Peter Lee's "Mental Fitness In A Turbulent World" Workshop

Vader: The Emperor has been expecting you.

Luke: I know, father.

Vader: So, you have accepted the truth.

Luke: I've accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father.

Vader: [angry retort] That name no longer has any meaning for me.

Luke: It is the name of your true self. You've only forgotten. I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn't driven it from you fully. That was why you couldn't destroy me. That's why you won't bring me to your Emperor now.

Vader: I see you have constructed a new lightsaber. Your skills are complete. Indeed you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen.

Luke: Come with me.

Vader: Obi-Wan once thought as you do. You don't know the power of the dark side! I must obey my master.

Luke: I will not turn. And you'll be forced to kill me.

Vader: If that is your destiny.

Luke: Search your feelings, father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.

Vader: It is... too late for me, son. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master now.

Luke: [resigned] Then my father is truly dead.

Luke Skywalker confronts his father, Darth Vader, in a final climactic duel before the evil Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, the final film of the original Star Wars trilogy. This is resemblance of the struggle within our mind. Some self talk propel us forward. Some self talk pull us backward. The side we have to choose. The decision we have to make. The choice we have to take. A battle between saboteur and sage.

Hence, the message of weakening our saboteur and strengthening our sage is what Peter Lee, DTM, ACC Coach (ICF), hopes to deliver to participants of Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's "Mental Fitness In A Turbulent World" workshop held on 21 November 2020.

What is happening in today's world? As reported in The Straits Times, experts predicted the ongoing pandemic will have a long-term effect on mental health in Singapore. They are, unfortunately, expecting more cases of depression and anxiety. Therefore, naturally, the questions arise. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your work? Why would you want to learn mental fitness? 

Responding to the first question, Club President Rusman Hadijanto, CTM, CL, DL5, mentioned his work life is like a roller coaster ride, moving from job to job. This is due to the right sizing of the enterprises he had worked for. These enterprises are facing financial constraints. Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL, added he is now working longer hours at home. He treasures the interaction with his colleagues. Hence he felt a sense of loss when this interaction is reduced. Helena Lim, CC, on the other hand, is affected little as she has already been working from home for five years. She opined the crux of working from home is time management. She enjoys playing with her pet dog for stress relief.

Active responses from participating members

Peter gave thanks to Rusman, Valliappan and Helena for their sharing. He went on to describe his own experience. With the onslaught of rapid technological changes, many jobs had extinct, or are already on the verge of extinction (in Peter's words, "becoming dinosaur"). The pandemic is accelerating this process. Assisting his clients to think of possibilities for raising skills and productivity, work on their strength, to ultimately cope with taking on new roles is his occupation. This transition to adapt to the nation's economic restructuring efforts would not have been smooth without mental fitness.

To help participants understand the parallels between physical fitness and mental fitness, Peter posed another question. What is Fitness to you? Just like any physical fitness, mental fitness is a continuous journey. You need to constantly build and maintain the muscles to perform well. Your capacity to respond to life's challenges is in proportion to the strength of the muscles of your mental fitness. Figuratively, it can be thought to be similar to: physical fitness levels needed to climb Bukit Timah Hill, Mount Kinabalu as well as Mount Everest are all different.

There are three main uplifting impacts to your life in having good mental fitness; peak performance, peace of mind and healthy relationships.

Positive Intelligence is a term crafted by Dr. Shirzad Chamine, a professor in Stanford University, synthesizing the four areas of science, namely; positive psychology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology and performance science. Using factor analysis to discover the root causes, three core muscles at the root of mental fitness are identified. They are; Saboteur interceptor, Sage and Self-command.

The master saboteur, Judge, comes in three modalities; self judge (eg. blaming oneself), judging others (eg. skeptical) and judging situation. Upon further explanation of the characteristic of each of these modalities, Peter invited participants to give their thoughts.

Sarah Ong, IP1, gave an example of intercepting the Judge, taking a leaf from the travel restriction. Do not think of the present pandemic in a negative light (judging situation). Holiday makers can still explore interesting places in Singapore.

Beside the Judge, there's nine other accomplices. They are the Controller, Hyper-achiever, Restless, Stickler, Pleaser, Hyper-vigilant, Avoider, Victim and Hyper-rational. Each of these has a persona and its residing in all of us, one taking precedence over another.

Majority of Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club members are Hyper-achievers.

The saboteurs and sage reside in different regions of our brain, survivor brain (with voices of saboteurs) and positive intelligence brain (with voice of sage). Both perform important functions and are essential. The survivor brain alert and trigger you to immediate action to move away from pain and danger. Ever heard of fight or flight? The positive intelligence brain is the knowing brain asking, is the pain long enough for it to be useful (realization, wake you up, etc) and short enough not to permanently damage you? Staying in negative emotion (saboteur) hurts ability to see clearly and respond with empathy, curiosity, creativity, or laser-focused action. Saboteur might generate success but not happiness. Sage generates your highest success and sustained happiness.

That leads us all to the sage perspective - every outcome or circumstance can be turned into a gift and opportunity. To highlight the wisdom behind this perspective, Peter brought to the table the stallion story, 'Sai Weng Shi Ma' (塞翁失马). The message is, not over reacting to every single event. Just had a patch of bad luck? Do not worry, just wait it out. It is just as likely to turn into good luck. Click on the YouTube clip, Maintaining Perspective, below to learn more about this stallion story.

To embark on the road to mental fitness is analogous to visiting a gymnasium to do weight lifting reps, short for repetitions. There are Positive Intelligence Quotient (PQ) reps for mental fitness too. Self-command is henceforth like upgrading your operating system to quiet your saboteur and activate your sage thru these PQ reps.

Ten seconds PQ rep exercise:

Please put the thumb and first index fingers together and rub, feeling the ridges with intense focus for 10 seconds.

Cheng Kok Siong, TM, commented the ten seconds PQ rep exercise brought his mind to a focus, and a sense of peacefulness felt.

Two minutes PQ rep exercise:

Please sit comfortably with your spine straight and relax. Your head straight. Your chest open. Your feet flat on the floor. Please close your eyes when you are ready. Take your right hand and place it on your heart. And notice your heart beat. Your heart beat sensation might be very subtle, so you might need to move your hand around a little or press a little harder to feel your heart beat through your hand. Just keep noticing your heart beat. I start count, gently let them go and refocus.

Now put your right hand on your stomach and notice the gentle rising and falling of your stomach with each breathe.

Now do some reps with your sense of touch. Rub your fingertips gently against each other with such a tension that you can feel the fingertip ridges on both fingers.

Take your time and whenever you feel ready, open your eyes.

Tan Siew Foong, TM, commented the two minutes PQ rep is soothing and helped her to calm down.

Always remember, lasting positive change requires twenty percent insight and eighty percent mental muscle just like any other physical discipline. Do have the readiness, willingness and capacity to take on upping the level of your PQ for continued success.

Heartfelt thoughts from participants as the workshop come to an end

For a deeper dive into the subject matter, check out the awesome book, Positive Intelligence - Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve, by Dr. Shirzad Chamine. Also click on the YouTube clip, Know your inner saboteurs: Shirzad Chamine at TEDxStanford, below to learn what are now between you and your true potential.

 

Written by Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB

Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contests 2020

Charlie Chaplin once said, “A day without laughter is a day wasted”, and the 50-odd of us who attended Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club’s Humorous Speech & Evaluation Contests held on 7 November 2020 certainly did not waste our Saturday as the many talented contestants had us splitting our sides with laughter the whole afternoon.

The first contestant, Chee Sian, left us craving for more as he talked all about food and linguistics in his speech, “Food for thought paradise”. Valli, went next, entertaining us with her re-enactment of the interactions she had with her son vs those she had with her mother when she was younger, in her speech titled “Generation Gap”. She also gave us helpful advice on how to bridge this gap. Next, Salma enthralled us with her torrid love affair with—Youtube! In her speech “My Love Affair with Online Videos”, she explains to us her love-hate relationship with the popular video-sharing site. This was followed by Valliappan, who condensed his past 10 years of experience in trying to find a good helper into his speech titled “How to find a domestic helper for dummies”.

Clockwise from top left: Chee Sian, Valli, Salma and Valliappan

The fifth contestant, Kok Siong, had us all in stitches as he enumerated the seemingly endless benefits of having a shaved head, in his speech, “My Unique, Cool Hairstyle”. Bharathamma, the sixth contestant, kept us on the edge of our seats as she recounted an anecdote of how she successfully pulled a prank on her grandmother’s friend in her speech, “One Fine Sunday”. Rusman then grabbed our attention with some fancy martial arts moves as he told us a hilarious story of how he got beaten up by bullies when his cockiness got the better of him after a few kungfu lessons in his speech, “My Story”. The eighth contestant, Joseph, surprised us by listing the ways in which the pandemic has not changed people’s behavior much in his amusing speech, “Has Covid-19 changed people’s behaviour?” He did however, end on a heartwarming note where he observes that many people have shown kindness and charity to those who have lost their jobs, businesses and loved ones, and concluded with a call to action for us to do the same. The final contestant, Siva, told us all about his penchant for “i-products” with his speech titled, “My Obsession with Apple Products”. He had us all roaring with laughter when he confessed that he remembers his wedding anniversary and children’s birthdays because they coincide with the launches of certain apple products! (For his sake, I hope his wife doesn’t read this!)

From top: Kok Siong, Bharathamma, Rusman, Joseph and Siva

After wiping away our tears (from laughing), Contest Toastmaster, Jennifer Lim, led everyone to take a Zoom group photo before adjourning for our coffee-break.

Zoom screen almost cannot contain all enthusiastic participants

After the break, it was time for the much-anticipated Evaluation Contest! To hype us up, Contest Chair, Aaron Ting, showed us the random draw that decided the contestants’ speaking order—which to our amusement, picked Chee Sian as the first contestant and Siva as the final contestant, like the Humorous Speech Contest earlier. After a quick briefing on the rules and regulations by the Contest Toastmaster, the Test Speaker for the Evaluations Contest was introduced—Divya Sharma, from SIA Toastmasters Club. In her speech, “How did this happen?” her vivacious personality shone through as she shared with us how her various passions led her to becoming a flight attendant, taking up a Masters degree in psychology, and joining Toastmasters. With her well-delivered speech, she definitely did not make it easy for our evaluators to pick out points of improvement!

Evaluating Test Speaker, Divya Sharma

The Evaluation Contest contestants were then placed in a separate zoom breakout room to prepare their evaluations while Jennifer held a little informal Q&A with Divya. After which, the contestants, Chee Sian, Valliappan, Rusman, Santwana, Marc, Sarah, Salma and Siva delivered their insightful evaluations on Divya’s speech. In particular, Salma (winner of the Evaluation Contest) amazed us all with her ingenuity as she delivered her evaluation to Divya in the form of a mother-in-law giving advice to her future daughter-in-law. 

Overall, it was definitely a Saturday well-spent. Congratulations to all the contest participants for a job well done and special thanks to all the appointment holders, without which this contest would not have been possible.

Humourous Speech Contest 

2nd Runner Up: Rusman Hadijanto Lee

1st Runner Up: Salma Begum 

Champion: Valliappan Selvamani 

Evaluation Contest 

2nd Runner Up: Marc Wong 

1st Runner Up: Valliappan Selvamani

Champion: Salma Begum

Written by Audrey Lim, PM2

Thomas Chen's "The Power To Empower" Workshop

Do you aspire to unleash your giant within and become a great leader? In our 167th Chapter Meeting, we have the privilege to invite Thomas Chen, EC3, an Entrepreneur and International Business Strategy Coach from Pasirisian Toastmasters Club back to Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club to conduct a workshop on how to empower to accelerate to a greater leader.

The bubbly Thomas set the audience members’ mind on fire by asking us “What is definition of Leader and Great Leader”. He highlighted that everyone is a leader because everyone influences someone somehow in our social and corporate world. Everyone uses different leadership type and multiple leadership style in different context but he/she has distinctive primary leadership style which one should capitalize on. 

Thomas highlighted that great leader like our late Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, Martin Luther King (an American Christian minister and activist) and Bill Gate (Microsoft founder) differ from other leader in, these great leaders know how to empower effectively. He reiterated John C Maxwell’s quote that “Leaders become great not because of their power but because of their ability to empower others”.

Empowerment is about giving autonomy or authority to someone to do something, In workplace, it is a philosophy that encourages workers to make their own independent decisions and managers giving workers the proper support for them to feel confident in their roles. Thomas shared the 6 benefit of Empowerment- 

Build trust in team.

Empower is best way to gain trust, to show your staff that they have your trust. This is the strongest emotion for the team.

Team feels more confident of their ability when they are empowered.
When the team is confident, they will take ownership of their work and are more motivated and engaged.

Empowerment encourage participation.
Thomas quoted the success of Google and Facebook who tap into individual expertise to drive innovation and inspire creativity through empowerment.

Empowerment enhances team competency. It is teaching a man to fish than to give him the fish.

Empowerment facilitate Continuity of the organization. It empower new member and fresh talent to leadership development. Hence enhances Succession planning.

Effective Expansion allows the system to leadership expansion. Thomas cited McDonald as one of the successful model for expansion in empowerment.

Active participants of the workshop in Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's 167th Chapter Meeting

You want to set your team to success? Thomas provided the 6 steps to an effective empowerment 

Step 1: Identify and specify Organization objectives. 

For everyone to move toward same direction, they need to see the ultimate goal. To avoid employee having a free rein, it is imperative to clearly define the project boundaries and expectations. This reinforce the standard of quality. Thomas quoted Salesforce.com, inc. an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Salesforce.com is one of Fortune 100 best companies to work for. Salesforce exponential growth is inspired by the Ohana culture based on family values which employees use it to gauge their KPI. 

Step 2: Leader needs to have clear communication of expectation 

As a leader, it's your job to get everyone on the same page. Precise clear communication is the key for people to know what they're supposed to accomplish. 

Step 3:- Assess and amplify the level of readiness of the team. 

One of the key takeaways is focusing on strengths, especially when you are looking at yourself and your team. By understanding each employee's strengths and weaknesses you as a leader can empower them in the ways that work best for them and your company. 

Step 4: - Gradual & Incremental responsibility allocation. 

Thomas cautioned that learning to lead is a process of learning by doing. Learning occurs incrementally and gradually so best leader knows the difference the type of decisions and have the discipline to empower as much as appropriate. 

Step 5:- Praise the process and encourage the empowered. 

Thomas emphasize the importance of praising the process of getting the effort, the way the employee get the result. This is to encourage improvement and progression. 

Step 6:- Review reflect and readjust. 

Finally it is imperative to always check whether you had empowered correctly. It is worth to take time to review your plan against activities. Access how far you had accomplished and readjust on whether empowerment is done correctly. 

Thomas concluded that Empowerment begin with the end at mind and in every organization great leader can be made. 

In conclusion, empowerment build trust, motivate and facilitate growth. To empower, we need to identify the objective and communicate the expectation and have vivid objective. Assess the strength and weaknesses of the team and teach the employee to fish. Finally it is imperious to review, reflect and readjust the activities.

The Saturday afternoon was another day well spent in a Toastmasters Club meeting, I had a lot of takeaway from the interactive workshop to morph into an effective leader. 

Thank you Thomas for sharing these valuable tips.

Written by Helena Lim, CC

Recap: 166th Chapter Meeting -10th October 2020

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon and after having a delicious lunch with home made Jeera Rice and Thai green curry prepared by my lovely wife, I joined my favorite bi-weekly routine which is Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club Chapter Meeting on Zoom. 

At 2pm, our Zoom floor is packed with our Club members with all the excitement and enthusiasm to participate in the Chapter Meeting proceedings. I can make out that the appointment holders are looking eager to deliver their speeches and role duties and the audience are in excitement to takeaway some learnings of the day. 

Tan Siew Foong, TM, our Sergeant-At-Arms (SAA) of the day opened the icebreaker session with a great intellectual topic “What Makes you smile?” 

Several members shared what makes them smile in their life and their responses brought big smiles on our faces as well. 

SAA managed the time very well by picking few members to wrap up the ice breaker session on time. 

Our Toastmaster of the Day (TMD), Marc Wong, DL2, kick started our 166th Chapter Meeting welcoming our members & guests sharing the agenda of the session, also reminding us the significance of the day, 10th October as World Mental Health day. 

Mark rightly mentioned that it is even more significant this year being in the face of Covid-19 pandemic which caused the disaster in many lives worldwide. We should all take our mental health seriously and keep in check. 

Our Club President, Rusman Hadijanto, CTM, CL, DL5 shared in his opening speech with some great questions to members, 

1. Do you prioritize your daily tasks? 

2. Do you make priority list when going on holidays? 

3. Do you ever create priority list in your life for the things that matter to you and your life? 

It is nice to say there are many hands raised for those questions and most of our members are in right direction in life. 

Rusman shard the reason why he brought up those questions and how they are relevant to his life in the past. He shared his past life style as a happy-go-lucky personality just going with flow without much concern about future. He had only one priority at the time and is making money thinking it will fix everything. Eventually he realized that it created a great distance between him and his parents because he was running after money not prioritizing his family. Even his health started to deteriorate at one point. He said he finally realized the importance of having good priorities in life than just chasing money. 

Rusman shared 3 priorities that he is following now and it made his life more meaningful and purposeful. 

1) Having complete clarity on why am I living on this earth 

2) Personal Health 

3) Family 

After his insightful sharing about how prioritizing improve lives, Rusman then gave the floor to next proceedings. 

Prepared Speech Segment: 

Started the prepared speech segment with Diego Taira, TM talking about how he fired his boss going in the way of achieving financial freedom. 

Diago shared the concept of FI(Financial Independence) number, F.I.R.E(Financial Independence, Retire Early) and how he started gaining financial literacy from early age inspired by Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. He obtained certification on Financial Analysis and started investing as early as in 2008 but succumbed to the losses due to 2008 stock market crash in the wake of subprime crisis. However, he didn’t give up and invested in himself to learn more about investing and reached the point to be able to fire his boss. 

He concluded his “FIRE” speech with 5 key points below to achieve financial independence. 

It is a great and enriching opening prepared speech by Diego Taira. Thanks Diego for an eye-opener speech on financial independence.

Our second prepared speech is by Joseph Lum, TC5, on “When John Paul II forgave his shooter” started with a nice song liner “Sorry seems to be a hardest word!!”.

It is all about “Forgiveness”. How many times is enough to forgive someone, once, twice .. 7 times? Bible says it is 77 times which actually means endless. When it comes to forgiveness, don’t focus on the offender but focus on oneself choosing to be a forgiver and forever. Joseph shared a real example of depth of forgiveness. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot 4 times from a close range by an assassin named Mehmet Ali Ağca. John Paul collapse, suffered heavy blood loss and hospitalized immediately. The Ağca is sentenced to life imprisonment. Thankfully John Paull II survived and amazingly he asked followers to pray for Ağca’s pardoning. Ağca’s is pardoned following Pope John Paul II’s request. Isn’t a boundless example of forgiveness? Ağca is astonished by the act & kindness of Pope John Paul II and has become the follower of John Paul II and Christianity. In conclusion, let’s not hand on to the feeling of hurt but practice the unconditional forgiveness for our own happiness. 

What a an inspiring speech Jopesh !! Thank you!! 

Our final speaker Helena Lim, CC, talked about “Money Money & more Money”! Everybody loves money and think that 99.99% of the problems resolved by money although it is not true. 

Helena spoke about financial integrity. Financial integrity is keeping your values, principles & actions aligned to your financial goals. Financial integrity leads to your financial security. Helena shared how to gain the financial integrity. One should think about their short, mid and long term financial goals. Short terms plan could include clearing up the credit card debts, mid-term include saving money for making investments and long term goal include building retirement savings. Helena is using budget template to keep her financials in check. She always plans her annual financial goals at the beginning of the year. But generally it not too late to start the planning at any point. She cater budget for her loans and monthly expenses and review it every now and then to ensure she is within the budget else update it if needed. She treats her savings also like expense so she won’t touch the saving as her commitment. Now with Singapore is opening the businesses slowly, we can see the light at the end of tunnel to strengthen and immunize our financial health. She concluded that one should have financial goals and diversify the income. Once again a good speech on financial literacy, Thanks Helena for your useful tips. 

Time to time, our timer Cheng Kok Siong, TM, shared the timing sequence before each segment and helping the speakers and evaluators to track their timing closely. 

Prepared Speeches segment came to an end after three exciting speeches and we then headed for a tea break while some members are using the break time to hang in the call for chit chat and networking. 

We regrouped after the break for Project evaluation segment. 

Project evaluation segment: 

Siva Kumar, TM, evaluated and provided his feedback on Diego’s speech. He split his evaluation into qualitative and quantitative feedback. Siva said Diego set the stage on FIRE by structuring his speech well and using the virtual stage well by changing the informative background, engaging the audience by asking the relevant questions and also getting good responses back. 

As quantitative feedback, the speech clarity & vocal variety is good, eye contact is excellent, good hand gestures shown. 

While praising the Diego’s speech as one of the best, Siva also highlighted some area of improvement to be watchful of timing as Diego exceeded the stipulated timing (5-7 min) and also make sure the background is not blocked while during the speech. 

Our VPPR, Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB, provided his feedback on Joseph’s speech. Chee Sian said he identified two very distinct and outstanding things in Joseph’s speech. First is, use of very few words and second is using very impactful words. Using rhetorical devices like “Easier not to apologize than to apologizing”, “Easier not to forgive than to forgive” is very good. Use of song “Sorry seems to be hardest word” and use of sound “Bang Bang Bang” to portray the gun shot has been outstanding to create the impact of the incident what has happened.

Chee Sian suggested some areas improvement in terms of transition within his speech. While the use of song before narrating the serious event of assassination is being very appropriate, repeating that song on lighter note after the narration, sounded frivolous. The other improvement Chee Sian would like to see that while the narration of the incident is quite intriguing, the happening of good transition in the offender should have been narrated as well. 

Our Club President, Rusman, evaluated and provided his feedback on Helen’s speech. Rusman said he liked the title of the speech and it is very appropriate in the current situation. Good start of the speech with lot of appropriate gestures and facial expressions. These are all well connected to the audience. The suggestion provided to enhance the speech to the next level, there is lot of information shared in the speech, it is very valuable and however, the general rule is to limit the content as simple as possible so that audience could remember it easily. Rusman iterated that it is indeed a good speech at the right time. 

Table Topic Segment: 

Next come the most exciting segment, Table Topics, where speakers will speak for 1 to 2 minutes on any given topics without any preparation. Our Table Topics Master, Santwana Srivastava, TM, hosted this segment with very meaningful questions that stimulate our creative thinking. 

Great Job Santwana and all Table Topics Speakers.

Following the Table Topics segment, we were presented with the Ah Counter’s Report by Bharathamma Eswarawaka, IP5, who diligently listened and recorded all our pause fillers that we used throughout the session.

Award presentation segment: 

Last but not the least, our Club President gives the drum rolls on the award presentation and closing address. 

Congratulations to all winners. 

Best Speaker – Joseph Lum, TC5 

Best Evaluator – Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB 

Best Table Topics – Archita and Sophie Lum

Home Sweet home 

With all the excitement and accomplished feelings, we all exchanged goodbyes with and ended the session. Currently waiting for the next exciting session on 24th October 2020. See you again !!

Written by Venkat Voleti, TM