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The Amazing Power of Whisper

Recently, I watched an Instagram reel of a father called happy.human.life using the power of whisper to calm his young child and speak to her in a whisper. She had to stop screaming and yelling, get close enough to hear what her father was saying, and did exactly what he asked her to do.

Next time if you are in a heated anger or having a meltdown, STOP. Switch your raging anger from shouting or yelling or screaming – to calm down to speak in a soft whisper, if possible. See if this works to diffuse the heated situation – but my guess is that it will take some practice…

In the story of Elijah, God showed Himself in a gentle whisper – after the strong wind, after the earthquake, and after the fire:

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. – 1 Kings 19:11-13

God had shown His mighty strength and power in many instances – the ten horrible plagues against the Egyptians, parting of the Red Sea, crashing down the walls of Jericho, etc. However, God speaks to us through the soft prompting of the Holy Spirit, in a gentle whisper, so that we must draw close to hear Him. We also need to have a peace and quiet mind to discern His voice and understand what He is saying.

This is the Amazing Power of Whisper.

Steal Your Future, Kill Your Dreams and Destroy Your Confidence – NOT

I recently heard this from instagram posts by liveoutloudbrooke, where she explained about the famous verse from John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy – she confessed that this verse used to scare her, until someone explained to her the steal, kill and destroy part:

The enemy is coming to Steal Your Future, Kill Your Dreams and Destroy Your Confidence.

Have we not realised how our enemy is constantly defeating us – by stealing our hope in the future, burying all our long-forgotten dreams, and making us lose our confidence, not only in ourselves but also in our God?

This is a reminder to the second part of this same verse in John 10:10:

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Yes! Jesus is our Redeemer and Saviour! He has redeemed us from our hopelessness, despair, and shame to grant us:

  • An Abundant Life
  • Dreaming Bold, Audacious Dreams and
  • Having full confidence in who God is, and who we are in God.

Instead of allowing the lies of the enemy to steal, kill and destroy us – believe in our God who has come to give us an abundant life. We are meant for MORE, MUCH MORE. God always instil in our hearts His divine dream and calling for us, and we will always be restless until we heed His calling to do His divine will. And after that, He still wants to bless us MORE and MORE!

That’s how I have started this blog in 2019. I felt I have much to share, and I wanted to gift it for my 50th birthday in 2020. Then I slacked for a few years, losing my momentum and my motivation. This year 2024, I have a renewed “push” by the Holy Spirit to do this for God’s glory, and He has blessed me with divine inspiration every week (Monday). I pray that my readers will be inspired to seek their divine calling and thirst for more of God’s blessings in their lives.

Are You Asking Big Enough?

I watched this video by Terri Saville Foy – God told her that she is not asking big enough. God told her to ‘ASK BIG and BELIEVE’.

Whether you believe in God: What do you ask for your life? Do you believe you are worthy of great things in life, or do you feel you are not worthy?

Basically, whether you are asking big enough – begs the question before this – What are you asking of your life? What do you want in your life? Then you can decide – is it BIG ENOUGH – and let the fun and excitement begins!!!

Why don’t people ask for the sky? Children have no limits and just ask for whatever they want, including the sky and the ocean! As we “grow up”, we become more realistic and practical, leaving behind the crazy idea of asking without limits.

God is telling Terri, and the rest of us who believe, that you can ASK BIG and BELIEVE. We put God within our human realm of ability, and figure He can’t do more than that, because that’s how far our limiting belief could imagine or what we feel we deserve. However, God is not constrained, not even by our wildest imagination.

Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us – Ephesians 3:20

I believe God is inviting us to dare to ask Him – Big Time!!! Next, align our hearts to His heart and BELIEVE. Like a child who asks her father excitedly for something she wants and waits expectantly knowing that her father will fulfil her wish. That’s the way to go!

Don’t ask me what I’m asking for – as I want you to stick around and find out for yourself! What I’m asking for – is something impossible for me – but not impossible for God. On this eve of my birthday, I am certainly ASKING BIG!

Using Scaffolding to Build Your Dreams

I read Adam Grant’s book, Hidden Potential, which introduced the concept of scaffolding. We stop dreaming when we don’t see a way to achieve our dream. That’s why the author came up with the concept of scaffolding as a temporary structure to support the building of our dream.

When people can’t see a path, they stop dreaming of the destination. To ignite their will, we need to show them the way. That’s what scaffolding can do.

In Part 1 of his book, he explained the difference between personality and character:

• Personality is your predisposition – your basic instincts for how to think, feel and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts

• Personality is not your destiny – it’s your tendency. Character skills enable you to transcend that tendency to be true to your principles.

It is the skills of character that is the basis of the scaffolding. The last century had seen the shift from developing character to improving personality traits. However, we should return to building and strengthening our character, and to have a growth mindset. The author talked about accelerating growth by “embracing, seek and amplifying discomfort” – which he did by making more mistakes. I believe that we have an unhealthy concept of mistakes – viewing them as failure and to be avoided by all cost. Our society has a high acceptance of success, without realizing that the journey of success is paved with many mistakes and failures – stories that are not often shared. The truth is that mistakes are often valuable lessons to be learnt to help us reflect and grow.

Building a dream is not easy – but it is worth it. Never lose hope for your dreams – use whatever scaffolding to support you as you embrace discomfort in the pursuit of your dreams.

Magic Happens Outside of your Comfort Zone

Continuing with last week’s post on Roxie Nafousi’s book, Manifest, her third step is Align Your Behaviour – to show the universe what you believe you deserve. And that means taking proactive actions to align with your most authentic self.

Every single time you step outside of your comfort zone, you attract abundance to you. This is because magic happens outside of your comfort zone – Roxie Nafousi.

We have a tendency to stay stuck in our comfort zone, as we fear failure when we step out of our comfort zone. It takes courage to venture into the unknown and explore new adventures. I believe we learn more from our failures than our successes. Each failure is a lesson learnt. We grow through our failures. Our society frown upon failures, encouraging us seek safety and comfort instead. However, it is only in our leap of faith into the vast landscape of opportunities do we feel truly alive and excited in doing what we have dreamt of. The magic is in living our dreams!

One of the ways of aligning your behaviour is creating daily healthy habits. John Maxwell believed that: you will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine.

Some suggested routines are:

  • Morning Routine to start the day – meditation, exercise, affirmation, visualisation, journaling, planning for the day
  • Evening Routine to end the day – review of the day, planning the next day, gratitude journaling, spending time with spouse and/or children
  • Daily Routine – drink water, eat nutritious (non-processed) food, sleep early, have movement/steps, pause and close eyes, take a few deep breaths, pray, read, do something different every day (e.g. change your route to/from work).

I believe in magic, or miracles, in our lives. When we open our eyes to seek the magic and wonders in our lives, we will recognise them. Magic happens when we dare to pursue big bold dreams.

Question: What is the Magic you are seeking in your life?

Manifest the person you want to be

Last year, I read the book ‘Manifest’ by Roxie Nafousi. Her first step is – Be clear in your vision. Instead of focusing on manifesting things, we should focus on manifesting the person we want to be. For me, this mean the journey of becoming the best version of the person I want to be.

When visualizing your ideal future, visualize not just what you want to manifest, but the person that you want to be – Roxie Nafousi

In her book, her second step was to remove fear and doubt that blocks manifestation – to do the inner work of healing. We have to master our thoughts, be aware of what we say to ourselves and the language we use, to use positive affirmations and to practice visualisation.

She believed self-love is the driving force behind manifesting. I always thought of self-love as doing things to care for myself, e.g. going for massage, reading a book over a nice cup of tea, listening and dancing to music when no one is watching. I realise that it is more than doing things to make me feel good – it is a way to honour who I am and who I want to become. And it goes way deeper – it is empowering.

Self-love empowers you to step into your light, to step into your greatness and to open up space for abundance to enter your life – Roxie Nafousi

Self-love also means forgiving myself and putting my past behind. To take my past mistakes as lessons that I needed to learn. To be kind to myself – to recognise my achievements and appreciate how far I’ve come in my life. And to be confident that I can dream big and achieve greater heights by manifesting the highest version of my Future Self.

Manifest Exercise – describe the person you want to be.

How can 10X Be Easier than 2X?

10X is Easier than 2X - based on the book of the same name.
10X is Easier than 2X – based on the book of the same name.

The proposition that 10X is easier than 2X was so counterintuitive that I was immediately intrigued by what the speaker, Dr Benjamin Hardy, was saying in his Instagram channel. In his book with Dan Sullivan called “10X is Easier than 2X”, Dr Benjamin Hardy explained that – 2X is a linear process of increasing your quantity whereas 10X is a non-linear fundamental QUALITATIVE change in your Vision and Identity. It’s not about more, it’s about LESS. It’s a simplification and filtering system – that strips away 80% of your current life that is not serving your 10X goals and focusing on the 20% that is relevant and making an impact towards what you want to achieve. It is a process – a process of becoming a new person.

10X is the means, and FREEDOM is the end – the freedom of Time, Money, Relationship and Purpose.

2X is doubling what you are doing now, but you can’t 10X what you’re doing now. You essentially have to change who you are and how you’ve been doing things. Benjamin Hardy’s journey came at the moment of full commitment – the Point of No Return – where he shifted his identity and energy from avoiding what he feared to fully approaching what he wanted most. He said,

“Make your goal impossible then ask yourself how you can create these “unless” conditions to make the impossible, possible.”

He said that 10X goals are easier and less competitive, as we are out of the majority market of people pursuing 2X goals. We got to be thinking out-of-the-box, be creative and innovative, and be hyper-focus. We are not required to be 10X better as 10%-20% better or difference can produce 10X bigger results. And that’s the beauty of this concept! I absolutely love this visionary idea!!!

Bittersweet Year of 2023

I was totally struck by the interview between Mindvalley’s Vishen Lakhiani and author Susan Cain. She has a new book called, “Bittersweet – How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole”. I was so intrigue that I quickly got this book and read it. Her previous book, “Quiet – The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking” is the de-facto book for introverts.

Her book helped me to accept pain and sorrow in my life. It is healthy to recognise the emotions of pain and sorrow as part of life – that there is no escape. Her book gave me so much hope in that it encourages me to acknowledge and accept the bitterness of life, and transforming it into creativity, transcendence and love. It is after experiencing bitterness that we treasure the sweetness of joy even more. And it had given me inspiration to transform my biggest trials this year into exploration, discovery, adventure and renewed confidence. Basically, it was God’s way of pushing me out of my comfort zone into the next level of who I can become.

In her book, Susan Cain wrote the real reason for our emotions is to connect us. And Sadness, of all the emotions, was the ultimate bonding agent. We can see this in the movie, “Inside Out”. We can see it in funerals, death and grieving.

Sadness triggers compassion. It brings people together.

It is humbling to go through sadness and sorrow. But when we go through these emotions, they can bring us closer to other people through our compassion, if we allow them. It helps us sieve through our overwhelming noise and distraction, and connect us to what matters most. And this can lead us to take committed action to transform the bitter to the sweet. Let the bitter lessons of life bring renewed hope and joy, gratitude and compassion, to people around us.

What do you do when you lose your momentum?

The 7 Habits to Keep Momentum Going

The new year for 2023 started exciting enough, but I kind of lost my momentum as January progressed and the festivities of Chinese/Lunar New Year started. That’s where the third part of Evan Carmichael’s book Momentum comes in – The 7 Habits to Keep Momentum Going.

  1. Morning Routine – setting a routine to start the day with energy and to do what matters most
  2. Chunk Your Time – batch similar tasks together, and setup a Weekly Routine
  3. Big Why / Little Why – a reminder for today for your Little Whys when you lose sight of the Big Why – in other words, what I do today towards my goal matters
  4. Tie Your Self-Worth to Your Effort, not the Results – just put in the effort of showing up, and be the person who shows up, the results will eventually come
  5. Pass the Pillow Test – ask the question: Am I proud of myself? If I didn’t follow through, ask the question: Am I proud of my reason why? However, be gentle to myself
  6. Join A Community – of like-minded and like-actioned people, get your supporters and be a supporter
  7. Focus on Who You Are Serving instead of who you aren’t – continue to reach out to those I am serving, and not be affected by those I am not serving

This post is about my showing up and keeping my momentum. Yes, it has been a challenge maintaining my momentum, but I am reminded not to give up.

As it is still in the season of Chinese/Lunar New Year, I will end this post with: HUAT AH!!!

Take Action to Start Your Momentum

Continuing on Evan Carmichael’s book on Momentum, taking action is the next step after shifting your mindset. He starts with the 2% difference – to start immediately even just a small difference. Then have a mini plan of 5% and start doing 95% – this will help you to start the momentum and find out what works and what to improve at the next cycle. Start small to learn what works and what doesn’t work so you can improve on it.

However, do expect things to be challenging as you start, especially when you don’t know how to start. The best way to avoid backing out is to tell and commit to someone. Also, elevate your environment by auditing your energy – reduce energy vampires and collect good people who support and inspire you.

One interesting thing he suggested to change your state is through music. He has a playlist for how he wants to feel. I used to put a playlist when I did photo processing. I also find energetic music motivates me to exercise better.

As I come to the last few hours of 2022, I would like to reflect on the year that is coming to an end. I have started on the momentum of my journey to become a journal author, and I need to remember my intention when I’m having my doubts and insecure.

As I welcome a new year for 2023, it is my sincere prayer that each of us will pursue our god-given dreams and take action to keep our momentum to always move forward. Never give up!

Shift Your Mindset for Momentum

Recently, I read Evan Carmichael’s book, Momentum. It was easy to read and understand, practical and full of insights.

The first part talked about mindset shifts. I realise that everything is about our mindsets, which controls most of our lives, whether we are aware of it.

In our lives, we sometimes have great ideas. Yet how many of us actually act on them. As fleeting as an idea comes in, it flies out just as fast. We talk ourselves out of it when we stop and (over) think. So, his litmus test is this: if you are feeling bold about the idea, it is the right one for you! Believe that great ideas do flow through you! Believe in yourself and your great ideas! We do love our bold ideas, and when it passes another test he calls the “Boom Boom Boom” test where you body tells you, then you should definitely go for it. Think Boldly! Be Audacious (I love this word, it sounds so delicious)!

What I love most of this mindset shift is this: make big decisions with the heart, small one with the head. How to create alignment with your heart and mind. Your heart will be excited with your bold idea but your mind will be terrified as it overthinks it. So what do you do? Let your heart focus on the Why and let the mind work out the How!

The 4Rs of Winning the War In Your Mind

I read the plan, ‘Winning the War in Your Mind’ in YouVersion, a Bible app that I use regularly. It is by Craig Groeschel, based on his book of the same name. I would like to share the 4Rs in his plan:

1. Replace the lies with the truth of God – identify the lies we tell ourselves, and replace them with God’s Word in our hearts

2. Rewire our brain, renew our mind – constantly declare God’s truth to create new neural pathways in our brain, to renew our mind. Yes, it is very true that we can rewire our brain with new neural pathways!

3. Reframe our mind, restore our perspective – we cannot control the circumstances in our lives, but we can control how we think about it. We can gain God’s perspective for the situation and discern His will for us. Most importantly, we can believe that God is in control and will use the situation for our benefit (mostly to develop and strengthen our character)

4. Rejoice in the Lord always – rejoice in all our circumstances, as Paul did even when he was in prison. What Paul did in prison was to praise God for Who He Is, i.e. God is good. What struck me was that Paul praised God before God saved him and before God showed up. Bottom line: we can change our perspective through prayer and praise.

Our mind is a battlefield. We can only win this battlefield in our mind with God’s help. It is God’s Word and Truth that we can conquer the battlefield in our mind. Let’s start to identify the lies and Replace them with God’s Word, Rewire and renew our mind by declaring God’s Word, Reframe our situation in God’s perspective and Rejoice always in the Lord. Alleluia!

12 Week Year

Many years ago, there was an American movie called, ‘Honey, I shrunk the kids’. That’s what I feel like when I first read the book, The Twelve Week Year, by Brian P Moran and Michael Lennington. They challenged the Annual 12 months planning, to shrink it to 12 weeks.
The starting point is the vision, the emotional connection, the purpose of it. So why 12 weeks? It is more predictable, more focused, and has a better structure and more importantly, better execution.
The important lessons I have learnt from the book are:
– It is not a knowledge problem, it’s an execution problem
– The emotional connection with my vision, my compelling reason
– Doing things consistently – on a daily and weekly basis
– Measuring effectively – measuring both the execution and the results. We tend to measure just the results and get discouraged. By measuring execution, we can determine if our execution is providing the results we want. This was what really struck me – measuring execution.
– Accountability is not consequences, but taking ownership of our choices

After using this 12 Week Year for 12 weeks, I found that the idea is good, but my implementation was flawed. Without an accountability partner for the Weekly Accountability Meeting, I was not measuring effectively. Measurement drives the process and without it, I was not achieving my results.

I also realize that I needed to take control of my time – to spend time intentionally, to be mindful of how I spend my time. My biggest time-waster is social media, where I can scroll through them for hours. It is also my biggest distraction to be checking my WhatsApp – even while typing this sentence!!!

Bottomline: this is a very good book and awesome concept. I need to implement it in a way that works for me, and I need an accountability partner.

Learning as Your Superpower

I recently shared at a book club on Jim Kwik’s book Limitless, how he changed his mindset from the boy with a broken brain to a mind expert with a limitless mindset. We don’t always get to control the circumstances in our lives, but we always have a choice how we view the circumstances in our lives. That’s why our mindset is so important.

Our mindset is the one that will help us view our circumstances as hopeless, or, hopeful. With a Limitless mindset, we can open our minds to new possibilities and adventures for our future. Learn as much as you can – about yourself, your hopes and dreams, your strengths and weaknesses. Learn about the opportunities around you and how you can add value to people and/or situation around you. Learn something new, something that you have always wanted to learn, especially those who find themselves stuck at home during this Covid lockdown. Have a mindset of Continuous Learning to open your eyes and widen your perspective of life. As as Jim Kwik would say: Learning is your Superpower. It’s time to activate your Learning Superpower and make an positive impact on people around you!

 

We are all Influencers in our own space

Last week, I attended the online InfluencerSummit, hosted by Brendon Burchard. It was an amazing online event with many of the top notch speakers ranging from Jay Shetty, to Jenna Kutcher, to two of BossBabes’ founders, Natalie Ellis and Danielle Canty.

Let me share the lesson I learnt from Jenna Kutcher, who helped me realize that I am an influencer in my own space, be it my family, friends or workers. Her mission: Being Enough – Own Your Enoughness and Help Others Feel Less Alone – speaks volume to me, as I struggle to feel good enough in my different roles, even writing in my own blog. This feeling of not “being enough” can isolate us as we don’t even feel worthy enough to seek help. This belief that we are indeed enough, is essential as we live out our different roles and follow where our dreams take us.

She encouraged us to find our Super Power, as she said, “We are way too close to our own genius”. What I find to do so easily and naturally, can be a challenging task to another person, and we say, “That’s not a Super Power!!”.  We are all geniuses in our own rights – it is a matter of recognizing and acknowledging our genius. The way to find out is to ask people close to us or who work and/or interact with us regularly. Another way to figure out is ask this question: what are you the go-to person for?

I suggest you remove the limited definition of an “influencer” as defined by social media and marketing industry – and be intentional as an influencer in your own space, knowing the value you can add to your community and creating an impact for positive change in the world.

5-Second Brain Hack Rule

Perhaps you have heard of the 3-second rule where you drop you food and you can still pick it up and eat it if it is within 3 seconds. Recently, I heard of the most interesting 5-Second Rule by Mel Robbins. It is a brain hack where you count down 5-4-3-2-1 to interrupt your habit loops and prompts you into action. Instead of hitting the alarm clock snooze button, you count down 5-4-3-2-1 and get out of bed! 

Basically, it is a fact that we are never going to feel like doing the things we should do (e.g. exercise), hence we need to stop waiting to feel like doing it. We need to determine what we want, and practically force ourselves to do it. Just like how our parents used to force us to our homework and do house chores, now we need to “parent”, or force, ourselves to do it. 

When you want to do something or have an interesting idea, act upon it within 5 seconds, before your brain hijacks you and talks you out of it. When you see someone interesting and want to talk to him/her, go over and say ‘Hi!’. If you think longer about it, you will most likely “chicken out”. When you think of exercising, quickly put on your proper gear and walk out, before you change your mind. When the alarm clock rings in the morning, count down 5-4-3-2-1 and get out of bed. Overcome your inertia or procrastination by this simple 5-second rule! Your daily battles come down to this 5-second decisions you make every day! You need to determine what you want, then do what you need to do to get what you want! Try this 5-Second Rule!!!

The time is now. Stop hitting the snooze button on your life.
– Mel Robbins –

Free Bagel vs Long Queue

Free Bagel

Simon Sinek told this interesting story: after a run, he wanted the free bagel but his friend didn’t want to wait at the long queue. He realised that some people see the thing that they want, and some people see that thing that prevents them from getting the thing that they want. Simon Sinek could see the free bagel but his friend could only see the long queue for the free bagel. It was so funny the way Simon Sinek repeatedly said, ‘Free Bagel?!’

How often we want something but we are usually prevented from getting it because we can only see the trouble or hassle in getting what we want. Even a simple thing like going out for a nice dinner, when we think of the traffic and parking, we may just opt to order GrabFood!

Let us focus on the thing we want, instead of the obstacles in its way. Think ‘Free Bagel!’. Once we focus on that, then we can find ways to get what we want – which was what Simon Sinek did, even without queueing up! As Simon Sinek mentioned, Life has a funny way of looking after you! 

Memorizing Bible Verses

As a Catholic, memorizing Bible verses is not a natural habit. In a recent course where I had to memorize a Bible verse/passage every week, I have learnt to appreciate how this habit benefitted me.

Firstly, it helped me to know God’s word intimately. Secondly, it helped me to pray better, using Bible verses. Thirdly, it calms me down when I worry or feel overwhelmed. Fourthly, I am able to share these Bible verses to encourage or comfort those in need of God’s love. Lastly, it draws me closer to God.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James 4:8

So what I have done now, is that I started collecting my favourite Bible verses by searching them online for some nice images with the Bible verses, copy and paste them into my Microsoft OneNote page. I find it nicer and easier to memorize them visually.

This month, as I pray anxiously for my family’s health matters (surgeries), I found that memorizing the Bible verses has helped me focus on God instead of worrying. Every time I find myself worrying too much, I turn to my list of favourite Bible verses and start memorizing them. Truly, there is power in the Living Word of God. Amen!