The only thing more interesting than a story about another person is a story about our own self.
Why is this so?
Because, naturally, most of us are more interested in reading about ourselves than reading a condensed history of the ten most famous people who ever lived.
This is the natural way of human behaviour and there doesn’t seem to be any indication that this is suddenly about to change.
DFQ #07:
In 100 words or less, post a story about yourself.Focus on your Top Strength from DFQ#6 and think of an amusing story that illustrates, or derives from, your top strength.
As you think about this story, recall some details about the setting, the people involved, the provocation and the ‘punch line’ or the outcome.
Don’t feel the need to interpret the story or comment too much on it–just tell it!
We are your devoted audience. Make it a good one 🙂
(NOTE: I realise this is a bit like karaoke and asks you to step-up. But if this DFQ is not for you, no problem, just skip it. All SOT training (even leadership training) is opt-in/opt-out).
Love and Kindness:
I had pledged to give a certain sum of money to an orphanage every month. Once, I was jobless for more than 6 months. This was a very testing time for me. I was almost pennyless and was finding it very hard to make ends meet.
Though I had the option of discontinuing the charity offer, I borrowed from a friend and paid the orphange.
Humor/Payfullness
For April Fools day, I created an e-mail announcing that we were going to have to roll back a major system implementation due to some very technical sounding reasons which were basically mumbo jumbo. If you read it closely–the reasons made no sense.
I had let my boss know what I wanted to do and he had approved it.
On April Fools–the note went out. I didn’t realize that my boss had decided to play a trick on me–he had one of the people who got the note pretend to have called the Executives to alert them of this catastrophe. My boss then proceeded to send me updates of his conversations with the Executives and his trying to reassure them.
It was only after an hour of these updates that he told me April Fools.
5 strengths :
I was jolted out of complacency and since that day I have made every effort to translate knowledge into skills before attempting to transfer the same. More than 80% of what we learn happens visually, hence demonstration or exhibiting the way things happen create better understanding.
I learned that there was a lot more to be discovered in breathwork, a lot of power and potential in exploring breath awareness and conscious breathing exercises and techniques.
Creativity
Innovation
Power of Possibility
My first education was realized accordingly to a small city life. My family moved to a big city and I lacked urban tools to cope with an “aggressive” and competitive environment.
My curiosity helped me to escape and search for a better and more adequate view of situation. I did not know the “Escape and Search” concept as such, but now I find it again in the SOT. Michael do an excellent job, constructing a body of knowledge that includes the most advanced scientific findings in psychology, education, leadership and so on.
It is time to move the switch to a better view of situation in many many areas of modern life.
I was in Bejing China in 1985 to study Chinese Medical Breathing Exercises with doctor/professor and chikung/qiging master Hu Bin.
I had spent two years studying a book written by Hu Bin before meeting him, and we were reviewing my notes about it one morning.
He would point to certain breathing exercises and ask me about my experience with them. Then he got to my favorite exercise called “Prolonging the inhale.”
After two years of practice, i was able to extend my inhale to over 3 minutes.
As I began to demonstrate, he interrupted me and again pointed to a specific exercise in the book. I explained that I was demonstrating that exercise.
After some discussion with our interpreter, I discovered that the book was originally written in Chinese, then translated to Greek, then to German… And the German version was translated into English.
The exercise in question was not “Prolong the Inhale,” it was “Postpone the inhale!”
I had spent two years practicing a non-existent medical breathing exercise. However my accidental breathing exercise actually resulted in many health benefits for me and my students, including better mental focus and improved emotional control, greater respiratory capacity, and the ability to relax more easily when under stress.
One thing that gave me pleasure was that my teacher was able to predict the benefits that I had experienced!
Because of this misprint or translation error, I had invented a new and powerful technique that has since been applied by martial artists, public speakers, athletes, business executives and others.
I learned that there was a lot more to be discovered in breathwork, a lot of power and potential in exploring breath awareness and conscious breathing exercises and techniques.
I learned that making mistakes was anything but bad! I learned that breathwork was to psycho-somatic illness what penicillin was to bacterial disease!
A million years ago, half a lifetime away…..
I was a young cadet at our Royal Military College. I was 20 and I had managed to score an exchange to Sandhurst and in doing so, escaped the annual field training after university exams. On the night before we were to depart, my passport, wallet (all id), all money, credit cards were stolen. So…… I had the choice of copping it and going back to Canberra, losing my trip and going to the field (not a very attractive option) or trying to find a way to recover.
A mate of mine (ex cadet) lived in Sydney so after getting $200 from each of my fellow cadets and lobbed on John’s doorstep. Task 1 – get a replacement passport, task 2- get my insurance money, task 3 – get my new amex card and step 4 get a replacement flight to the UK.
The trouble is, no id means no catch 22…. I started at the passport office – bold as brass I went up to the counter asked for “forgot his name – used to be in the army i think…” you mean “steve” he was in the navy. Spoke to steve – said that this was a good time to show some inter sevice love – and that I needed him to help me get a passport (without id – you can imagine how impossible that would be now! – we lived in a smaller world then). He agreed that if i could get a credit card, that would do. I got my birthcertificate couriered up from my parents home and put in the application.
Step two – insurance – lucky for me I had some. I lost my watch, soon to be fiances engagement ring and cash. I filled the form, handed over the police report etc and was told my claim would be processed in 6 weeks. Once again I took the opportunity to “elevate” the discussion to one manager to another til I got someone who agreed to pay me cash in 48 hours. I needed the $ to live!
Amex were fun – no id, not ability to get a new card. Round and around we went – more and more elevation of managers later we agreed that if amex didnt give me a replacement card, I could not go and book a flight and could not pick up my passport – so amex would stop me from going overseas. The senior manager looked and me and I pleaded – either help me here and “be flexible” or ruin this opportunity. Kindness pevailed and he gave me a credit without id.
I went to travel agent franchise and asked to get my flight credited. They disagreed and said I had missed out as I gave them no notice. I called Cathay Pacific and explained my dilema who invited me to their HQ in Sydney. After explained that their agent wouldnt honour the credit -they then issued me with a business class ticket to replace my Hong Kong one!
I went to the passport office with my money (to pay for the passport), credit card (as ID) and my airline ticket. Steve was there and gave me my new passport. I was free to leave Australia and join the team in the UK.
Total delay – 4 working days.
Lesson learned – hope triumphs over dispair and with energy, focus and some “creativity” solutions will appear around you.
Military training prior to deploying on major operations is the scene setting. 22.00hrs on a wet cold exercise area in England and the orders to attack the enemy came in.
The Colonel, who was a very astute man set the wheels in motion and planning began. Partially spurred on by my creative side and also by my reluctance to get some sleep I sugeested we drive straight up the main road with lights on, stop at the enemy location and attack. It would save 12kms of walking!
After some laughter followed by serious consideration we went for it and totally surprised the enemy. Execept for the instructors, who wanted to see us suffer a little more, everyone was pleased as the exercise finished early.
Its difficult to write about oneself and I beleive that I put my strengths to practice every moment of my life.
I recollect an interesting experience which was in my work in Chennai, India. Years ago , I was working for a company and had a great boss Rahul – a person of high integrity, was great at his work and someone from whom I learnt a lot. Things were going great till our company hired Ramesh, our new department head and he had plans of getting his own people as his direct reports. Rahul reported to him and that meant he wanted to replace Rahul.
Ramesh started working on his action plan and I was one of the pawns that he wanted to leverage to achieve his goal. He called me for lunch and started talking about how good I was and that I had a great future in the company. It was good to hear that. However his next point was that he had not heard good things about Rahul’s skill and that he is going to get highly skilled people to improve our departments performance – people like me.
I got what he was trying to get me to tell him. He wanted me to agree with him that Rahul was not good at work so that he can get my buy in and that would be in return for my future in the company. However, I clearly told him that Rahul was extremely good and one of the best managers I worked for. Guess what happened after that – I did not get any more promotions . However my manager continued to keep his job. I quit the job within a year and I heard Rahul left the company as well.
When I joined the Air Force, there was a pool table in the morning tea room, which looked like good fun. I asked what the rules were to play a game. It turned out Rule #1 was “No girls”. Hmmm…. I persevered until I got a game, only to be told “you’re sh**”.
A colleague called me aside and offered to teach me “the theory of angles” in pool. Some time later, with knowledge and skill, I returned to the pool table.
After a resounding victory, and a “you’re sh**” right back (to show how awful it sounded), there was a good laugh. I never heard that again and from then on was asked, “would you like to play?”.
Love of learning????
I am open minded . I notice differences between people and I open myself to the new in this way life is more exciting for me .
I recently opened my mind seeing the beauty of nature , in the past I couldn,t appreciate beuty in general .
I live on the 37th floor and every evening I see outside the balcony an amazing landscape that I could notice before ; recognizing how people and nature can transform a simple place in a stunning scene