'Holding' the audience - the art of communication

I am not a very confident public speaker. I often feel trembling when asked to give a presentation or speech to large group of people. In the past few weeks I evaluated and improved this area in my work place and caregroup. I attend my company's weekly meeting with seniors and managers. I participate in the meeting to report the KPI of my function, review other function's KPI and discuss ideas to solve problem. In the church, I led discussion and chaired caregroup program. Though the group size is smaller, I consider it as good training ground before I speak to a larger group of people.

I learned something about 'holding' the audiences when we speak to them. Holding them means we are fully engaged with them during the delivery. Here are some tips I discoverd:

• We have to be very clear of what we want to deliver and what we want the audience to receive. Planning is required most of the time.
• We have to connect with the audience by being relax, friendly, be ourselves, humorous and personal if possible.
• Observe and pay attention to the audience at all times!
• Be self-confident!
• Finally, it is not about ourselves; it is about others. No matter what happened, take it easy and see the bright side of life!

The Beauty and Power of our Five Senses

One of the greatest gifts God has given human is their five senses: ears that can hear, eyes that can see, mouth that can taste, nose that can smell, and skins that can feel. All these senses receive information constantly and send it to our brain. Our brain is like the CPU (Central Processing Unit) of computer. Once our brain receives the information, it interpretes it and responds to it.

The senses we use frequently are hearing and seeing. But do we maximize the usage of these two senses all the time? I think no. Our mind may be idle or asleep even when we are physicall awake. As a result, we are not very alert and sensitive to the surrounding, happening and people. This will eventually affect our effectiveness to achieve something great in life. We need to constantly be alert, watch and observe by hearing and seeing in order to help ourselves and others. Do not waste this precious gift given by God!

Love vs. Fear

By nature all of us have fears. We fear for different reasons such as below:

• Health deterioration
• Money not enough/Losing our job and income
• Loneliness
• How people perceive us
• Losing our ability, power and influence
• Failure and defeat
• Weakness
• Uncertain future
• Many many......

Fear is harmful. Fear controls and cripples our lives slowly even without our notice. Fear limits us to live life to the fullest. Fear makes us lose our patience easily. Fear causes us to take matters on our own hand. Fear induces us to make rash and unwise decision. Fear is a trap set up by the devil. Once we fall into it, we are in its vicious circle and it has no end to it.

I thank Jesus for saving me from the chain of fears. His unconditional love always satisfy my deepest needs. When I fall in love with Him, I feel as if I have overcome all things in life, even death. When I feel fearful, I don't allow fear to control my mind. I call upon Jesus who will never leave me or abandon me, who loves me and knows what I am going through - my struggle, my pain, my feeling, my thought, my burden, my everything. He really cares for me.

1 John 4:18b - But perfect love drives out all fear. This verse summarizes everything I said above.

Something about my hobbies

Swimming is a very good sport. It helps to reduce stress and refresh the mind. MM LKY at one period of his life swimmed very morning. No wonder his mind is always so sharp despite living in his old age. I am determined to swim twice a week to exercise my body and refresh my mind.

I really love the DSLR camera I bought two weeks ago. It can shoot photo incredibly fast - in less than 20ms. I love to capture the funny shots and eye-catching moments of event. Picture really speaks thousand words so I posted many pictures in Jedi's blog. I bring it whenever possible so I can utilitize the equipment for maximum "investment return". As I am a beginner, I still have tons of knowledge to learm about photography. My room-mate, shepherd CN, many colleagues and friends also know photography better than me. I can tap on their experience and knowledge in my learning journey.

Footprints

Below is a Christian poem that I like a lot. I shared it with the people when I led praise and worship last CG.

Footprints

One night I had a dream--I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord and across the sky flashed scenes from my life. For each scene I noticed two sets of footprints, one belonged to me and the other to the Lord. When the last scene of my life flashed before me,I looked back at the footprints in the sand.I noticed that many times along the path of my life,there was only one set of footprints.I also noticed that it happened at the very lowestand saddest times in my life. This really bothered me and I questioned the Lord about it. "Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,you would walk with me all the way,but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my lifethere is only one set of footprints. "I don't understand why in times when I needed you most,you should leave me." The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child,I love you and I would never, never leave youduring your times of trial and suffering. "When you saw only one set of footprints,it was then that I carried you."

...Mary Stevenson

Making Our Relationships 'Fireproof'

The 'Fireproof' movie screening presented by our district lastnight taught me a lot of things about relationship.

1. Love is not a feeling. Love is a decision. When Caleb decided to do anything to salvage his marriage, he followed the suggestion given by the lovedare book to love his wife eventhough he didn't feel like doing it.

2. "Do not leave your partner when there is a fire" the famous quote of the movie. He learned this from his profession - fireman. A broken relationship can be amended. So do not give up.

3. Persevere on when things get tough and when we don't see the expected result. I feel sad for Caleb when Catherine does not respond to his love acts after 20 days or so. The relationship seems to get worse after all that he had tried. The breakthrough came finally when he surrendered all his life to God.

4. Coach people to handle relationship problem and be with them throughout the journey. I admired the way Caleb's father guided him to go through the tough times. His father is so loving and patient toward his son. He prayed for him regularly. He visited his son from a long distance when his son feels very discouraged. What a wonderful father!

5. We can't love more than we are loved. We can't forgive more than we are forgiven. When we know Jesus' love, forgiveness, we know how to love and forgive others.

The Art of Relating with People

Relating with people is one of the most important aspects of our lives, if not the most important aspect. I have come to learn the following principles in somewhat a hard way:

1. Be natural - God created each one of us uniquely. Everyone is so special in the eyes of God and so loved by Him. We don't have to compare ourselves with others and pursue some standards that God do not set for us.

2. Accept others - Before we can build any relationship, we will have to learn to accept people as they are. Do not judge people too early based on their outward appearance, social status, wealth, etc...We will not appreciate them when we start to perceive people negatively. When we know how God accepts us when we do not deserve it, we will know how to accept others.

3. Interested about others - God loves us and he know every detail of each individual. He even know the numbers of our hair! When we know how much God interested about our lives, we will be interested about others as well.

These are very basic principles. But they will bring us a long way.

Jackie Chan Incident

I unexpectedly met Jackie Chan when I went to Vivocity this Monday evening.

He showed up on stage to promote his latest movie Shinjuku Incident. The place was so crowded. He gave some short speeches to the crowd and then left the stage. When I headed to the basement foodcourt, I happened to have close proximity with him as he also walked down to the basement car park. Then I and a few others stood along the barricade to wait for him to pass by. We waved at him at a distance when he passed by. He came over to give a pad on our hands and ran up to his van! I think I was lucky to meet him in real person for the first time and had a chance to get 'close' to him. Sometimes life is full of surprises.

Wisdoms from Ecclesiastes

I am in the middle of reading Ecclesiastes and I really love this book. Below are some wisdoms I extracted which is very relevant to my life. I hope you enjoy them as well.

Eccl 7:10 - Don't say, "Why were things better in the good old days?" It isn't wise to ask that kind of question.
I think this verse is warning us against dwelling in the past - the good old days. We must not love our past. We must always look forward to the next best thing to come.

Eccl 8:6 - There's a proper time and way for people to do everything. That's true even though a man might be suffering greatly.
We have to do everything properly when required even though we might be suffering greatly from things such as personal issue, trouble, bad mood, etc...I know this is tough but by God's help it can be trained. This is especially important in our professional job.

Eccl 8:9b - A man sometimes makes life hard for others. But he ends up hurting himself.
We must not make life hard for others. Otherwise we will end up hurting ourselves. I think this is basic rule for building good relationship but we must be careful not to subtly fall into the trap of making life difficult for others.

Eccl 8:14-15 - Here's something else on this earth that doesn't have any meaning. Sometimes godly men get what sinful people should receive. And sinful men get what godly people should receive. Here's what I'm telling you. That doesn't have any meaning either. So I advise everyone to enjoy life. A man on this earth can't do anything better than eat and drink and be glad. Then he will enjoy his work. He'll be happy all the days of the life God has given him on earth.
I think Solomon is trying to tell us the importance of enjoying and living life to the fullness everyday. Don't ever live our day by comparing our "righteousness" with other people and the "reward" we are supposed to receive for being "righteous". We will end up being very unhappy because God does not promise fairness. He only promised justice. Our duty is to obey the Lord and follow His lead everyday. We must not use our wealth and status to measure our level of righteousness because such formula does not exist.

Eccl 9:10 - No matter what you do, work at it with all your might. Remember, you are going to your grave. And there isn't any work or planning or knowledge or wisdom there.
No matter what we do, we must work at it with all our heart and might. We can't do it when we are in our grave. Isn't this make perfect sense?

The Art of Surrendering to God

Surrendering to God means we must learn to "let go, and let God". It's about laughing at ourselves when we make a foolish mistake, face with weakness and failure, feel incapable and powerless. It's about not taking our selves too seriously. It's about acknowledging our shortcomings and inadequacies to learn from each experience.

It's about not dwelling too long in our successes and becoming concerned about our status, recognition, reputation and wealth. It's about moving on to do the next important task God calls us to do.

Surrendering to God also means forgiving others when they offended us. It's about seeking understanding and love instead of judgment. It's about thinking to ourselves, "I know I am a sinful person. Perhaps I did something that created misunderstanding and caused the person to treat me the undesirable way. I must give benefit of doubt to the person. I must seek to know and understand the person better to save and rebuild the relationship"

In other words, surrendering to God is about forgetting ourselves, focusing on God and others.

Proposed Trip to Mt. Kinabalu

Anyone wants to take a break in the second half of this year? Are you interested to get to the highest point (4095.2m) in South East Asia?

According to officials, the wetter season runs from October to February and the dryer season from March to September. Wet wheather is not suitable for climbing. So I propose we go there in Aug or Sep period.

It is one of the easiest mountain to climb in the world. Do you believe it? However, you must be physically fit to endure some challenging areas as steep as 45%. The reward is you get to enjoy a lot of beautiful and breathtaking sceneries throughout the climbing.

4day/3night is needed if we don't want to rush. Further, we also can spend one day in Kota Kinabalu city to experience the local cultures and foods. The total cost of the trip can be as low as below S$500. Accomodation must be booked at least 4 months before to the trip. (I intended to go in May but it seems to be too late to do the booking)

For those who like outdoor activities and adventures, this is MUST GO!!! Drop me a message if you are interested to go by end of April.

The below website contains a lot of details of the Mt. KK climbing.

http://www.mount-kinabalu-borneo.com/index.html

Hope in Israel-Arab Conflict

I am extremely interested in the event happening in the Holy Land. The Bible is originated from there so I feel burdened to read more about the history there to understand the issue better. And I am interested to find out whether the Bible reveals certain thing about what is happening there in the present days. I also have many questions why God would allow so many sufferings happen in the Holy Land.

By reading news through the media, we will tend to blame Israel for the terrible sufferings they inflicted on the Palestinian. The videos and pictures of children and women get killed or severely injured would cause the people to feel sympathy toward the civilians in Gaza instead of the residents in Southern Israel. No body knows what is under-reported and what is over-reported. A lot of things are controlled by the media. I think Hamas has achieved their aim as the world start to condemn Israel for the 'crime' they committed.

Through the webcast of "Gaza: The Case for Middle East Peace" in the World Economic Forum website, I listened to the speech of Peres-Israel president, Moussa-Secretary-general of the Arab League and Erdogan-Turkey P.M. Each share their views on the conflict and the solution to address the issue. They are seating beside each other and their speech contain a lot of emotions. Israel president impressed me the most. His speech is powerful. He told me things that I do not read from the media. He also use facts to substantiate his points well.

He mentioned about Iran. Iran dislikes Israel. Their leader ever says that 'Israel should be wiped off from the map'. Such statement is denying the existance of Israel nation and carries the intention of destroying it. It is perfectly logical that Hamas rockets are supplied and funded by Iran to carry out their agenda against Israel. The official policy of Hamas does not recognize the existance of Israel. Iran did the same through Hezbolah 3 years ago in the Lebanon war. The president says that Iran's ambition is to rule the Middle East.

Israel president also said that Israel does not want to go to war, their goal is to achieve peace. They had done it with Eygpt and Jordan before. Israel has the will to help Palestinian establish a state for themselves. That's why they worked closely and is progressing with the other party in West Bank. Why they can't do the same with Hamas in Gaza?

I think this is not entirely the fault of the Hamas movement. They were selected through democratic system introduced by the West. Why would majority elect them to be the government since they deploy extreme policy toward Israel? Reason being that the people in Gaza is not ready to make permanent peace with Israel. Most of them still have a lot of hatred and bitterness toward Israel due to the burden of history.

I am glad to hear that Israel has been supplying water and electricity to Gaza and they make sure no one there is starving. In order to change the hearts of the Palestinian people in Gaza, Israel has to go extra mile to show their kindness and reach out to their needs. Since Israel are a stronger and blessed nation, they have to love their enemy just like what Jesus taught. They have to help them build their country and give to the poor extraordinarily. Perhaps when the hearts of people are genuinely touched and loved, they will one day forgo their bitterness and hatred. That day, Israel and Palestine will coexist peacefully and become a good friend/neighbor.

Now, the enemy government is ruling the area so to do what I suggested above is extremely challenging.

The spirit of the darkness is at work in the hearts of hardened people. God's people, be strong and courageous! Do what is right!

Work - Back to basic

My cousin is doing extremely well in his career in Singapore. He graduated in 2004 and barely worked for 5 years. But he is now earning big time in the energy sector. His pay is almost doubled compared to his peers' on average in the engineering field. He obtained many valuable certs of his industry within a short time and became a very sought-after engineer. People usually get those certs when they reach their 40s. At the age of 30, he already has a wife, a baby girl, a house and a car. He told me the next goal is to obtain a few more important certs, join a giant energy company to get better pay and bonus and buy a condo. What an amazing guy!


Talking to my cousin leads me to reconsider the meaning of work. I think work means using our skills to do something to meet a certain demand. Let's go back to the basic of work. In ancient time, most of the people worked the land to produce food for their living and survival. Food is a demand in that time. Of course, skills are required to carry out the work. The skills determine the productivity and result which will be translated into some form of return. We call the return wages in modern economy.


I remember the current generation would say things like, "I am not interested in my work". I wonder whether this is a valid statement. When we talk about interest, there are a lot of feelings involved. Our interest may change over time as well. Further, our interest may be not relevant to the demand of the economy. Imagine, a person is very interested and reasonably good at singing but in his village people would not pay him a cent to sing. In order to make a living, wouldn't he get a day time job and treat singing as his leisure activity? A person who truly works would think about whether their skills and abilities meet the job requirement or the demand of the economy. In this argument, interest became a secondary issue. Very few people use their interest as work to make a living. However, many people tend to be too concerned about their interest and ignore what is the demand of the economy.

Recently Singapore government introduced SPUR (Skills Programme for Upgrading and Resilience) to encourage employers to send their workers for training during this downturn period. The good thing is that people get a chance to upgrade their skills and hopefully they come back equiped with better skills to improve their work productivity. The government has to address the two challenges to make SPUR successful and the money well spent. The first is make sure the workers sign up the right course and come back with targeted improvement. The second challenge is ensure the training provided is relevant to the future Singapore economy.

牛 Year '09 home trip

I had a awesome and wonderful trip. For the first time, I feel so trouble-free in taking transport when I visited home. I followed my ex-classmate JinCai's car to go back on the 24th dawn and followed my cousin GuiHui's car to come back on the 29th afternoon. I think I was very thick-skin when I requested them to give me a ride...haha. When I was in Banting, my good friend PengKiat came back and forth (35km) from Klang to pick me. In the evening, he sent me to 1U, back and forth again. I was thankful but he said I was too 客气(courteous)！

On the first two days, I helped my sister sell home-made CNY cookies at 1U. I tried my best to be a good salesman to the aunties and 小姐(young ladies)。We hit RM1700 sales on Sat and RM800 sales on Sun (half-day) which is considered very good. I was amazed by the willingness of the customers to spend on our relatively-expensive cookies. Later on I learned from my sister that they are many rich people living in the area. Another unforgettable event is that my sis 美芳 was interviewed by NTV7 reporter and was broadcasted on the evening news.

My father surprised me by cooking reunion dinner for us (my mum was away during this new year). He never did it for us as far as I remember. The dishes are grilled fish cooked with garlic and ginger (it is slightly over-cooked), veggy soup, 菜花+prawn+pork. He also bought and prepared roasted pork and chicken for the dinner. I was quite touched by his act of love. I also feel that his relationship with my 2nd sister had turned better.

The happiest thing this CNY is I can meet quite a few families and friends whom I treasured. I hope to spend more time with them and keep them in my prayer and thought.

The Conflict in Gaza Strip

I had been following the news on the Israel-Hamas conflict. I am saddened by the many innocent civilians killed during the war. I would not comment who is right and who is wrong. I think both side is equally wrong in many ways.

To Hamas:

1. You smuggled in weapons and fired rockets at Israel to kill innocent civilian is wrong.
2. Your movement policy is to wipe out Israel from the map. You are extremely wrong because you plan to murder a nation.
3. You trained suicide bombers to kill themselves and innocent lives. You disresgard dignity of life so you are wrong.

To Israel ruling goverment:

1. You are wrong because you invaded Gaza to advance your political cause. You have an election on February and you want to save your 'face' from the humiliated war in Lebanon 2006.
2. You are wrong if you imposed unreasonable blockade and without providing aid to the Gazans. That caused the people to live in a 'cage' and suffer great poverty.
3. During your operation, you did not exercise your utmost restraint from killing innocent lives. Palestinian death toll is 1300+ (50% are confirmed civilians). Israel death toll is 10 soldiers and 3 cilivians. Your force is far too disproportionate. This is not a war. This is a bully. You are a big bully because you attacked a defenceless nation to show your military might.

Why these two nations have a long history (almost 100 years) of war? They cannot live in peace because they have not overcome their hatred, intolerance, misunderstanding and selfish ambitions. As long as these human weaknesses still exist, we will not see sustainable peace soon.