Last 21^st April, there was a SUCCESS Live Event at Dallas, Texas where it featured 14 success experts and I had a great opportunity to have access to the Backstage Live, though this was the reason I missed my Ateneo LSE Class on that day but the lessons from the different speakers are priceless.

I would have preferred to have been physically there in the event to really hear all the speakers but given that it is not realistic then I would have to settle for the second best thing and I really appreciate that they have this Backstage Live wherein they interviewed the speakers on their key messages.  Imagine, from those short conversations I already gained lots of nuggets of wisdom so I am sure it was an awesome experience to be there in the audience to really hear everything first hand and feeling the energy and excitement of the audience.

It is rare that event organizers will give this kind of preview or sneak peek to a live event and I really am grateful to the Success Team for this gift of generosity and being really giving.

I would like to share some of my key take-aways or learnings from the interviews that I watched from 2am to 6am SG time, though it started at 12mn but I had to clear some work before watching.  There are so many learnings that I am unable to capture everything and for sure the way that the speakers phrase them maybe so much better than the way I phrase these nuggets of wisdom but hopefully you will get the message and apply this in your life:

• Take care of yourself better to enable you to achieve your life’s purpose:
  1. Brain Envy – You have to care like sleep well for around 7-8 hours. This is a reinforcement of my learning in the 5 Choices Training not to sacrifice sleep because it will impact the quality of my work, stress, decision making and conflict management.
  2. Avoid Bad
  3. Do Good
  4. Keep on Learning – example new language, new subject, read more.
  5. If you want to be healthy, find the healthiest person you can stand and spend as much time as you can with that person
• When we encounter difficult people in our work or even in our own family or circle of friends, we need to adapt to the reality of those people. We need to have the acceptance, and we need to change how we interact and react to them instead of wishing and hoping that they will change or trying to change them.  Do not be a victim that people will rob you of your happiness and dictate to you how you should feel.
• To parents on bringing up their children: Finish your job and coach them to cross the line (like a race). For the millennials, the greatest strength is technology, but this is also their greatest weakness.  We live in the age of convenience and automation that everything is instant, that when run into an obstacle they just give up.  We need to nurture them, train them, to make sure that we prepare them to face and handle the future, problems and how to become an adult.
• Have the courage to change. Normally, there will be a compelling reason that drives you to take the courage to change.  When I heard this, the first thing that popped into my mind is the book “Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life” by Dr. Spencer Johnson which is very apt with the current situation in our company.
• We need more servant leadership:
  1. Leaders who are out to help others and prioritize actions for the greater good
  2. This help that you gave to others will come back to you in the form of blessings.
• Sincerity or authenticity – If we are people managers, this is a key characteristic that is needed because this drives the genuine want to help our people or our team to succeed not just in their career but also in their personal life.
• Believe in the inherent goodness of others – This is a simple phrase with so much depth and meaning and requires so much from us. Especially part of the human psyche is to create first impression that sometimes is so difficult to change, worse is we hear something negative about a person that clouds our judgement even before we start interacting or working with that person, the other issue that we have is although we give people a second chance but when there is another setback we go back and rehash the past.  With intentional mindfulness and faith coupled with hope and patience, this difficult task will be easier with time and practice.

If we want to be successful in our endeavors, to achieve our dreams and goals and to be a better version of ourselves, we need to constantly learn and we need to be hungry for continuous learning.  In this day and age, there is no excuse not to learn.  If you do not like reading or do not have the time, there are audio books available, podcasts and YouTube videos you can listen to or watch on the fly, while you are in the daily commute to work, while you are doing your chores.

Keep on learning.  Find a mentor.  Find a buddy.  If you need one, let’s have coffee one time to talk about life, love, money and anything and everything under the sun.  Cheers to a life well lived! 🙂

Btw, for people who want to view the free replay please hurry and go to the link below as I am not sure until when will the replay be available: https://www.successliveevent.com/backstage/live/?utm_source=Maropost&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=SUCCESSLive