R for Everything All at Once

R for Relevance

This is an article about resilience but in multiple angles of my mind. Writing this with a 1.5 month boy next to me, 2 year old screaming, 12 year old looking for snacks and a 17 year old texting me via WA.

Is this article relevant to resilience. Depends.

Enjoy!

R for Remember when....

Whilst in a session with a group of 30+ pax, focusing on Agility and Resilience.

And towards the end of the session. I'd go...

"Guys..... We've got to be resilient. We've got to flex our minds, inner muscles and capabilities to prepare for what's coming next. It's all about finding that inner strength to go that extra mile in whatever you do and not be afraid of failure...cause you learn from failure. Building resilience and being tough, where whatever is thrown at you - YOU can handle it."

This is often what I speak about in workshops and seminars on this topic. The words just come out so smoothly and explaining the whole concept of resilience like it's a walk in the park.

When the world comes crashing down on you....

R for Reality

I think that business these days are picking up despite whatever people are saying just by judging the number of work that my compatriots have been taking on in the past few months and also speaking to friends who are running other type of businesses. 2023 is a come back year, supposedly.

Though for me, 2023 taught me a lesson, despite it only being just 3 months + old and with 9 months left in the calendar. I'm just about my 2nd year in where I'm running my own business as a speaker and trainer, and it ain't that easy.

R for Remorse

The biggest challenge I had was my own expectations. 2022 was awesome. Plenty of opportunities, groundbreaking moments for myself and my companies. 2023..Loads of stuff still, plenty of work, but...it ain't ground breaking or pushing it up to the level I want to. Plateau.

Ugh...

Like any other business, sustainable growth is an aspiration. So I was expecting more clients, bigger deals, better margins, good feedback post delivery etc. At the moment, it's somewhat same-o-same-o. Yay, but a small yay..

Eat my own words. Literally.

R for Rejoice

It's funny when things aren't going as planned, you start to refer back to your own notes to find answers. I looked up my notes, spent hours reading and researching how I can cope with my own mediocracy, toughen up, be sharper and soldier through. It got completed when I even ended up having a chat with a new friend for quite a bit too...He's everyone's friend at the moment I think, his name is ChatGPT. Funny enough, he makes sense *sometimes*.

I rejoice this memory. Honestly.

3.5 months in, post CNY, Post HNY, Post new baby in family, I was in a state of no where, so I thought. You know when things aren't so great when emails have a high ratio of going outwards but minimal inwards emails. It should be balanced right?

R for Rejig

Then this past few weeks, suddenly things went KABOOM and I'm now on the other side of resilience - which is persevering on demands that far outweigh supply.

Suddenly, the momentum going forward starts to pick up and I am now thinking that 24 hours a day ain't enough. Probably many would disagree with me ie work life balance, manage your work yada yada...enjoy life etc etc. That's true, but I am afraid to lift off my feet of the gas, and suddenly the momentum just drops. Cause in this line of work, we've got to push hard and get to what we want - That's the real hard truth for any line of work I think? Ok lah, some works may not need that sort of push and you can just rely on routine and structure to get things done. OR maybe it's just me. Go figure.

Show me the moneyyyyyyyyyyyyy....

R for Reminder

One of the things that I always set out to do you YOY is to have a hard target on my sales and profits. Of course, I won't share that here 😅 but hypothetically what if I'm aiming for RM1 million a year, and effectively we need about a revenue of RM84K a month average to get to that target. So that's an average of (if I go on basic fees per day - 10-15 sessions a month (direct) or 20 sessions a month (TP) ) 😮

I've got this bad habit of peeking through the palms of my hand when looking at my company accounts (all companies) just to look at the figures. It's either I'm hoping for the figures to suddenly grow or hoping that after all the payments there's something left at the end of the month. LOL. It's only wishful thinking.

The real truth, I check the company accounts daily. It's serves as a reminder that, if I ain't doing nothing, it ain't moving. It's just my thing. Or probably that 'accountant' in me is just wanting me to be curious.

R for Relationship

We need cheerleaders. And there's plenty out there if we just peek out the window, tbh. The past few months, there were plenty of catching up, random calls, DMs, WAs and virtual meet ups. Just again, going through the standard run of the mill - How are you? How are things? What's new and exciting? Gosh / Wow / Sorry to hear that / What the *** / Let's go lepak / Can you pay my money back / When is the baby due?

I start to look back at the past 12-16 months or so, what really made me got to where I was, were the people I've connected with and spoken too. So if I follow the same formula, I should be connecting with more people, building stronger relationship with the current ones I have (that I like and they like me to lah).

I'm probably trust people too easy but have always been happy to help people where I could, with that slight hope (I know I shouldn't) that they'd do the same for me. So far, it has worked and it's been interesting to see some relationships matured and the some being the ones that DRIVES me forward.

R for Resilience

Ok. Resilience for me can't be judge at the 'now'. In fact you can't really judge it until you have passed a point where you are able to reflect in totality, then you CAN achieve what you call resilient look out point - and tell a story about it. It's a never ending journey, continuous but with many peaks and lows that you can time stamp it for achievements, learnings, I told you so's and regrets.

So, really really, resilience building to me is to just soldier through with full belief that you have given your best in ALL angles possible. A bit of grit, sweat, tears and that slight discomfort of doing or going somewhere unknown. That's to me, expecting the unexpected and forging ahead, is building real resilience.

R for Random

This is really a random article with random thoughts being patched together. I really am a learner in all forms and function, but at the same time I share my learnings when I deliver my sessions. Let's keep on sharing our random thoughts together, and learn.

Looking forward to writing a much better article with proper context soon! Hope everyone has a good week ahead.