The aging population is increasing and the sandwich generation is stressed with no work-life balance. Who would want to procreate with the cost of living getting higher and higher.  We need to bring back soft skills to help people become more aware of the importance of supporting, encouraging and empathizing with each other’s challenges and celebrate wins to overcome obstacles as we ride on the waves of change.  Change is the unchangeable law of progress.

It was a challenge to do so.  Lonely and overwhelmed that was because I didn’t know better how to manage my own feelings, to have better communications and seek professional help.  I can resonate with the situations in many families growing pains.

The problems are not going to go away.  Invest in educating yourself and working from within to understand yourself better and find out what you really want in the different areas of your life.  Get a Life Coach who stay neutral and bring the best out of you and work towards a common goal for all to benefit as a family.  No short cuts.  If one spouse is not happy, the rest of the family will not be as well. It will affect the children’s well being.

What really stop most parents, is the fear of working on themselves. It requires courage for us to face our own fears. The step by step process of Stop Parenting Start Coaching Programs enable parents to first become aware of their parenting styles; Their behaviors, their beliefs, their habits and their values.

One tip I gave to parents is to exercise.  A parent asked, “Don’t tell me that every time I feel stressed I must go to the gym?”  Well, there are many things that one can do, “Swim, listen to positive and inspiring audio on the way home.”  ”Go to Coffee Bean or Starbucks to unwind with buxom friends.” “Have a fancy ice cream.” “Treat yourself to a SPA, massage or watch a comedy.”  Do something you enjoy and have fun!

When was the last time you had fun?

One of the teachers that I learned from is Byron Katie.

She says she realized the cause of her intense suffering and depression “was not the world around her, but the beliefs she’d had about the world.”   That was what speaker and spiritual teacher Byron Katie said in her ‘Soul series’ interview with Oprah Winfrey.

I regularly visit Byron Katie’s teachings whenever I am stuck in my communication with my kids. Listening to her audio does help me get out of my disempowering state of mind.   I also listen whenever I go jogging which is twice a week now to feel good and to build my fitness and my mind muscle.  Getting ready for the next marathon in December!

Start to take care of yourself, your beliefs about the world will change to serve you powerfully. The way to develop parent leadership is to put yourself as the priority. Love yourself.

Most parents’ problems are very similar.  My kids don’t listen to me.  They are rude to me.  I don’t expect them to talk to me the way they talk to their friends.  I am not used to the language they used.  I wish they would follow the good things I do but instead they follow the not so good things that I do.  I wish they do what I say and not what I do.  Does it sound familiar to you?

Many parents I talked to in my Stop Parenting Start Coaching workshop, knew that parenting is the most challenging job in the world.  Yet committed parents hang on to this job for dear life.  Letting go means losing their identity. The question they asked is, “What would I do?”  I am not proposing that you give it up.  I am suggesting you get a life!  24/7 watching what your kids do and parenting is not very healthy nor effective.  Why do I say that?  Kids need space to be themselves and so do you.  We all need to grow.  The world is changing too fast.  Either you ride on the waves of change and enjoy the ride or be suck into the sea of change and drown.

Begin to invest in yourself, get educated, learn what you need to learn.  Learn to update yourself with the use of technology, enrol yourself into the University of Life.  Be the engineer of your own life.  Put your personal growth as a priority.  You will find communicating and building relationships with your children is easier when you are on the same wave length with them.  Look out for more articles for tips on ‘how to get my kids to listen to me!’

Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad & Mentor is Keith Cunningham! He talked about how successful people like Warren Buffet stay focus on the Rules of the Game.

I am going to summarise it and share what I got out of it. This is my perception.

Making money is a different story from keeping it. How true for me too.  When I was not challenged with money I buy things that I don’t really need.

Stay in one core focussed business – your own!    Do yr own due diligence.

Imagine you are in a debate

Ask yourself as many questions as possible. Questions that you will not ask beginning with “What can go wrong? What can go right?

Most people do not think about what could go wrong.

Ask your team the same questions and see how they answer you.

Most people are intelligent but forgot to use it.

Optimism is not your friend.

People listen to the story, if they like the story, they take the deal.

Emotions = Ideas

Emotions are, a killer!

If you don’t have skillset tools all you got is your emotion.

Luck is not a strategy for wealth.

Getting rich and staying rich is an intellectual game.

Getting rich requires consistency

Getting rich is boring

If you want excitement, climb the Mt Everest without Oxygen

Jump out of helicopter without the parachute

Go scuba diving without your oxygen tank

Listen only to other people’s mistakes & what they learnt about themselves & how they got out. Who they become. 

Don’t listen to  ideas about getting rich , however rich they say they are or looked like they are.

This is Keith Cunningham’s website

http://www.keystothevault.com/news/news_b.html

Excerpts:

In a recent interview, the new CEO of Citi, Vikram Pandit made a startling announcement. He said Citi would divest themselves of businesses that did not fit with the rest of the group. “We’re getting out of all our hobbies and focusing on our core competence.”

This is without a doubt one of the smartest things I’ve heard a Fortune 500 executive say in 25 years! The reality is sticking your nose or your pocketbook into things you know very little about is a prescription for disaster - Keith Cunningham

http://www.keystothevault.com/news/news1.html

For Cunningham, who has mentored thousands of successful business people, the worst offenders advise readers that the way to get rich is through passive income — which means you do nothing and the money will do it for you. “They mistakenly think there is no need to be active in your business or your investments,” he says.

Then, there is the fabled promise of working “on” your business compared with “in” your business. According to this theory, you are a “loser” if you are an employee or are self-employed working in your business. “Apparently, only investors and business owners not directly involved in the day-to-day operations of their businesses have the mentality it takes to be millionaires,” he says.

Tell that to Bill Gates, who, in the first years of building Microsoft personally reviewed, and often rewrote, every line of code the company shipped. Michael Dell or Warren Buffet still regularly clock 60 to 70 plus hour workweeks.

Another common myth found in many bestsellers is that it just takes one brilliant idea and then you can be rich. “Lots of people have great ideas,” says Cunningham. “But if you can’t execute on that idea and show how it provides a sustainable competitive advantage, its just a pretty thought.”

“The key to building and sustaining wealth is to learn and master critical business skills,” Cunningham, says. “I believe the most important skill a business person can have is financial literacy, the ability to read and understand financial statements. Otherwise its like an airplane pilot who doesn’t understand what all the flight control dials do.”

Feel free to expound.

Cheers!

Dolly Yeo

93636559

www.mindset-coaching.com

www.mindset-coaching.com/blog

Get your free chapters of my E-book “Teenager Parenting 101”

Here: www.ParentingWithDolly.com

We went to many seminars over the past few years and the intention is to apply what we learnt. 

It’s great to have a group started to be there for each other.  I know that no man is an island.  No woman is an island too.  You can’t denial that woman now are more educated and can contribute to the evolvement of the society effectively.  In good times and in bad.    The challenge is always the ‘balance’.  

We brainstormed and came up with common shared values. I thought it was fantastic.  For a start, this would be our foundation as a mastermind group.  Thanks to Giselle for intiating this project!  Bravo girls:)

If parents were to think that giving children what you don’t have is good may want to think again.  If children do not know hardship it is harder for them to take setbacks.  He also said, you see why nowadays, there are so many children who cannot take it, turn to undesirable substance and disempowering actions. I tend to agree with him. 

Resilience

Resilience is a process, a life journey. 

Children watch how you handle hardships, challenges and overcome obstacles. This is where the emotional behaviour comes into play.  They do what you do not what you say.  Are we consciously aware of what we think, feel and say?  If you talk about be thrifty, are you?  If you talk about be healthy, are you? If you talk about happiness, are you? How congruent are you?  Food for thought.

Dr Susan Lim, Chairman and CEO of Stem Cell Technologies (i), a leading adult stem cell biotechnology company headquartered in Singapore; Was interviewed in Channel News Asia. She said that we can live upto 150 years old!  Bravo, I like that.  If you have not read my earlier blogs, I mentioned that I walked out of a Seminar several years’ ago with my mind shifted! 

According to the Seminar Speaker, Marshall Thurber, we could live up to 120 years.  From a retiring mindset, I walked out all zesty to do something different!  I believed that I could live upto 120 years and it was a turn around of my thinking.

Dr Susan Lim’s interview reinforced my believe and it’s all very exciting.  I hope men and women experience the same shift in me.  Life just begun!  Where do you see yourself 3 yrs down the road? 5 years down the road?  If it is too long for you.   Think about what are the things you have always wanted to do and have not done.  Be a child again!

What do you want your life to be about?  If there is something you wanted to do and have not done thinking it’s too late, it’s too difficult, it’s no use, think again!! 

Six months’ down the road, what are the List of 50 things you want to do?

• Climb the highest building in S’pore?
• Swim 2 laps non stop?
• Participate in your children’s school’s Cross country run? 
• Join the public speaking club e.g. Toastmaster’s Club? 
• Trek to a waterfall?
• Learn to sing
• Take up a new course for a career change
• Do your own business

How to live a long, strong and joyful life?

Since I walked out of that Seminar and knew that I want to live a long, strong and joyful life, my mindset was shifted. I knew I want to get out of my comfort zone. I do my research and read ferociously.

• Trekked to Jerangkang Falls, Tigers Fall & many others in Malaysia
• Climbed up the 60 storeys Republic Plaza,
• Cycled 40km organised by OCBC
• Swam from Esplanade to the Merlion
• Went night cycling with my children,
• Climbed Mt Aspiring in New Zealand
• Climbed Mt Kinabalu
• Enjoyed the 4-wheel drive into the jungle & camp there
• Set up my Mindset Coaching business 
• Attended loads of Seminars, Courses, talks and got myself re-educated again. 
• I realised I value myself, I am worth it!!
• And many more

From too difficult to Just do it!

I did all the things that I have no idea that I would do before.  They were all too tough, too much work, challenging, no use, all the negative thoughts.  I have learned to trust, let go and trust.  Just do it!

I also realised today that it has been six years already.  If you have not started to get out of your comfort zone, shift your mindset, one thought a day, start today, three years from now, you will see, feel and experienced a new ‘you’.    Guaranteed!

Men are caught up with being bread earners.  Women complain that they don’t help with raising children, help out with household chores.  Some men would say that the women do not allow them to interfere with playing those roles simply because they want to do it their way.  Interesting and quite true.  Women often feel guilty when they are not doing what traditionally are expected of them to do.  By doing so, they feel overwhelmed and end up very stressed trying to cope. 

Shift of mindsets

For women to shift their mindsets, they must first be clear with what they really want in life for themselves. Boils down to expectation of themselves, learning to love themselves and creating ‘me’ time and letting go of their traditional roles.  Allowing their spouse to get involved.  Letting go of being perfect.  Clarity is power.

Self-leadership

It’s about changing the mindsets of both men and women.  The women’s guilt and how men can take on more roles than just being the bread earners and be more proactive in this process. Integrating men and women’s leadership skills.