Last night, I occupied myself watching John C Maxwell’s videos again and particularly one kept me awake an hour — an hour long speech where he impromptus after finding out he’s going to be speaking to an awesome bunch of leaders from a certain company. (Youtube link here)
He titled his presentation “The rule of 5 for for lifting your leadership lid.”.
It’s about how you, as a leader, if you could rank your leadership capacity and based on that rank, the type of followers you’ll attract are the levels below which your leadership capacity is on — and in terms of an institution or a company, your followers are your business itself.
This means your organisation rises and falls on the level of your leadership.
So to build a better company or business, you’ll need to attract better people/customers by raising your leadership rank, or in this case your leadership lid.
John’s 5 rule to lift your leadership lid, by employing them EVERYDAY, are:
1) Lead Yourself — Lead by example. People do what people see.
2) Add value to people — Value your people. Don’t discount anyone.
3) Study leadership — Never stop learning about leadership.
4) Practice Leadership — Empower and teach others to lead others. Train more leaders.
5) Grow intentionally — Employ yourself to be in an environment where you can grow as a leader.
Harvest these 5 rules every single day, and John says that you’ll be able to raise your leadership lid.
IMHO, he’s basically repackaging the mantra of teaching yourself discipline and intentionally moulding yourselves into a successful leader.
Jacky and John are brothers, and if you’ve known the history of this blog’s early posts, together with me, we founded Jacky Printing in 2007.
Well it’s 2015 now and John has been steadily running his own printshop, while Jacky has been steadily restarting his own, and me?
Good question.
So anyways, today is the day I met John after months of us being busy with our own setup, and it was indeed a good catch up, just like old times.
You see, John had called me to assist with his printshop’s networking setup, which I rectified gladfully after running a few tests, tweaking a few details and sprucing up the PCs and Macs — just like how I did 5.5years ago — and I did it again today because I wanted to and I kinda miss our old conversations.
So yeah, 5.5 years did flash by indeed, and what have I been doing huh, or a better question would be ‘Where am I after all these years?’
Both John and I asked the same, while I shrugged and sighed while sharing a bit of the past, present and future.
A future plan was what I told him of and indeed I’m going to be intentional about it, because just minutes ago, another John had inspired, motivated, and he advices to be living life intentionally.
This ‘other’ John is John C Maxwell, and if you’re like me, I’m sure you’ve heard of the name before but was never really aware of what he does, or who he is even.
Well, today I found out, accidentally of course, and I’m glad I had the chance to have met John C Maxwell for the first time, and I think he is arguably THE best speaker on earth right now.
How good a speaker? How about 12,000-speeches-under-his-belt-over-50-years-and-sold-25-million-books and still as humble-as-a-pie good? ** I’m not even sure if that pie figurative line is accurate or apt?
Yes he IS that good, and after watching him for the first time on youtube with his ‘5 levels of leadership’ video, I got sucked into an hour long video of his “15 Laws of Growth” video, of which he only shared 3.
That’s right, he only shared 3 out of 15 and expended 1 hour doing so, mesmerising and motivating incessantly along the way.
And if you’d know of his 5 levels of leadership, he’s got me hooked on Level 5.
He has my Respect as a leader.
Anyways, here are his 3 laws out of 15:
Be warned, you might just get motivated and start being intentional with your life.
You know that lingering anxious feeling you have when greatness approaches?
It evaded me last Saturday and Sunday. I was carefree. I was callous.
Bouts of flu and fever, boundless constraints on resources and respites, and yet, thankfully, I am fortunate enough to be given a teeny weeny sniff of success for my latest World Magic Cup Qualifier #1 (WMCQ1) outing, last Saturday/Sunday at Suntec City, with my ABZAN Hangarback Aggro tweak.
It was the WMCQ1 for Singapore and us half-decent Magic:The Gathering (MTG) players aren’t just going to let am ungodly registration fee of $60 ($45 if you pre-register) daunt us as we made our way, on a lovely Saturday morning, filling up room 331 of Suntec City.
So I got 4th, losing in the Semis to MARDU Dragons, piloted by Bryan Ong; Stormbreath Dragons still rule these skies.
I’ve never been this close to a major Finals, and had to settle for the Semis.
Still awaiting my first major tournament trophy and still harboring hopes of being in Barcelona.
My crescendo for the event: beating Horny Taxi Beng, leaving him devastated and forlorn, to draw into top 8. Still, with a name like that, he was easily the coolest being in that room.
Surprisingly it wasn’t an exhilarating or super exciting experience — instead it was a calm, collected and carefree one, not just for me but for my playtest buddy, Ming Yi too, who woke up at 8.45am for a 9am event, but somehow still managed to squeeze a quick bath and arrive on time with a homebrew (Mono Blue) deck for Game 1.
Actually my crescendo was that I won all games from round 2 and from round 3 onwards, winning ALL my rounds 2-0. I had an unprecedented 80% match win, before I drew with my final opponent, who was quick to insist on a draw as his percentage point would increase, while mine would decrease.
Nevertheless, since I was on a callous mode, I didn’t really mind if I was 8th, 9th or 10th if we drew, so I told him something like, “Oh well, if I’m in, I’m in. If I’m out, I’m out. We are drawing our game, Sir.”
Long story short, ladyluck smiled and I returned to GamesHaven the next day, still in my carefree mode, and plundered away.
Now.. I just want to slowly sip this warm water with lemon drip, and recover from this lingering fl.. ah.. ah choo!
Don’t get me wrong, I love how movies interact with the common mind — especially one like mind — that’s open to concepts, ideas, imaginations and endless adventures.
And these are just some of the movies that have truly provided me with a memorable adventure thus far this year, and in no rank or order:
Good Kill: Ethan Hawke’s quiet, dour, pent-up frustration culminating in self-disgust and climaxing in a self-righteous moment is one hell of the adventure of a ‘war on terror’.
The Imitation Game: Alan Cumberbatch’s faith is unwavering and his commitment is self-afflicting.
Voices: Ryan Reynolds can do no wrong in probably his best ever screen time as a self-appreciating and conflicted man.
St Vincent: Bill Murray still entertaining when he’s not trying to entertain, and indeed a saint-like ending.
Penguins of Madagascar: Just entertainingly hilarious and a wildly crazy ride.
The Hunger Games: The Mockingjay: Part 1: A quiet, serene crescendo building up towards something good. Hopefully.
Interstellar: Out of this world, but ending a bit too ambitious, but still a mind boggling trip.
Rurouni Kenshin: A Legend Ends: Stylistic japanese samurai-era fight scenes and cinematograpy/choreography.
John Wick: A cool, neverending anti-hero, heroic story.
Birdman: Not quite my movie of the year, but a refreshing journey into a new style of filmmaking.
Gone Girl: A clever murder movie that’s gripping.
The Mule: Disgustingly got me hooked till the end. Has to be good right?
Nightcrawler: In your face, unethical, but thrilling like an illegal joy-ride.
Dark City: Never too late to enjoy the best that sci-fi has ever introduced.
These are just among the many that I’ve immersed into and feel like worth mentioning that the production team have all excelled in producing their movies, but if I had to pick my top 3 thus far, it’ll be:
Interstellar: The more you watch, the longer you ponder. The longer you begin to ponder, the more you yearn to watch again.
RuRouni Kenshin: I want to watch this piece over and over and over.
St Vincent: I teared at the end, but it’s just deservingly touching, and I’m sure I’ll still be entertained watching it second or third coming.
“Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine.”
Go watch the movie, it’s not that bad really, and you’ll know — and be thankful that this ‘no one’ persevered, else we wouldn’t be living in our world of S4s and iphone Pluses.
It’s been for the past few months now and I’m training myself to work really hard to make things work.
You know how you’re trying really hard to achieve greatness that only you seem to see the path that you’re on, while external forces moan and can never understand nor support your cause?
Well, if your big break has yet to arrive, don’t give up and keep on moving.
So I Came across this 2012 video featuring the song of Taufik Batisah and Rui En, and it felt apt.
Enjoy~
Oh, and Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to you and family.
This is a continuation of my previous’ How I Met Your Mother blogpost of how I’m finally going through with watching Season 9’s penultimate finale for the show’s series. Warning: it is an awesome series and wholesome finale. This post isn’t a review of the show or the episide, but just a pickings of my thoughts immediately after the end credits.
It had to be her.
Through hell and back, through sickness and sadness, through loneliness and the unknown. It had to be her.
Robin Sherbatsky.
Without trying, it comes full circle.
Even when he’s gone off course and distant charted from her, even when it took him 7 years and two kids to culminate in a Thursday marriage, and even when it was that same wife that persuaded Robin for the inevitable reunion and he works hard to fiercely love his newly wedded wife and life, it comes full circle.
Robin Sherbatsky. And the blue French horn.
That blue french horn.
This blogpost could never depict the joy the series has bestowed over the past years, and it’s 4am now.
I can’t believe that I’m on the verge of watching the final of the final of the final episode of the series.
A total of 9 Seasons, a total of 208 episodes and I’ve watched 206 of them — the last one, #207 & #208 being season 9’s finale.
Wow, I’ve watched nearly 400 episodes of One Piece as well, and that’s nearly double of How I Met Your Mother, but there’s just something special about this show.
Unlike Friends, unlike Roswell, unlike any other rom-com or family comedies that I’ve grown up with, I can’t really say that I’ve grown up watching this show.
It’s just been the last 2 years or so that I revisited every single episode from the pilot and it just so feels that I’m blessed to have experienced it, a show of bromance, romance, family, parenthood, childhood, workship and most of all, of friendship.
There is this overwhelming camraderieness or warmth when it comes to friendship material in this show, and of all the show I’ve known, this one takes the cake, glazes its own icing and places itself into the fridge so that you can have a slice of it at any time and it’ll be the coolest thing you’ve tasted, ever.
Ever.
Ironically I hated the show the first time I watched it, years back, and I hated it without even watching the show ever — but I’m really glad that I took on a chance and made myself sit down after watching an episode which I couldn’t remember that forced me to watch the series all the way from it’s Season 1’s pilot episode.
What if I had continuously snubbed the series’ gleefulness?
But I’m glad I didn’t.
And now, it just feels a little overwhelming that I’m about to watch the mother of all finales, pun intended.
I don’t mean this post to come as an overture for the show — I’ll probably do that some time later — but rather just as a gathering of myself moments before the ultimatum unveils itself.
It’s just, unbelievable how things work and culminates itself to this moment now, because it seems surreal.
But I guess like any relationships that one bonds with, it’s just a little hard to know that the day has come for us to say our goodbyes.
And sometimes, we have to say our goodbyes.
How I Met Your Mother, Season 9, Episode 23 & 24, well bring it on.
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