Some people love to interrupt others in a conversation –>> poor listening skill.

And some people are there to listen, but only physically and not mentally –>> poor listening skill.

It seems like the longer I work in the hectic and stressful corporate world, the more I find people with poor listening skill. There are times when a peaceful team meeting ends up as a war (minus the flying chairs and maybe gunshots) just because there are more than 1 person talking and everyone wants to prove his/her point…. aka, forcing his/her point into the other person’s mind. It’s not pleasant and can be very frustrating at times (and it’s darn noisy too).

In my opinion, everyone should really learn to listen properly. When someone is talking, be there physically and mentally. Pay attention. The person could be your boss, your colleague, your parents, siblings, friends, etc. Whenever they talk, LISTEN. Don’t just stay there for the sake of staying there. Pretending to listen is as sinful as ignoring the person directly. If you cannot concentrate, just ask the person to repeat or pause for a moment but do remember you will only get few opportunities to do so…before becoming annoying.

Also, give others the opportunity to finish their sentence. Never ever finish a sentence for someone. It’s very rude. I understand that sometimes, we tend to get a lot of questions and ideas while someone is talking and we just want to speak out before we forget about them. Well, what you can do is to write down those ideas and questions in a piece of paper. And ask them or speak out AFTER the person has finished talking. Or at the very least, when the person pauses for a moment (this works for people who can talk non-stop).

Seriously, it’s not that difficult right? I personally feel that at the end of the day, everyone should be given a chance to speak and to finish their sentences. And as the listener, we should always respect the speaker. You would not want someone to finish your sentences for you, would you?

Last but not least, if you’re facing someone who just talk non-stop and you’re getting irritated, feel free to say “excuse me, i need to go to the restroom”. Do that before your mind becomes over-cluttered with BS. Oh, but if you’re the chairperson, feel free to exercise your authority.

p/s…. by the way, i just realized i wrote a similar article before this…albeit the shorter version. you can find it here – Talk less, listen more. Sorry for the redundancy. Only realized it after finishing the article. LOL. I’m getting old and my memory don serve me well anymore. crap.

p/s…. a lot of people claim that being outspoken is a difficult skill. I feel that listening skill is much harder…. and surprisingly, a lot of people cannot listen well (even those at the top of the corporate ladder cannot).

p/s…. there’s this thing called Toastmaster and they train you on speaking skill. Perhaps they should train people on listening skill as well since I feel listening is more important than speaking.

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Well, there’s nothing wrong with that actually. Whenever there’s YIN, there’s always YANG. So when we have decisive people, there should be indecisive people. Otherwise, the 2 will start debating with each other and waste their time doing that. The problem here is that, I personally feel that the gap between the 2 is getting wider and the number of people in the “go with the flow” group is getting bigger too.

For example, how many times have you witnessed the following (the “you” being someone, not you as in you):

• When choosing a university course, you choose to follow your friends.
• When choosing a lunch place, you and your friends wait for 5-10 minutes, clueless of where to eat.
• When you invest in stock market, you sell because everyone is selling!
• When your friends go for a movie you hate, you just tag along in order to “follow the crowd”.
• When your colleagues are going for a drink in the nearby pub, you tag along to avoid being called “anti-social”.
• and my favorite, when you attend a wedding dinner which serves shark fin’s soup, you eat it because everyone is eating it and because they’re telling you “it’s not real shark fin” even though you feel strongly against it.

The last example is a classic. I’ve faced it everytime I attend a wedding dinner but being the stubborn me, I refused to eat. I know what I want, and I know what I don’t want. But most of my friends, succumbed to the influence of the people around them. They consumed something against their will.

I know that it takes great courage to be able to stand on your ground and say NO, or to be different from others. You might attract unwanted attention, and you might piss off your friends. That’s why it is always easier to go with the flow, or follow the majority.

But is that really want you want? Do you feel bad after that?

If yes, then maybe it’s time to be more decisive. Decide based on what you want or don’t want. Stop following the crowd/majority. It’s your life. So take control over it.

p/s…. this is particularly important in stock investing. The guy who always don’t follow the majority, can earn the most.

p/s…. i understand that we human, are actually group creatures (er..creatures that live in a group and not alone), so it’s normal to be influenced by the people around us and follow the crowd. I believe it’s okay to do that once in a while but when it comes to something which really matter to you, I do hope that you can stand up and decide for yourselves.

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Certain people think that it is better to dedicate fully, 100%, to the dreams they are chasing while there are also people who think that move is bit too risky. In this post, I will take a look at both the options and their respective pros and cons (I’ll try to be fair).

To quit your day job and dedicate fully to the dreams

Pros:

• You get less distractions.
• You have more time to do your things.
• Easier for you to get grants and funding.
• You can plan your things better (milestone A at this date, etc). At least, there’s no day job disrupting your plan.
• Because you are already in the industry, you tend to move faster than a part-timer. You’ll be able to identify the changes and trends easier (and plan accordingly if the budget permits).

Cons:

• It’ll be very stressful because you MUST show results (sometimes immediately).
• If you’ve set out to do A, you need to continue even if you don’t like it. You cannot simply change your focus to B during the early stage because it can be very risky and expensive especially if A and B are too different.
• Your survival (and your family’s) is at risk.
• You might get a lot of negative comments and less support from your family members.
• You need a lot of money to start up – make sure you can survive without income for more than 6 months, before you even think of starting.

…and now to the next one.

To continue on your day job and chase after your dreams as a part-timer

Pros:

• You will still have steady income.
• Your survival (and your family’s) is not really at risk. You won’t be desperate for result (not that bad anyway).
• Most of your family members and friends would support you more.
• You get to do the old “trials and errors” (example: you think you like idea A, but when you started doing it, you realized it’s not that interesting).
• You can spend more time building your cash reserves.

Cons:

• You most likely cannot get funding because you’re not working full-time on your so-called dreams.
• You could end up very tired because juggling between your day job and this part-time job can be very tiring.
• You need to be very flexible with your schedule because at times, your day job might require you to spend a lot of time on it.
• You could end up spending lesser time with your family, friends, and maybe hobbies.
• Going part-time also means you’re playing a waiting game. You are waiting for the right time to jump to full time but this waiting game might cause you to be too comfortable with your day job.
• The waiting game could also cause your idea to become obsolete.

Yes, it’s not easy but there are already people doing them (both of the options above) and there have been plenty of success stories that we can follow and learn from. Of course, I’m not an expert here so I don’t claim whatever I said above to be 100% correct or relevant. If possible, it’ll be nice to have entrepreneurs or people with experience to share it with us *looks at Damien*.

As for me, I’m going for the second option because it’s more practical for me. I wouldn’t want to let my family to suffer due to my dreams. Also, I have few ideas in mind and I need to know which can work, and which cannot….and which suit me best. That’s why doing the trial and error thingy during part-time is less risky compared to doing it if you’re full timer. Oh, and I don’t really like the feeling of getting desperate especially when I don’t have the proper backup plans in place (and cash reserves). The bad thing here is that I tend to push (or postpone) things away too often due to my day job. It requires a lot of self-discipline in order to get things done when you’re a part timer. So it’s not for everyone.

But for me, the pros for 2nd option far outweigh the cons. What about you guys?

By the way, here’s a useful article from the guys at 37 Signals – The natural evolution from side project to full-time business.

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Let’s face it. Not many people like opinions and even more people don’t like criticisms. Some even reject them without thinking much about them. Their brain will just keep telling them “What do they know about this? They know nothing!” or “What rights do they have to comment me like that!?” etc etc.

So they will just shut themselves out from everything be it positive or negative.

I’ll be honest with you. I used to be like that and will just shut myself out from all forms of opinions. It does sting and it’s not pleasant at all when someone just comes to you and say “whoa, your work sux big time, just give it up!” I’ve experienced it before and it can be very very demotivating. But those kind of opinions are pretty rare (they are out there somewhere, but there are rare).

What we need to do is to continue with our work (and work harder to improve ourselves). Ignore all these destructive opinions which are trying to bring you down instead of helping you. Get more constructive ones. There are still a lot of helpful people out there and they want to help you by telling you what is wrong. They have good intention.

So if you really want to be successful in the things you are doing, you must be willing to accept other people’s opinions. Learn to filter them properly but not shut them out altogether. Believe it or not, your willingness to accept other people’s opinions will dictate how far you go in your life.

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Why?

Because that is what you focus on. That is what your mind is looking at and whatever your mind is looking at, will influence what your eyes are looking at.

Don’t believe me? Now, go back on the road and see if you can notice any Honda Civic cars. I’m sure you will be able to see a lot of them. Er…of course, if you’re somewhere in a dense forest and you can see a lot of Honda Civic cars, you better start praying hard. :T

This shows that our mind is a very powerful thing and it can actually decide what are the things you pay attention to, and filter the rest. This happens in our daily life too. Some people always claim that they do not have the best of things in life, and others do have. But the thing is, everyone has the best things in life except that these things do differ from one person to another.

As long as you set your mind to focus on the good things in life, I don’t see why you can’t be happy because there are just so many of those things around us.

Remember, if you keep focusing on other people’s “fortune” and not yours, then you will never learn to appreciate the things around you. The concentration and the focus are not there. Or maybe, they are there, but the target is not the right one.

So start changing your focus. See things differently. Stop focusing on what good stuff other people have and start focusing on what good stuff YOU have.

p/s…. this thing can be applied to your work too. If you have too many tasks, the one you focus on will get done easily, as compared to other tasks. And less mistakes too.

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I believe everyone has such an experience, myself included. But over the years, I’ve learnt that no matter how screwed up things are, it is not the end of the world. And no matter how bad things look to be, there are actually not THAT bad if you look at them from another perspective.

For example, the other day, I woke up late as I was feeling very tired. I was late by 40 minutes actually. So I rushed to my workplace, just few minutes before the training started. Of course, rushing will not make one’s mood good. I entered the office with a not-so-good mood. Guess what? The office building was having a power outage since 6am. If I were to go in earlier, I would have to suffer for longer period of time!

Another example, my business trip to Sydney was canceled. I was pretty sad but when I think about it, it’s actually a blessing in disguise. The H1n1 case in Australia is actually worse than Malaysia so canceling my trip to Australia is not really a bad thing.

There are countless examples that I can give you but I’m sure you get the meaning, so I’ll just spare you with those boring stories. And I’m pretty sure you can find those similar stories in your life as well.

All I want to say is, things do happen for a reason. If it’s a setback, don’t dwell on it for too long. Look at it from a different perspective. Maybe it IS better for things to be in this state. Hope it helps.

p/s…. mmm maybe the spread of the flu virus in my office is also a blessing in disguise? hmmm

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Chaos. Dissatisfaction. Misunderstanding…

… and maybe project failure if all these ill feelings are not under control.

This kind of scenario does happen from time to time and exists in most companies. The workaholic will be working day and night to complete the tasks while the slacker will still complete his tasks, but at a much slower pace. By the way, I’m not talking about those slackers who just don’t work – those people should never be in the company in the first place.

So what happens next? At time goes by, the workaholic will feel unhappy because he feels he is the only one doing all the work while the slacker will relax and do things slowly. On the other hand, the slacker will feel the workaholic is trying to show off and starts to push people around in order to follow his style. Thus, the gap between the 2 will become wider and in a small project team, this can have a very negative impact.

But is there anything wrong in this scenario? Should we blame the slacker? or perhaps it is the workaholic who is being too demanding?

In my opinion, nobody is wrong in this case provided both of them managed to accomplish the tasks on time. It’s just a matter of different mindset/mentality/attitude. The keyword here is to compromise and understand that everyone is different.

For the workaholic – he can continue to work hard and be a top performer but he should not care what the slacker is doing. If the slacker screws up, the leader/manager should be the one punishing him. And if you ever feel under-appreciated, then talk to your boss on how much appreciation/reward you think you should get and NOT on how unhappy you are that the slacker is so slow. Remember that he does finish his job, just maybe not as fast as you.

For the slacker – maybe you are the type who loves to do things at the very last minute, but do remember that there are times when things just start to go wrong. That is why some people like the workaholic prefers to do things faster. True, you might have your LIFE to go back to but you should never blame the workaholic for being…a workaholic. It’s just his style. And as long as your boss is comfortable with your style, then there’s no problem.

The reason I’m writing this post is that some friends do complain to me once in a while that they are working like shit but their teammates are not. I can only say that, leave it to the team lead or project manager. There’s really nothing much they can do. Different people have different working styles and as long as the task is completed, there’s no issue. And if the tasks are not completed……then the person to get the scolding should be the team lead/manager.

Conclusion? Respect each others in the team. Everyone is different and has his/her own working style.

p/s….. have a team of slacker, and your team will die. Similarly, have a team of workaholic is not a very healthy choice too.

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Emotional bank is something which exists in everyone. I have an emotional bank and all the people I know have a saving account in it. And how much I (the bank) trust the person, depends on how much saving (money) he or she has in the bank. If he or she owes me money, it does not make sense for me to trust the person.

Hmm, if you’ve ever played the game Sims, you would’ve noticed that if 1 SIM talks in a way which angers the other SIM, there will be this red ” – ” sign.

That is actually similar to how emotional banks work.

For example, each time your boss praises you, he is depositing something into your account. So you are happy to work with him, and respect him. But if one day, he decides that you are influencing all the colleagues to go against him and wants to get rid of you by giving you a huge pay cut, he is withdraw a large sum of money from your emotional bank. That will cause you to lose trust in him.

1st Praise = +20

2nd Praise = +10

Salary increment = +50

and then suddenly Pay cut 50% = -100

Based on this simple example, it is obvious that whatever we do, we should think of the impact that our actions could bring to the emotional bank. Before we say something, are we actually depositing or withdrawing? And how much saving do we have in that someone’s emotional bank? You don’t expect you can get away alive if you just go and hug a girl that you barely know (not in Malaysia anyway, unless both of you are drunk)? Or do you think a long lost friend will be happy if you comment about his pitiful job or his arrogant girlfriend on your first meeting with him after 10 years (again, should be fine if both of you are very drunk)?

So always be aware of emotional banks and how much saving you have left. Don’t do things which will make the emotional banks go negative.

Oh, if you want to try it while you’re drunk, maybe sure the other person is more drunk than you!

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Erm, this doesn’t apply to those who have been doing nothing all this while. If you are one of them… time to wake up and go do the things which matter to you!

Okay, back to topic. Actually, nowadays I do feel like just sit down, watch some movies, drink some beer, play some games, read some books and just sleep my weekends away. I think I’m feeling a little burn out. This is a result of putting too much things in my to do list. The list is getting longer and longer as I try to push things ahead of schedule.

• I try to complete more comics.
• I try to stabilize my webcomic layout.
• I try to put on my storywriter’s hat.
• I try to write more blog posts for this blog and my Novice blog.
• I try to learn Ruby on Rails and develop a new web application for my personal use.
• I try to write some product reviews to earn a bit of side income.
• I try to finish a book.

As you can see, all these things are pretty time consuming and 2 days are not enough. Maybe it is enough but I’ll be dead tired on Monday. This is a perfect example of trying to force myself to do something…perhaps too many things at one time. When you’ve reached this stage, it’s easy to just give up and sit there doing nothing. It’s just too frustrating because the list of to do will keep getting longer. It seems like it’s never ending.

Have you experienced something like this before? If yes, maybe the following can help a bit.

• Prioritize the list.
• Assign the long term tasks as lower priorities. For example, finishing a book can be a lower priority for me since finishing it faster doesn’t bring me any extra benefit.
• Assign the tasks which you feel can contribute to the society or tasks which you will enjoy the most as high priorities.
• Starting from the top, pick at most 2 things that you think you can finish over the weekend and try your best to complete them. If possible, just pick the first one and finish it before starting the second.
• If the task requires creative juice and you just don’t have the mood for it, then postpone it. Move on to the next task in the list. Creative works like writing (blogs, stories) and drawing can’t and should not be forced. Do them when you feel like doing.
• Most importantly, don’t push yourselves too much. If you can’t finish, don’t fret. Put it to next week and move slowly. As long as there’s progress, then it’s fine. If there’s 0 progress, take some time to reflect whether the priorities are in the right order.

Remember, never force yourselves into doing something. You’ll burn yourselves out. Prioritize and RELAX. It’s weekend, remember?

p/s…. if you don’t feel like doing anything, spending time with your family can be a very good and relaxing past time.

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But also it makes us listen too much to others.

• When we want to know about local news, we go to CNN, BBC or The Star (for Malaysia).
• When we want to find nice food to eat, we go search for food reviews.
• When we want to go for vacation, we Google for the interesting places in the world (within our budget).
• When we want to solve a problem, we Google for it and get the top 5 articles in the search result.
• And for some people, when there’s a problem they don’t know how to do, they go to YouTube (I actually have a friend who went to YouTube to learn how to fold clothes! Oh, and he ended up making a big mess).

..and others, just to name a few.

As a matter of fact, the amount of information that we get everyday is just enormous and I believe it has reached a stage that filtering the information becomes more tedious than receiving the information. Thus, we turn to the so-called professionals aka the media and the ‘expert reviewers’. We believe that they will do the proper filtering for us. After all, we do pay some of them for that!

Actually there’s nothing wrong with this but I do notice that as time goes by, these individuals might end up having a louder voice within us than our own voice. We become indecisive. We believe most of the things THEY say, right or wrong. Or when there’s only one solution in Google for the question we asked, we believe that should be the right one (especially if there are some idiots who claimed the solution is genuine without trying it). But is it really the right one?

Perhaps it’s time to really think about such things (I know some of you already do. So this is aimed at people who rather go with the ‘flow’). Forget about all the press, news, articles, reviews or even commercials. They are there to HELP you in making decision, not making the decision for you. Ask yourselves, what is it that you really want? You want to buy a car? Do you really think you need it? Do you have the money? Will you die without buying it? What about that game with superb review (sorry ya, I’m a video gamer), do you think you will really enjoy it? Can you imagine yourselves enjoying the game after reading the review? How long do you think it’s going to last you? Can’t you wait for 6 months and get from the secondary market?

Ask more questions! Fill up some blanks with those reviews, articles, etc but the final decision should come from you. Stop listening too much to others and start listening to yourselves.

p/s……. few years ago, all my friends told me to give up on a girl. But my heart told me to go on. The end result was not what I wanted but I have no regret at all. Because if I’ve listened to others, the issue might still be unresolved until now.

p/s…….. also, remember that listening is not a bad thing but listening without filtering is.

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