpaper

Published on 17 September, 2007 in Creativity and genius and Self-awareness. 0 Comments

I always loved collecting certificates. When I was in Scouts, I collected as many badges as I had sleeve space. When I was at school, I collected lines of writing for my blazer. At university, I similarly collected an array of parchment (five so far). And in karate, I didn’t want just a ‘black belt’ and completed my Yondan (fourth degree black belt rank) in two systems.

But as I was preparing for my last karate grading, one of my great instructors asked me whether I was chasing the rank or whether the rank was chasing me. The word “dan” in Japanese refers to the degree of black belt, so “shodan” is a first degree, “nidan” is second degree and so on. This of course meant that he was able to ask me: “Is the dan chasing Dan, or is Dan chasing the dan?”

Being conditioned to be ‘an achiever’ from a very young age, this was very confronting – I knew nothing other than to chase “the dan”. Yet over time, it dawned on me that having a sheet of paper without having the competence that the sheet of paper represents is meaningless, while being competent makes the sheet of paper a largely redundant formality.  Certificates can make great wallpaper.

Collect competence, not just certificates.

Who is John Galt?

Published on 16 September, 2007 in Business, Cool friends and ideas, Creativity and genius, High performance, relationships, Self-awareness and Social development. 2 Comments

The New York Times has just published an article acknowledging the role played by Ayn Rand in the thinking of modern capitalists. My Grandfather gave me The Fountainhead when I was an arrogant 13-year-old with a warning that the first half was boring but the second half made it worthwhile. He was right on both counts.

While “the virtue of selfishness” might be very unpopular as a phrase, I was transformed by this book and still have it together with my Grandfather’s copy of Atlas Shrugged in a special place in my bookcase at home.

It’s not a complete philosophy. Assumptions arrogantly taken for “axioms” are adopted by ignorant idealogues undermine the intellectual integrity that Objectivists purport to uphold. However, as James M. Kilts is quoted as noting in the NYT article, Ayn Rand’s works uphold a very important value that has few other sources:

“that excellence should be your goal”

Spiritual masters, NLPers and psychologists are largely and unusually in agreement (though they won’t let you know!): Self-actualisers, prime mover geniuses and happy “ordinary” people everywhere live in accordance with the vision that Rand had for the world… rather than being the victim of what other people want for you or think of you, may we all take personal responsibilty for how you feel, what you think and the life that you live.

Be excellent.

How do you solve a problem?

Published on 7 September, 2007 in Business, Creativity and genius, High performance, Self-awareness and Social development. 3 Comments

Great speeches don’t solve problems, though bold statements and profound ideas can. As I was watching Andrew’s presentation on TED, I was reminded of my days of contemplating political economy and constitutional theory and back to conversations with my Sri Lankan law school professor… ah, the good old days!

Putting more resources into a dysfunctional system makes that system more dysfunctional just as driving faster in the wrong direction just takes you further from where you want to go.

Solutions to the real problems come by lifting our level of thinking and clarifying our desired outcome. Becoming a great problem solver can come by elevating your thinking, getting better at clarifying your outcomes and framing the situation in a manner that so that it fits familiar situations (through models or frameworks).

Andrew spoke about how giving aid to Africa strengthened corrupt governments and undermined the need to build the rules for sustainable wealth creation systems. But I especially loved his simple ending: That great speeches should be like miniskirts – short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the subject.

Personal Excellence?

Published on 5 September, 2007 in Creativity and genius, High performance, Self-awareness and Social development. 1 Comment

I’ve been fascinated by genius and personal excellence for almost 15 years now yet there is still very little of a satisfactory definition. Last night I was speaking with some friends on the subject of personal excellence and we really struggled with the very definition of the term. Somebody said it was getting above 80% (or 90% or 95%) - because that’s what it is at school. But that’s just a number – and not a very reliable or useful number at that!

To me, excellence has to be more than ‘good’ – being good, or even very good. Being very good is so common  that it doesn’t even rate a mention these days: anybody can do it.

For me, excellence has something to do with finding your voice. Finding that part of yourself that is unique and developing yourself so that you can share it with the world. There are countless pathways to finding your voice… from NLP to work to psychotherapy to karate to mysticism to religion to intimate relationships and even sex itself.

I find that we are all drawn towards finding our voice. We are pulled towards what we enjoy and pushed away from that which we find painful. Sometimes, our conditioning or external conditions lead us to ignore these messages – that’s why we need to shut up and listen as my friend Jason says – but ultimately the message is still there.

Once we have enough excitement and diversity, enough security and stability, enough power and enough love, most of us are drawn to two higher needs: to expand and to impact. To expand is to learn and grow so that we can become greater; to impact is to leave an impression and a contribution in the world.

Personal excellence can come back values. While reviewing my NLP Master Practitioner materials yesterday, I was reminded of the ‘levels of consciousness’ concept. This model holds that individuals and societies and even the world progresses as it changes its way of thinking.

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