My Holland, Author at EQuest Asia

“No Pain. No Gain.”

It’s funny. We all have big dreams of fame and fortune, success and happiness, and yet …the minute we’re faced with some challenge, some sort of obstacle or hindrance along the way, right off the bat, we shelve them with raised arms in surrender and give them up totally. Why? The experts have an explanation for this. In his book “Ego Is the Enemy” Ryan Holiday writes that a primary obstacle to success is the idea of success. Your mind seduces you in a powerful way such that the idea of success becomes more satisfying than success itself, so you stop at the idea of success and never make it real. It’s so easy to dream. There’s no pain in it. It’s so easy to tell your friends about your ambitions, create visions of success and wealth or define your goals. And that’s where most people stop. The very act of dreaming stops you from making your dreams come true. Consequently, when you attempt to do the things required towards achieving your dreams and hit a stone wall of resistance, more often than not, you immediately distract yourself from this discomfort with some kind of fleeting pleasure, creating some sort of this-won’t-hurt the comfortable situation. Robert Green, in his book “Mastery” explains that you can learn to love this internal resistance. You find some sort of perverse enjoyment in transcending the pain you might encounter in pursuit of achieving your dreams. In truth, the author contends that the discomfort or even pain that usually come with personal growth and success should be embraced. They are an affirmation that you are proactively putting yourself through a transformative process. Another theoretical idea that explains why we easily give up on our dreams is the 40% principle. This essentially is the threshold number when people feel they’re all maxed out mentally and physically and therefore stop when they are at only forty percent (40%) of their capacity and potential. Going beyond 40% of this capacity is when things get to be rough, get to be uncomfortable, or when pain is likely to set in. It’s at this juncture when just about everyone rushes to put his/her dreams in the back burner. For the few rare individuals who thrive and succeed, this is a definite NO-NO! When they do things, they never stop until it’s complete. So, how do I get out of this rut? Two inspirational thoughts: A life that doesn’t include hard-won accomplishment and triumphs over obstacles may not be a satisfying one. There is something deeply fulfilling, even thrilling in doing almost anything difficult extremely well. And from the great Mohammed Ali… he reportedly lived by this… “The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up”.

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Does Your Company Have A High Level Of Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional Intelligence / My Holland

It’s a fact. A good organization displaying a high degree of emotional intelligence will tend to develop your skills and talent and help you to become a better and more productive individual. In pursuit of your professional career, you may be looking for the right job, or you may in fact already be employed in a company but may not be too sure whether it’s worth your while to stay in it. Here are three important questions experts say you need to ask yourself to rate a company’s emotional health: Would you want to be friends with your company? Friends, in general, make us happy. So if your organization were a person, would you be glad to see it and feel happy when you come to work. There’s usually some sort of a spark of energy and enthusiasm when we spend time with friends. Do you get this same “oomph” when you step into your office and begin to face that desktop computer? Like a friend, a great company will listen to what you have to say and value your opinions. Sure companies have their own way of listening to its people – face to face meetings, in-house surveys, and interviews – but top management’s doors should always be open to listening to your concerns like a friend does.Is your company open, frank and honest? Does it share with you its dreams and visions, its goals and challenges, and how it plans to face these? Of course, you shouldn’t expect your company to tell you everything, but it should have a level of openness that won’t alienate you and your peers. Friends don’t do that. Does your company see you the way you see yourself? There has got to be the right fit in there – between the company and you. In the context of race or sexual orientation, for instance, the environment should be completely open-minded and welcoming. If you’re gay, you should be encouraged to be as open as you’d want to be. If you value career and personal life balance, the company should have supportive policies towards achieving this. In other words, its value systems should run parallel to yours. Is the company set up to help you (and other employees) become a better person? Good companies have mentoring, coaching and various training programs to help develop your skills. They’ve got a set-up where new employees learn from the more senior ones. Too, there’s generally a feedback scheme from your immediate supervisor and other leaders from whom you’ll learn how to do things better. You’ll improve a lot more and faster if your managers constructively share their observations with you. It’s a good organization if they have a set of ideals including courtesy and respect for one another, the importance of teamwork, the need to listen and respond to others and the value of caring. Should your answers to these questions be positive, rest easy, you’re in good company.

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Empathy: The Crucial Quality Common To All Great Leaders

Emotional Intelligence / My Holland / Empathy, Leaders, traits

To be sure there’s a host of other admirable traits that make up extraordinary leaders – confidence, resilience, determination, integrity, fortitude, honesty, courage, vision and care for others, etc. etc. All these and more have been manifested in the personas of Winston Churchill, Bill Gates, Peter Drucker, Steven Spielberg, Martin Luther King, Margaret Thatcher, Lee Iacocca and many others who have earned similar levels of appreciation and respect. Perhaps the most important of their traits though – their common denominator … is empathy. What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to vicariously experience the feelings and thoughts of another person. It’s about being able to put yourself in another individual’s shoes and sort of go through what he or she is going through. As opposed to sympathy, which is almost always associated with profound grief, empathy may happen even in happy occasions. Here’s what Simon Sinek, the noted author of “LEADERS EAT LAST: WHY SOME TEAMS PULL TOGETHER AND OTHER DON’T” says about empathy. While most people consider rank, power, and privilege to be the cornerstones of leadership, Marines believe that true leadership is the willingness to place others’ needs above your own. Simon goes on to say that wanna-be leaders have got to be able to build a mindset that puts people first. He/she has got to see people as human beings rather than a means to the completion of a transaction or a project. In the context of customer interactions, practicing empathy is about working on a relationship based on serving rather than selling. With your peers and co-workers, clients, suppliers, and associates in the industry, you may demonstrate empathy by asking “Are things okay with you?” When you place yourself in someone else’s shoes, you’ll get to understand their needs better, which is the fundamental element for successful connectivity. What Oprah Winfrey says. For decades Oprah has been known to have built great rapport with her TV guests and audience. She’s been able to continually foster and maintain deeper connectivity with them by asking meaningful and probing questions that bring out implications and feelings. She says that leaders who practice empathy can have a more significant impact and influence. They use this empathy, this ability to relate to and connect with people – to inspire and empower their lives. And so … running a business or managing an organization? Take away what you can from these useful insights and be a true leader. Practice empathy.

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My Holland

“No Pain. No Gain.”

Does Your Company Have A High Level Of Emotional Intelligence?

Empathy: The Crucial Quality Common To All Great Leaders

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