Exco Installation & 179th Chapter Meeting - 10 Jul 2021

 All Good things must come to an end and it applies to the successful term led by our 2020/21 club president Rusman Hadijanto and his team.

The meeting was started by our energetic and ever young club mentor DTM, Jenny Au who was the Toastmaster of the Day.

It was time for the Exco installation, as our President-Elect Marc Wong couldn’t wait any more.

The Installation of the incoming Exco members for the term 2021/22 was done by Area A1 Director Fan Li, ACB, ALB, IP5. Our Area Director Fan Li conducted the ceremony with lots of enthusiasm and great precision.

Thanks to our Division A Director Zhou Siying for being present to witness the installation ceremony and the chapter meeting.

The Club President Marc Wong gave his maiden President’s opening address. He thanked the outgoing exco for their great contribution. He explained the benefits he gathered from joining the Toastmasters club. He also requested the members to take roles in chapter meetings and attend meetings regularly.

The next segment was prepared speeches and 3 of our fantastic speakers Kok Siong, Sarah Ong and Helena Lim delivered their well prepared speech. Kok Siong speech was about understanding his communication style and the style he had adopted in different situations. Sarah spoke about her “Super Mentor” and it was really inspiring to know how her mentor helped her grow in career. Helena spoke about “Losing Mind” and really brought out the sufferings of people with Dementia and her own personal story about her grand mother’s sufferings.

Our members had a great opportunity to learn how to be an effective Toastmaster of the Day (TMD), from the way Jenny did the TMD role. Our club VPE Venkat Voleti took the Timer role and did it very diligently. 

The Table Topics Segment was conducted by Sivakumar Nulu. Siva made the table topics session so interesting with his optional questions, making it easy for the speakers to volunteer and attempt impromptu speaking.

After a refreshing break and nice chit chat session in between, the Evaluation segment went on with 3 seasoned evaluators Rusman Hadijanto, Wee Chee Sian and Salma Begum giving their best feedback to our evolving speakers.

A workshop on Club officers “Roles and Responsibilities” was conducted by Valliappan Selvamani. The workshop enabled members and club officers to understand their roles and responsibilities and encourage members to take up exco roles in future.

Our Visiting Toastmaster Grace Wong, CC did a wonderful General Evaluation and showered us with many compliments and also gave us tips on what could be improved.

Santwana Shrivastava finally had a chance to give rest to her ears after listening to the whole meeting for any pause fillers being uttered. Santwana presented her Ah Counter report to help members understand their mistakes.

The club president Marc Wong, announced the results for the best speaker, evaluator and table topics speaker and closed the chapter meeting.

Best Speaker: Sarah Ong

Best Evaluator: Salma Begum

Best Table topics speaker: Marc Wong

Written by: Valliappan

Recap: 177th Chapter Meeting - 12th June 2021

 

Starting with the Sergeant at Arms (SAA), Audrey Lim, the meeting started with a simple question. It was,” Have you been vaccinated?” This was a simple question, and everyone began sharing about themselves and whether they have been vaccinated, if not why they would or would not prefer putting the vaccine. Some even shared that they stepped up to put the vaccine because most of their friends had already got a jab. And most of them said that the second jab was quite uncomfortable and hurt for a few days. But I think the thought in everyone’s mind was to protect themselves and others around them. One of the members also shared that we should be lucky to live in a country like Singapore because it only took a good fifteen minutes to get a COVID-19 jab in the community club! I also suggest that we should not be complacent and keep ourselves at home and that all of us should go get our jabs once the vaccines for our respective age group have been released.

The next segment was the introduction by the Toastmaster of the Day (TMD), Zhou Siying, who used beautiful vocabulary to engage the members in her introduction about the speakers. She also advised us to use good vocabulary because the there would be Language Evaluation and the Ah Counter’s report. Hehe. Think of that! Then Club President, Rusman Hadijanto, shared his speech with us, saying that networking was very important because the relationship in the community was also very important. He got inspired by inspirational books, movies and also some videos. He shared that we should always look at the bright side for a solution when we have problems, and we should forgive ourselves. His speech was very interesting sharing about himself and what he thinks about inspirational things. He also reminded us to be motivated at all times.

So, icebreaker done, President’s speech done, what next? The Word of the Day! Language Evaluator, Thomas Chen, shared ‘Elucidate’ which means to make clear or explain something. Next, the prepared speech segment started of with Toastmaster Chiam Young, share about making changes to ourselves to the environment. He said that the future is determined by the present which is definitely true. His speech was mainly about change. The next speaker was Rusman Hadijanto, his speech which was about understanding his leadership style. He grew up back in Indonesia where he was taught that leaders were people with money and ordered people around, but he soon found out that money did not solve problems and he understood that leaders do not need to be wealthy to be leaders. So, he continued about his leadership style and leaders around the world like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and a few more.

Next, we went to speaker Marc Wong, where he shared about making money in the ancient world and the modern world. He said he saw American YouTuber Ryan who was a 9-year-old boy who was earning $26,000,000. He said that he felt like a soldier with a sword and shield. He wanted to work on improvement on your brand. He said that if there is something a kid can do, why can’t I? Next speaker, Valliappan Selvamani, shared about his communication style. He mentioned four different communication styles. Direct, Initiative, Supportive and Analytical communication styles. His favorite style was Initiating style where he once reconnected a pair of friends after 25-30 years! He said that we cannot use the same communication style everywhere. He ended up saying that” Please use the supporting style to your wife, because if you don’t, that’s not my problem!” I loved the way he said it. Very innocent…

The next segment was the Table Topics segment by Table Topics Master (TTM), Flaming Chew. The segment started with Toastmaster Pratyush Gupta, and then moved on to SAA Audrey Lim. Then, I (Kavin) spoke, then Salma Begum shared about criticism. And after that, Toastmaster KS Rajan and TMD Zhou Siying spoke. We then proceeded to the delicious Evaluation segment, which was presented by four expert Evaluators, Tang Keen Yeen, Jenny Au, Annie Goh & Tay Yiang Ping. After this, we had a workshop on Difference in preparation for Humorous and International Speech Contests by wonderful speaker Salma Begum. She said that, “International speeches are mostly inspirational, and takeaways from inspirational platforms. Humorous speeches are funny but not a series of one-liners. You need to make the audience feel superior than you. You can talk about funny moments in your life.” She shared how she prepared for International and Humorous Speeches. She also mentioned that for the international speech, you need to convey exactly what the main message that you want to share with the audience. “For the Humorous speech, think of the funny stories in your life. Think on how to exaggerate it. Avoid repetition & reduce laughter impact. Test the jokes in your Humorous Speech with your family or your friends.” She openly shared the mistakes she made in her contests. She said that for the Humorous Speech, the audience should laugh naturally, you cannot force them to, if they do not. In the international Speech, she did not use relatable topics. The final takeaway is that ‘do not be distracted by the competition’. Enjoy the process of the delivery of the speech and do not focus on winning, the trophies would come or would not come, but that does not matter.

Next, we had the Ah Counter report presented by Helena Lim and the Language Evaluation presented by Thomas Chen who extraordinarily evaluated everyone’s grammatical and spelling or pronunciation mistakes and evaluated the use of the Word of the Day, ‘Elucidate’. Then we had General Evaluator Fan Li evaluate the whole meeting. Finally, to close the meeting, we had the awards presentation by Club President, Rusman Hadijanto. I congratulate all the winners:

Best Speaker - Valliappan Selvamani

Best Evaluator - Jenny Au

Best Table Topics - Salma Begum

Written by: Kavin, Guest of the Club

Kevin Cottam's "The Nomadic Mindset UNCOVERED" Workshop

There is no beginning to your journey (to who you are)

There is no ending to your journey (to who you are)

You are migrating to expansion.

Here are the paradigm shift questions. As a Toastmaster, what is challenging you in your speaking journey? Are there worthwhile behaviors that are lost and need to be brought back? For example, your initial enthusiasm and efforts to be a better public speaker. Are these lost on you as time goes by? If yes, would you consider migrating to bring it all back over and above?

Professional Speaker, Executive Coach and Author Kevin Cottam, PCC, ACS, posed these thought provoking questions and went on to seek opinions from the participants on the true meaning of NOMAD. Most replied to the likes of "moving from place to place .....".

No. Its actually "the movement of the mind", quoting from Batgerel Bat, someone Kevin met in his own awesome journey.

There are three mindsets. Namely: Nomadic, Builder and Settler. These change from time to time, with one dominant or take precedence over the others in the moment.

Given a hypothetical situation: An annual conference to be organized by Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club is in consideration. A settler in the Club will want to assume no risk and choose not to take it up. Another member, a builder, will want to take action and aspire to have the conference to be held on time and under budget. A nomadic in the Club will be adventurous and seek to look out for new frontiers and hence explore possibilities. For example, nomads are excited to leverage on the most technologically advanced digital devices to outreach to bigger masses to join the annual conference. From the neuroscience perspective, a builder thinks in the head, a settler thinks in the heart, whereas the nomadic thinks in the gut.

"Think Vastly, Act Narrowly", quote from Binderiya, a Student at the National University of Mongolia, from the book, The Nomadic Mindset.

Kevin later shared more of his own personal journey to highlight the importance of having a nomadic mindset. His childhood days were spent in the west coast of Canada. Moving on, he later went to the city to study figure skating. He did well and became a Canadian champion in figure skating. Moving further on, he later took up a dancing job in New York, then at Moulin Rouge in Paris. Moving on again, he went back to Canada as a figure skating choreographer, then figure skating coach, then speaker, before eventually becoming an author. His stint in Mongolia is where The Nomadic Mindset came about. He learned from the nomads, "migrate is for survival, for a better life". That is when he come to realize he is not running away, being crazy going for the unknown after accomplishing much in the earlier pursue. He is simply running towards expansion, evolution and growth. Looking back, he can well connect the dots now.

"You must be ready to learn how difficult this situation is...... the difficult truth." - Benson Muntere, Maasai Warrior from Kenya.

That, in essence, is to face the lion.....

The ongoing pandemic and Toastmasters are helping us to evolve, by facing the lion; to take on much needed leadership roles. Do keep that movement of the mind. Do not put the mind within restrictive barriers. Be courageous by being still, alert, curious, a listener and an observer. Henceforth, to be a better person, a better speaker. This, is the message Kevin is conveying to all of us.

Do check out this awesome book, The Nomadic Mindset: Never Settle … for Too Long, by Kevin Cottam. It is a leadership book for adventurous, courageous, and bold leaders. It is based on harvesting the ancient wisdom, qualities, and mindset of nomadic cultures as a new way to lead successful, engaged organizations. Also click on the YouTube video below for a short introduction to this book.

Written by Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB

Recap: 171st Chapter Meeting - 23rd January 2021

Life has changed dramatically with the Covid-19 pandemic and finally I’m able to attend Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's 171st Chapter Meeting on Zoom!

The meeting started off with a quick round introduction thanks to our Sergeant at Arms and Toastmaster of the Day, Audrey Lim, PM2, with “What’s your plan for the Chinese New Year long weekend” and got everyone excited to share their plans & events. Our Club President, Rusman Hadijanto, CTM, CL, DL5, made a quick opening speech and shared his experiences and takeaways being a Club President. He encouraged members to join the Executive Committee (EXCO) for the coming 2021 / 2022 term.

Four speeches lined up for everyone!

1) Speaker: Samrit Das, TM, delivered “Generation Gap” made us wondered he will come up with different values between young people and their parents. However he shared his observations on the evolution of technology in our life.

We witnessed from bulky personal computers to laptops to sleek tablets. Film cameras to digital cameras to smartphones and the list goes on.

Social media is the new form of socialization, we are more connected with the world, however we gradually lost the human touch.

2) Speaker: Tan Siew Foong, TM, presented “Change your brain & Change your life” with her personal experience on how she recovered from burnout at work.

She was fortunate to meet a psychiatrist during her visit to USA while on sabbatical leave, her advice is to take care and improve our brain:

- Consume healthy food

- Sleep more than eight hours to remove toxic in brain

- Mediation: give our brain time to rest and stop thinking

- Gratitude: Be thankful, grateful & appreciative towards what we have.

3) Speaker: Angela Cai, TM, prepared speech on “Tips for Sleep” further emphasized the importance of health after Siew Foong.

Her research concluded that Sleep is a magical cure for memory, creativity and clarity development. To achieve this sleeping environment condition is rather critical; our body responds to light & darkness differently which includes:

- Ensure exposure to good sunlight

- Avoid artificial light at night as it sends wrong signal to brain

- Creating a comfortable bedroom with no or minimal electronic devices.

4) Speaker: Marc Wong, DL2, “Once upon a time”, started with himself as a young boy, dreaming to be a super hero (Superman), a freeman when he completed his National Service, an investor and now an entrepreneur.

“Once upon a time” always a beautiful story to start with; always warm his heart and this “Once upon a time” moment he valued originated from his life stories that he mentioned to his children now.

Good job to all speakers! It was a delightful session that made the Saturday afternoon absolutely awesome!

Table Topics segment came right after our refreshment break. Always the nerve-wracking Table Topics! Our Table Topic Master, Freya Gwee, TM, introduced seven memes as Table Topics. The whacky topics resulted in surprisingly hilarious speeches from many of our speakers.

Speech Evaluation

The Project Evaluation segment after Table Topics gave evaluators sufficient time to provide insightful feedbacks to speakers.

Siva Kumar Nulu, PM1, Durga Prasad, TM, Rusman Hadijanto, CTM, CL, DL5 and Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL, gave their opinions on the respective prepared speech speakers. Even for the rest of us, their evaluations educated us on how to make our future speeches better.

Special thanks to all other appointment holders:

Timer: Santwana, TM

Ah Counter: Gurusamy, IP3 (visiting Toastmaster)

Congratulations to all Award Winners:

Written by Freya Gwee, TM

Recap: 170th Chapter Meeting - 9th January 2021

Tan Siew Foong - "be a nurturing team leader"

Kelvin Tan (guest) - "learn a new language"

Helena Lim - "exercise more to reduce waistline

Venkat Voleti - "stay fit by visiting gymnasium and going for run regularly"

Siva Kumar Nulu - "remain healthy"

Sarah Ong - "go to bed early to have adequate restful sleep"

Santwana Shrivastava- "break through COVID barriers, eg. went photo shooting recently"

Marc Wong - "get a professional certificate in line of work"

Salma Begum- "go for gymnasium workout with group of friends"

Jacqui Heng (guest) - "find an ideal job"

You guessed it! These are the New Year Resolutions of members and guests who attended Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's 170th Chapter Meeting, the first meeting of the year 2021! 

Leaping into the New Year with unparalleled resolutions!

Indeed, as mentioned by some of the respondents, making a resolution is easy, keeping it though, requires persistent effort. This blogspot can perhaps serve as a reminder, a check (heehee!😆), as well as a motivation to see the resolutions thru 💪👍.

Club President Rusman Hadijanto, CTM, CL, DL5, in his opening address wished everyone a Happy New Year! He even quoted "Tomorrow is a mystery, yesterday is history, which is why we call today a present", "Where there's no friction, all of us perish" - from the bible and "Be stubborn on vision, but flexible on details" - from Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.... all timely reminder in this pandemic.

Our courageous Durga Prasad, TM, who took on the dual role of Sergeant at Arms and Toastmaster of the Day even went on to take up a little of the Language Evaluator role by introducing the Word of the Day "Faux Pas" which means social blunder, and encouraged everyone to include it in their speech. Bravo Durga!

Prepared speech speaker, Cheng Kok Siong, TM, gave us all a timely topic too. Happiness is all about mindset. If we allow our happiness to be dependent on external factors, we will find it outside the sphere of our control. So do cultivate a positive thinking mindset. Kok Siong, speaking of himself, go for constructive activities like exercising and reading on a regular basis. He also gave an example other than himself. The late Sam Berns, who suffered from progenia disease, lived a happy and fulfilling life by focusing on what he can do and he did.

Siva Kumar Nulu, PM1, gave us an overview on dealing with different communication styles at the workplace. Namely, direct, initiating, supportive and analytical. Our Vice President Education 2, Venkat Voleti's encouragement towards our members to take up roles in our meetings was used as an example of effective communication style.

Marc Wong, DL2, once dreamt of making it big after the completion of his National Service (NS) obligation. He pursued his career in the information technology (IT) field where he faced the challenges of constant and never ending technological advancements. In addition, he learnt and dabbled in the stock market in the hope of making loads of money. Unfortunately, the financial crisis happened in the year 2008. He lost it all then. The one fortunate thing that come out of it is, he grew emotionally stronger from the loss.

Table Topics Master, Helena Lim, CC, prepared topics related to the New Year in the most colorful fashion. Graphics were added into the Table Topics. It certainly imbued cheerful tone to the New Year's first meeting.🎇🎆

What was the single best thing that happened in 2020?
Marc Wong is grateful his family is well, safe and sound together.

How has life taught you recently?
Venkat Voleti shows resilience in the face of difficulties. He bonded better with his family during this difficult pandemic.

How old would be if you do not know how old are you?
Our guest, Kelvin Tan, feel grateful everyday regardless of age.

What is one New Year resolution that you take every year?
Another guest, Samuel, would strive to make family proud with good examination results.

What is your number one goal in 2021?

Kok Siong wishes upon everyone to cultivate positive mindset as shared in his prepared speech. He would like to continue to share positive messages to others around him.

What are the changes you want to see in the world in 2021?
Siew Foong would love to see kindness to the environment and the animals in this planet Earth.

If the average human lifespan is 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
Santwana opined 40 years are not enough to accomplish much.

What is one piece of advise you wish you could had followed?

If she could turn back the clock, Sarah Ong would certainly choose to follow her friend's advise to upgrade her apartment.

When was the last time you tried something new?
Siva Kumar Nulu shared his passion in travelling and had recently began investing into bitcoin.

If happiness is the national currency, what would you do to make you rich?
Rusman loves to get everyone to start using this happiness currency if it is real.

Graphics added into the Table Topics by Helena Lim imbued cheerful tone to the New Year

Santwana, TM, evaluating Kok Siong's speech, praised a well research topic and suggested adding expressions and examples.

Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL, evaluating Siva's speech, pointed out the pluses of the speech, simple, well structured, cool and composed. Other good points include, appropriate example was used and it appealed to the audience. Improvements for consideration are; closing the gap between the content and the title, vocal variety, and pauses for key takeaways.

Salma Begum, ACB, ALB, evaluating Marc's speech, gave thumbs up on good twist of the story and refreshing take on stocks trading. She observed Marc had shared his colorful personal life's ups and downs but his expressions did not show. Look of sadness when telling the audience he lost his shirt will make a bigger difference to the impact the speech have on the audience. Ending of speech could be further elaborated to show better connection.

Ah counter Tan Siew Foong, TM, who has been paying special attention to everyone's speech gave a precise count of all the pause fillers used.

The winners of the first meeting for the New Year 2021 are:
Best Speaker: Marc Wong, DL2
Best Evaluator: Salma Begum, ACB, ALB
Best Table Topics: Samuel (guest)

Written by Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB

Recap: 169th Chapter Meeting - 12th December 2020

It's Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's last Chapter Meeting of the year. Members and guests joined in the Zoom meeting adorned with Christmas colors and cheers. The sheer presence of many enthusiastic participants already filled the festive mood to the brim before the start of the meeting.

Anchorvale CC Toastmasters Club's Facebook cover photo during the festive season

Sergeant at Arms of the Day, Valli Kasinathan, CC, asked the ice breaker question. How would you celebrate the coming Christmas and New Year?

Freeya Gwee: "Go on a cruise!"
Venkat Voleti: "Visit temple and pray for a better year. 🙏"
Siew Foong: "Meals with friends who are celebrating."
Sarah Ong: "Staycation at Mandarin Orchard Hotel."
Angela Cai: "Meeting friends."
Nirmala Arifin: "Spend time with family."
Bharati: "Celebrate with extended family in India via Zoom."
Ng Kin Foong: "Christmas dinner."
Marc Wong: "Pay visits within COVID-19 restrictions."

😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄😄

The pandemic obviously did not make a dent on our participants' grandiose plans for merry making.... 🎉🎊

Toastmaster of the Day, Durga Prasad, DL1, invited our Club President, Rusman Hadijanto, DL5, to give the meeting's opening address. Rusman delivered to us three valuable messages of Christmas spirit:

Faith. Quoting from renown novelist, Paulo Coelho, best known for his novel The Alchemist. "Not knowing what will happen next, we still move on with our trust and faith."

Expectation of good. Everything happens for a reason. Greatest good comes from hardest times of our life, taking a leaf from Roy T Burnett.

Love is passion and kind. From the Bible.

Much needed encouragement from our Club President. Then signed off with <<Santa Rusman Claus>>. 🎅

Faith, expect good and love given by Santa Rusman Claus 

Invited visiting Toastmaster and Language Evaluator Ng Kin Foong, DTM, from Tampines Changkat Toastmasters Club, introduced the Word of the Day, "Precious".

Language Evaluator Ng Kin Foong shows multitude use of the word "Precious"

The prepared speech segment revealed the many beneficial "how". Siew Foong, TM, a counsellor, engaged the audience with how to keep ourselves healthy and happy in life. Good relationship. Social connection. Family, friends and community. Salma Begum, ACB, ALB, while doing a rehearsal for the coming Division A Humorous Speech Contest, provided us with how to ride a bike and how to get pregnant with inputs from YouTube. At the same time, Salma received constructive feedbacks for her speech contest preparation. Angela Cai, TM, gave us tips on how to work from home effectively. To avoid distractions, set up house rules following strict time schedules. Time management is key. Define the start and end time. Use a calendar to plan. Have intervals of breaks for recharge. 💪

Prepared speech speakers clockwise from top left: Siew Foong, Salma and Angela

Table Topics Master, Santwana Shrivastava, LD1, presented to all of us "The only limit is your imagination."

It turns out that you can talk to cats but can't tell anyone about it. How do you use this newfound skill? Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL, shared his imagination:

Cats found at the HDB void decks were the only friends when he first came to Singapore. He connected better with people from this skill as cats from each household told him about secrets from each family. 

If you could be a real Santa for a day, who would be the first person you would want to make happy? Angela Cai's imagination:

She would choose to make patients infected with COVID-19 happy, and go on to make their wishes come true, bringing hope to them.

You've been given a pub to run, what do you name it and why? Guest Marie Ong's imagination:

She will name it 'Chatty'. This is to create an atmosphere of happiness.

Your in-laws are coming over and it's an important first meal with them and you've managed to burn the chicken. How do you salvage the situation? Guest Ong Jia Cheng's imagination:

He would engage the delivery service and buy time with preparation of other dishes.

If time and money were no limit, what would your ideal life be? Kok Siong's, TM, imagination:

Be of service and help to others.

Taking on the Project Evaluator role improves active listening, critical thinking and positive feedback skills. Evaluation is the heart of the Toastmasters educational program. You observe the speeches of your fellow club members and offer evaluations of their efforts. In the same spirit, Santwana suggested adding hand gestures to Siew Foong's speech. Bharati would love to have quotes and additional visual aids in Angela's. Valliappan commended Salma for her good use of twist, modulation of the voice and connection with the audience. He gave areas of improvement for consideration; the introduction of pauses with reduction of contents, for the audience to receive the important message of the speech in a more relaxed pace.

Invited guest speaker and visiting Toastmaster, Kelvin Leong, DTM, from Henderson Toastmasters Club brought all of us into the world of rate, volume, pitch, pauses, articulation, pronunciation, enunciation, fluency and non-verbal communication: paralanguage, in his Vocal Delivery workshop. He reiterated it is the energy in your voice, which in turn depends upon your breathing, that makes a difference in your speech delivery. He went on to teach breathing using diaphragm techniques through demonstration and asking for participation. Hilarious attempts by the participants I would say.

Vocal Delivery workshop poster

Language Evaluator Ng Kin Foong applauded those who had included the Word of the Day, "precious" in their speech before going on further on good and correct usage of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, enunciation, idioms and compare and contrast.

And the ribbon award winners of our 169th Chapter Meeting are:
Best Speaker - Salma Begum, ACB, ALB
Best Evaluator - Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL
Best Table Topics Speaker - Valliappan Selvamani, CC, CL

Woohoo! Double winner Valliappan!

Members and guests joined in the Zoom meeting adorned with Christmas colors 🎄🎁❄️

Written by Wee Chee Sian, ACB, ALB

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