Tell My Mother Told Me...Tale 9 "Being Present"

Welcome to Tales My Mother Told Me...

Tale 9 : "Being Present"

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, 

concentrate the mind on the present moment".
                                                          - Buddha

This tale came about when I was at a dinner party and it was one of those great dinner parties where you have the opportunity to reconnect with some old friends that you haven't seen for a while.  However, there was one aspect of the party I was quite disappointed at. So I decided to tell mum about it.

"Mum, I have this friend that I find really annoying and others agree too. I have to say he is not a close friend as such but we do meet up from time to time" I said with frustration.

"So what was it that he did that you find annoying?" asked my mum.

"Well, last night I was at a dinner party and  I was chatting with him and he asked me a question and  as I was trying to respond to his question he totally ignored my response and turned his head and started to chat with the other person sitting next to him. It was quite embarrassing and annoying as at the same time the other people at the table also noticed what was going on. One of my friends looked at me and rolled his eyes and said "He does it all the time, when he is not interested in a conversation". The most annoying part was when he decided to resume our conversation he did not bother to apologise and totally ignored the whole thing. Why does he bother asking me if he wasn’t interested?" I asked Mum.

Mum smiled and said "Sometimes people live with an absent mind and they are not present even when they are there with you but their minds have drifted to another place. Many people live their whole lives lost in thoughts of the yesterday and the tomorrow, the true meaning is we should live in the present moment everyday, this is where everything happens. Yesterday was the past, tomorrow is only a promise, today is when you can do something about it in order to have a brighter future. So, take action and be present and live in the present moment".

So you ask, what does being present have to do with running your business?

In fact, it has everything to do with it. Being present means being fully conscious of what's going on around you so you are able to participate in the opportunities that are presented to you. If you are not being present in what you do, you are not focused or clear with what you are attempting to achieve.

Sometimes, we are not present because we're not in it. We keep thinking of the past, what we should have done and so forth... or dreaming about future, like dreamers do. We put ourselves to believe that tomorrow's the day when we'll shine, be richer, be healthier and in a great loving relationship. All these are only wishes, all these will only come true if we  take  accountability and take action today. Today is the key to change, not yesterday nor tomorrow.

Being present takes lots of focus and practice. To do this you need to be engaged in that moment at that point in time and also by  really listening to your surroundings. If you are engaged in a conversation with someone, you need to be focused and be present and listening to what they saying. This is particularly hard when you are not present, your mind will fall in a trend of thoughts about other things such as what to wear for a special dinner or all the tasks you have yet to finish.

Does this sound familiar to you?

Are the thoughts that are running through your mind distract you and create a distance from the present situation? I have to say, guilty as charged!  What I am now trying to do is to be more aware so that I can be more “present” in each and every moment. Remember being present will take sometime to master, however, if there is a will then there is always a way!

Below are some tips to help you in being present in your business:

• Be the observer and look outside of your world. Invest in business books and read them to stimulate your mind and get inspired with new ideas.
• Listen to business audios, chat with like minded business owners, join business network groups to exchange ideas and build connections.
• Open your mind to the universe, let your thoughts flow and be less judgmental and this is how you can find inspirational sparks and great ideas.
• Taking time out of your business will do wonders. It will give you a fresh perspective to life and business. People who adopt this are much more focused and present in their business.
• "Me time" and "Refresh" are the best ways to relax your mind and rejuvenate your soul. Take time out for the gym, participate in yoga and meditation sessions will also help you in being present. Do whatever you feel will calm your mind and relax your body. We are all different so find an activity that will relax you and help find the inner peace in you.
• Cleanse your mind to gain new ideas that allow you and your creative business to grow  and for you to be present and engaged in your business.
• If you are present, you are constantly focusing on your sales and marketing leads and       continually developing new products, services and innovation ideas to growth your business
• When you find your mind distracted and puts you in the future or the past mode, just refocus your awareness back to the present. Really experience how you feel and what's happening around you, without judgment. If we can treasure each moment, your life will be abundant, no matter what you have accomplished.

Being present and achieving results in your business is so rewarding, not just financially but for your soul as well 

So are you present in your business?

Tune in for next week tale Ten...  "Chicken Scratches for What it gets "

More Tales My Mother Told Me...

Volume 1:

Tale 1: "When You Help One, You Help Thousands"

Tale 2: "Your Mind is Powerful"

Tale 3: "The Importance of Self Understanding"

Tale 4: "Being Compassionate"

Tale 5: "Finding the Inner Calmer In You"

Tale 6: "The Magic Pen"

Tale 7: "Here comes the Fair- Weather Friend"

Tale 8: "Confidence & Competence"

Tale 9:"Being Present"

Tale10: "Chicken scratches for what it gets"

Tale 11:"I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done"
Tale 12: "Frog In The Well"

Volume 2:

Tale 1: Pulling Up the seedlings to help them grow
Tale 2: Grind an Iron Pestle into a Needle

Tale 3: Talking about army on paper.

Tale 4: Being Persistent

Tale 5: A Poet’s Writing Skills Decline

Tales My Mother Told Me... Tale 5: "Finding the inner calm within you…"

Welcome to Tales My Mother Told Me...

Tale 5. "Finding the inner calm within you…"

This week I would like to talk about the importance in finding your inner calm and how it can change you as a person and how it can help your art and design business too.

This tale is taking you back with me to my parents' very first factory when I was 6 years old. The funniest thing was I can only recall the part that I woke up from a deep sleep resting on the floor and my mum was beside me. It was dark in the evening and the factory did not have any power at the time. Mum had a kerosene lamp sitting on the floor installed into a power board connector. This was our new business, a wholesaling electrical hardware business. I was scared because it was dark and a new place that I was not familiar with. I started to cry and asked mum where everyone was and where was my dad and my brothers and sisters. 

Mum said "Don't cry my little one, your dad is picking up your brothers & sisters and he'll be back real soon. Have some cookies you must be hungry now". 

I was still crying and telling mum I was afraid of the dark and why did the strange men keep staring at us through our front door. Are they going to attack us? Where was my dad? Being a child you just speak your mind! 

Mum said to me "Don't worry, your father will be soon. Don't cry.

"Ask them to go away mum" I said.

To stop my crying, mum decided to walk up to the men and spoke to them in a very calm manner.

Mum calmly introduced herself and told them we'd just moved here and this place will be our new home. She then went on to explain that we would be having an opening day the following week and invited them along as well as the senior members of the town. She also mentioned that my dad would be back soon and would love to meet them and get to know the locals.

Now looking back, my mum was quite amazing. She is a little lady with an incredible strong and inner calm about her. On one hand she had her child crying, and on the other hand she had to face complete strangers.  I remember asking her how she dealt with the situation and what was running through her mind. Was she scared? Was she intimidated?

This is what she said 'Of course I was scared. You were so young and were so scared and I had to be strong for the both of us. I did not want to face those men at all and wished your father was there to deal with the situation but I had to do this to keep you calm and I could not show any sign of fear to those men. I needed to let them know that I was the lady of the house.

"How did you remain so calm mum?" I asked.

To able to do this you need to find your inner calm. If your mind is calm you will remain focused and you are also able to think clearly and find a better way to deal with any situation. Your inner calm or inner peace is very important for your well being, even in a very difficult situation where you are under pressure. If you have established your inner calm, you will be able to handle all situations confidently and competently.

So from this learning, I would like to show you how your inner calm can be beneficial in applying to your business lifestyle.

As we are now living in a hectic world where at times are full of anger, anxiety and depression, we’re also adding our own emotions, stresses and egos into our daily life. By learning to quieten your mind and to release your stresses, take a deep breath and exhale slowly, this will allow you to clear and quieten your mind. You'll be able to gain clarity and see things from all points of view. On a global level, when you find inner calm, road blocks between people are dissolved and your world or your surroundings no longer seems so hostile. This is because your perception now has greater insights and opportunities.

So to achieve your inner calm here are some of the tips you can apply to your business lifestyle:

1. Keep it simple-Simplicity is the first step to inner calm.

§  Write a simple to-do list. At least 3 or 5 of the most important things you want to achieve today.

§  Understand the difference between the important & the urgent.

§  Build a system for your business- Systems help you organise your business and makes everything run effectively. Saves time and reduces stress. 

§  Set daily limits such as checking your email only twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Set a time frame such as 20 minutes max each time you check your email, as this will reduce any distractions. Also set time frames on your social media networks like Facebook or twitter. If you do set time limits then you won’t wast hours and wonder where all the time went.

2. Accepting yourself & others. If you are accepting of yourself, people and/or situations as they are, then it brings you an inner calm and tranquillity rather than one of anger and resentment. For your business, accepting doesn't mean you are throwing down the white towel and calling it quits. It actually means that you put yourself in a better place to take all necessary actions and if you accept what you have done whether right or wrong you will be able to accept and find the solution to improve and grow your business.

3. Forgiveness-is letting go. Forgiving frees not only others but yourself too. What has happened in the past is history and lets you move on. Do not delve into the past, let bygones be bygones.

4. Express gratitude- always remember to appreciate what we have around us, even expressing thanks to someone, will give you a sense of satisfaction and happiness. This in turn will give you inner peace.

5. Being Compassionate-By understanding yourself as a person will open up your compassion for others.

6. Know your DPP(Desire,Passion,Purpose). Do what you love with desire, passion and purpose. If you’re happy in what you’re doing, then there is real purpose for you to keep going and you’ll like and accept yourself too. This will bring you inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you’ll have more success than you could possibly have imagined.

When you do what you love there is already a natural calm that arises within you. Once your inner world and your outer worlds are aligned, then you are too. You will feel a sense of calm and fulfilment.

7. Acknowledge your inner calm. By keeping yourself cool and in a calm spirit you can accomplish anything you want, even if your whole world seems to have gone upside down and things may not be going your way, your inner calm will be very useful in assisting you in making good decisions and getting things done, just like my mum had to face those strangers.

Even though we live in a complex world, time poor and living in more stressful times than ever, you can still practice inner calm by learning meditation techniques. This will calm your mind, increase your happiness and improve relationships with others.

Tune in for next week Tale 6 "The Magic Pen"

More Tales My Mother Told Me...

Volume 1:

Tale 1: "When You Help One, You Help Thousands"

Tale 2: "Your Mind is Powerful"

Tale 3: "The Importance of Self Understanding"

Tale 4: "Being Compassionate"

Tale 5: "Finding the Inner Calmer In You"

Tale 6: "The Magic Pen"

Tale 7: "Here comes the Fair- Weather Friend"

Tale 8: "Confidence & Competence"

Tale 9:"Being Present"

Tale10: "Chicken scratches for what it gets"

Tale 11:"I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done"
Tale 12: "Frog In The Well"

Volume 2:

Tale 1: Pulling Up the seedlings to help them grow
Tale 2: Grind an Iron Pestle into a Needle

Tale 3: Talking about army on paper.

Tale 4: Being Persistent

Tale 5: A Poet’s Writing Skills Decline

Image from:

http://www.brainharmonycenter.com

Tales My Mother Told Me...Tale 3 : "The Importance of Self Understanding"

Illustration 

by Anthony Van Lam

Tale 3: The Importance of Self Understanding.

This tale took place in our factory back home in Vietnam. I have always remembered how my mum was an extremely good communicator. She inspired people when she connected with them. Even little children took a shine to her and were keen to have a chat with her.

I can recall whenever we had new workers starting in our factory Mum would always make them feel at home. She gave them her full attention and would engage in deep conversations with them. She learnt a great deal about them and had an understanding of what they wanted to do with their careers and in life. Many of the younger workers were unsure what they wanted to do in life. But after a chat with mum, I’d notice that they  started to look at their futures differently. They became motivated and developed a sense of purpose as to what they wanted to do to follow their dreams.

I was quite young at the time, and I loved spending time with mum and listened to the conversations she had with these young workers. At time I tried to emulate how she talked to people and tried to recite the same kind of questions she used to ask the workers too.

One day I was curious and asked mum.

"Mum where did you learn to ask these questions?"

and "how do you know what questions to ask them?"

because when I’m a big boy, I want to ask people the same kind of questions and engage in conversation the way  you talk to them too.

Can you teach me mum?

I want to be like you mum?

My mother looked at me and smiled and said.

“My little one, what is your hurry to learn this?

You have plenty of time to learn.

Don't worry, you will when you become a big boy my mum said.

Even when my mum did explain it to me, I was too young to understand the meaning behind the importance of self understanding.

However, I did recall something like this.

"Knowing who you are, and understand what you want in life is the highest contribution you can make for yourself"

Now when I think back to what mum said, I totally understood the real reason as to why mum asked those questions. They were used to encourage them to think about what they wanted to be in life and what they had yet to discover in themselves.

So what do we learn from this tale?

To be good at what we do in life and in business, we need to invest the time to learn and understand ourselves. WHO we are and to know WHAT we want!

If you understand yourself, then you can understand others and therefore you have compassion. If you care for yourself and the people who work with and for you, then they are more likely to support you and grow your business with you. It is your role as a leader to help build the people around you by genuinely looking after their wellbeing and helping them grow as a person.

In business, knowing who you are, and understanding the importance of the goals that you have set for yourself and by having an actionable business plan with a clear vision and mission will help you understand what your business is all about. So when you share this with your team and they understand the overall vision of your business, they too will feel empowered and aligned to your business vision. This is why self understanding is so important.

Once you understand what you want in business, the people who work with you or for you will understand it too. 

So what do you like from this tale?

Please share your thoughts and leave your comments here or leave a comment on ArtSHINE Facebook page.

Tune in next Friday for tale 4: "Being Compassionate" 

More Tales My Mother Told Me...

Volume 1:

Tale 1: "When You Help One, You Help Thousands"

Tale 2: "Your Mind is Powerful"

Tale 3: "The Importance of Self Understanding"

Tale 4: "Being Compassionate"

Tale 5: "Finding the Inner Calmer In You"

Tale 6: "The Magic Pen"

Tale 7: "Here comes the Fair- Weather Friend"

Tale 8: "Confidence & Competence"

Tale 9:"Being Present"

Tale10: "Chicken scratches for what it gets"

Tale 11:"I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done"
Tale 12: "Frog In The Well"

Volume 2:

Tale 1: Pulling Up the seedlings to help them grow
Tale 2: Grind an Iron Pestle into a Needle

Tale 3: Talking about army on paper.

Tale 4: Being Persistent

Tale 5: A Poet’s Writing Skills Decline

Tales My Mother told me..Tale 2 : "Your mind is powerful"

Welcome to tales my Mother told me...

Tale Two: "Your Mind is Powerful"

Illustration by Anthony Van Lam

This week I want to share with you a story about my mum when she was a little girl.

The story took place in her new home over 70 years ago. Mum was adopted by her aunt and migrated from China to Vietnam when she was only 8 years old. In her new family there were also 5 other children who were also adopted. My grandparents did not have any children of their own so therefore they wanted lots of children to bring noise and joy to their big home. Unlike the other 5 children, mum was alone, her parents and siblings were all still in China, she was lonely and scared in this new family.

Mum was the newest member to the family and it was difficult for her to adjust to this new life, new family and new place and the worst part of all she missed her family terribly.  Her life was not easy in the beginning as she was bullied by an older boy whom I called Uncle Quin. Uncle Quin also has a sister and who was younger than my mum and her name was Aunty May.

Uncle Quin would pick on my mum a lot and whenever there were house tasks to do he always insisted mum had to share the work load with him.  One day, his job was to fill up water in the two huge ceramic urns. He was not happy that he had to do it all by himself and so he made mum fill up the water urns with him as mum was the eldest girl out of the children and he was the eldest boy.

The other children all yelled out to him and said "that's not fair, Big Sis is a girl and smaller than you, you can't expect her to carry water from the well with the heavy buckets and the water urn is bigger than her. There is no way she can do that”.

He grinned and said "well that's too bad! She still has to do it even if she can’t and no one is allowed to help her".

So my mum was left with this big task ahead of her and she had no idea how to get the job done and the more she thought about how big the task was the head chatter in her mind confirmed that it was too hard and too big a job for her to do. She was crying the whole time as she tried to get the water from the well.  Crying for her mum back home and crying for her help.

"Don't cry Big Sis" said a little girl, it was my Aunty Le. Your mum is not here, she can't help you and I am sorry we can’t help you either. We are too small and too weak. Why don't you have a rest, your mum wouldn't like to see you like this. Then mum stopped and started to think back at what her mum said to her before she left home. "My dear child, I won’t be around you from now on, so make me proud, there will be times when you don't feel so good away from home so just remember this "be strong for me, my love, if you are strong, your mind stays strong and you can do anything you want if you believe in yourself".

Mum then stood up tall and walked to Uncle Quin and said "Stop picking on me just because I am new to the family and because I am small. I know you are bigger and stronger than me and I’m not here to compete with you. I may be small and weak and yes it will take me longer to fill up the water urn and that’s okay as I have the time, even if it takes me till midday to finish  the job and I will get it done.

With the heavy bucket, mum filled it half way each time and slowly poured the water into the urn. Although it did take her awhile, she did it and eventually filled up the urns. She achieved this because she changed her thought process.

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think"- Buddha

So, from this tale, I learnt that our mind is incredibly powerful. Your life and your business is a reflection of your thoughts. When you think about that, there is nothing that is too hard or easy…your thinking just makes it so’

Buddha also said "The mind is everything. What you think you become".

In life and business if you think you are weak and hopeless then you are formed by your thoughts. Just like mum, she thought she couldn’t do it in the beginning until she reframed her own mind and instead of giving up she became determined. Her goal at the time was to fill the urn with water and the task was bigger than she could chew so she filled the bucket halfway and slowly she was able to fill the urn until it was full. Just like your business lifestyle if you have a big goal and it’s too hard to achieve, what you can do is to break down the goals to sub goals and into small tasks so it makes it easy for you to manage, so you don’t get discouraged, overwhelmed and end up procrastinating.

Have you heard the funny joke about how to eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

So if you throw away those harmful thoughts and negative actions and cultivate all the positive thinking and goodness you CAN change and inspire your business lifestyle and the world you live in.

Please share your thoughts and leave your comments here or leave a comment on ArtSHINE Facebook page.

Tune in next Friday for tale 3: "The Importance of Self Understanding"

More Tales My Mother Told Me...

Volume 1:

Tale 1: "When You Help One, You Help Thousands"

Tale 2: "Your Mind is Powerful"

Tale 3: "The Importance of Self Understanding"

Tale 4: "Being Compassionate"

Tale 5: "Finding the Inner Calmer In You"

Tale 6: "The Magic Pen"

Tale 7: "Here comes the Fair- Weather Friend"

Tale 8: "Confidence & Competence"

Tale 9:"Being Present"

Tale10: "Chicken scratches for what it gets"

Tale 11:"I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done"
Tale 12: "Frog In The Well"

Volume 2:

Tale 1: Pulling Up the seedlings to help them grow
Tale 2: Grind an Iron Pestle into a Needle

Tale 3: Talking about army on paper.

Tale 4: Being Persistent

Tale 5: A Poet’s Writing Skills Decline