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

Tales My Mother Told Me...Tale 1: "When you help one, you help thousands"

"When you help one, you help thousands"~my mother

When I was a child, I learnt things through my mother’s eyes. I gained wisdom & insights from mum naturally and unconsciously.

Back in the early 70's, my parents had a manufacturing business and mum & Dad were always taking in lots of workers and giving them refuge and treating them all as family members, giving them shelter, food, clothes, job and even money to help their families too. Most of the young workers were from country towns where there were no opportunities for them to get work.

We also had a lot of elderly women come and visit us on a regular basis and we called them aunty this and aunty that. At the time I was really inquisitive and wanted to know what the relationship between us and those aunties were. It turned out some were related to our family and most just lived in the same village where our grandparents came from. They often came to see mum to get a job for their children or grandchildren or money to support their families. 

I vividly remember this one particular old aunty who came to see mum quite regularly and always bringing along things to sell. Those items you could actually buy from a local supermarket such as pickles and sauces etc. But Mum always bought from her and always gave her more money than what the items were worth.

As a child I spent a lot of time with my mum and I did not understand why mum was doing things the way she did.

One day I asked her “Mum why are we always taking care of someone’s children and why are you always giving more money than what it’s worth to old aunty and even she told you that you were giving her too much.

Why Mum?

She looked at me and gave me a smile and stroked my head and said my dear little one “When you help one you help thousands”

I looked at mum puzzled.

What do you mean by that mum? I asked

Mum started to explain the meaning to this quote.

My little one, just remember that we are connected with everything around us. When you hurt things or people around you, it harms you back. When you help others, you also help yourself. When you help someone in need you are actually helping him and the people that are connected to him like his family. By giving him a job you are giving him a future and he can offer a brighter future for his family too.

Old aunty is a single mother. Old uncle passed away and left her with 10 children. She is a good mother who works very hard to raise her children. Her business is visiting people's homes and selling food items. Buying things from her will provide food on the table for her children and sending them to school so her children will have a better future and old aunty can retire early and her children can look after her.

My little one, every act has consequences whether good or bad. This is the basic principle behind the concept of karma.

So from this learning, I apply this principle to our business and coaching to our clients.

Food for thought for you to apply this to your business lifestyle:

• By helping others you also help your business. A great example is when you are in a networking event where you connect with other businesses and you form a relationship with them and you get the opportunity to help them by referring their business. In turn, they too refer business to you.
• Offer your expertise such as teaching or running an art class, or a creative workshop where you are sharing your skills and knowledge with others. It gives you creditably where you can connect and inspire your audience and because you are offering your expertise you are exposed to many people who resonate with what you do and they will find you to buy your product or use your service and they even tell others about you.

The key message I learnt from this is when you open your hands to help others, make sure it's your full intention and you do not expect anything back in return. You help people because you want to! The act of helping people and expecting something back in return will only disappoint you and make you feel resentful because you are seeking a form of "What’s in it for me".

"Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find inner peace"-Buddha

If you are openly helping and do not expect anything back, you will be surprised when you are in need of help as there will be people who will openly help you back in return.

This feeling is the most grateful one... believe me I have experienced this many times and I am very thankful & grateful for it.

I hope this tale can inspire you to review the ways on how you think in life and in business. Helping people to get where they want to be and to see them grow and succeed is the most rewarding feeling you can experience

So when was the last time you helped someone?

What was it? And how did you feel?

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

Tune in next Friday for tale 2: "Your mind is powerful" 

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