More than the top idea in your mind?

August 1st, 2010 § 2 share their Joy

Down in Carmel Valley this weekend and here’s a glimpse of the view that we have from our place! A special big thank you to the people who have made this journey possible.

Other than soaking in on the beauty of Carmel, I am personally incredibly fond of long showers. As Paul Graham shares in his latest essay, The Top Idea in Your Mind, he mentions the ideas to which comes to mind in the shower is far more important than he thought.

It sets a time where a constant flow of energy rushes rapidly and ideas run through my mind like sparks of fire. The one top idea springs up instantaneously and trickles down, one after another, like a domino connecting the dots in the macro picture of things. And then the Ah-Ha moment hits and it’s almost an epiphany be it for new product iterations or on insights related to theories that range anywhere from education to politics.

We all find solace in our own unique places where ideas flow endlessly.

There’s a snippet of life I’d like to share. A young Mom with 2  kids, found that she was diagnosed with breast cancer the year she turned 35. With the horror and endless pain from chemotherapy, she would always fight to show a brave front in front of her two children. Her rationale, “Why should I make everyone suffer with me when it’s a pain that I can bear on my own? ” She used to laugh it off when we asked her how she was doing. “Not very different”, she’d say.

How do you cope I used to ask, after endless probing, she turned to me and said, “I’m still human, we learn to deal with things in our own ways. I take long showers and it’s there that I let my tears stream.”

This has stuck with me since the day I heard her. Each and everyone of us may go through a similar contextual experiences but through our very diverse lenses, we derive a multitude of meaningful experiences, beyond ideas.

First of Many.

July 26th, 2010 § 5 share their Joy

Have you sat there and thought for a minute and asked yourself what you’ve always wanted to do?

I knew I wanted to fly as a child. Always. A friend of mine said, when you dream that you are flying in the middle of your sleep, it’s almost a representation that life’s taking on a new phase or a new chapter for him. I seem to reckon so too. My first voyage!

Here’s presenting,
MK734 flying out
from Palo Alto, CA
Airport!

“Ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

Difference is what we make out to be

July 14th, 2010 § Say Hello Or Share your Joy!

So here I am back in the bay area. 8 months have zipped by and everything here does not seemed to have change very much. It’s possibly that my perspective and outlook to events and things have very well been shaped and sharpened.

All seems to be a matter of how one chooses to perceive the circumstances and trials around them. I was touched and inspired by a meeting with Mia, a Mom of two kids, 5 and 12. Mia spent some time over dinner to share how her experience of seeking the best for her very special child and how she turned her child’s learning around. Often some children do not quite fit into schools due to the traditions, systems, ways of teaching and learning found in schools. Does your child come home crying? Upset over what school has done? Feared going back to school day after day?

What do we do when these things happen? We let it slide by because we have no clue what to do next. Or do we simply settle for the simplest alternative – convenience? Unrelenting standards never to settle for less will some times help to push us through to get the best for our loved ones. Persistently striving to search for the best school around that fits her first born, then 6. From researching in magazines to forums, to speaking with countless people and going the lengths to convince the people around her that turning a blind eye to her child’s happiness in school was simply, not alright?

Mia taught and showed me the love a Mother has for her child, despite circumstances that one resides in, has many alternatives. It’s very much the same picture to begin with, it’s just painted in a different way, played out with workarounds in a different manner.

Today, the little one spends time at The Nueva School, for the gifted.

Cheers to all the Moms who fight every day for the best for their little ones – Thank you.

How do you see?

June 14th, 2010 § Say Hello Or Share your Joy!

Take a peak into your perspectives. How do I shape my perspectives about people? How do I see the beauty in the little things around me? Or do I forget that they are there? What do I make out a person’s next steps and intentions be?

What do you see?

As cliche as it sounds, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. What beauty do we choose to see as a result of our experiences, circumstances, the people who have shaped our world and left an impression on us?

Do we choose to see the problems that come our way as imperfections or as opportunities? We define our own imperfections and our own opportunities, circumstances may rule so, but we all have a choice. How we choose to live out the decisions we make, we all have a hand. How far will you go in determining what is worth the mark at the end of the day. I could say, I’ve tried my very best and walked away knowing that the outcomes may be different, but the process well tried, well experienced, well lived.

In Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas he shares, “The only article that Lady Fortuna has no control over is your behaviour.”

I’m trying to learn to see the beauty in things, even in things I find distasteful or unpresentable. But it seems that in the essence of appreciating beauty in the imperfect, that new versions of beauty will emerge out of these newly altered perspective. A problem presented, now thus seen as a manner in which learning is set to take place.

Some introspection for the morning.

Child Finance International | Zanvoort, Netherlands

June 13th, 2010 § Say Hello Or Share your Joy!

Like a whirlwind, in a blink of an eye the week has zipped by since Min and I were over at the ChildFinance International Conference – A movement on Child Finance organized by Alfatoun brought together the world’s leading organizations coming to nail down the multi-faceted aspects of Financial literacy education for children. The confluence of experts in the field coming together to address issues that are pertinent in all spectrum to teaching children about money in nations, and all around the world. An exciting movement ahead!

The conference proved to provide some great validations for our navigation into the space of child financial education. The emphasis on research and the effectiveness of teaching children at a young age holds consistent with our strife for teaching children about from a young age and at the same time involving parents in the learning process.

Princess Maxima giving the inaugural address

Met some inspiring people, of which there are too many to list. If I’ve met you at the conference and we have spoke in one way or another, Thank you for being a part of shaping my experience. You would have contributed to molding my thoughts in one way or another and adding to that, the many learning lessons I took with me at this gathering.

Jeroo, amazing pioneer of FI, Founder of Aflatoun

The tour around Haarlem brought some time for great introspection and reflection. Amidst the architecture I stood in awe of, the beautiful windows in Holland, its sheer transparency almost seemed like a metaphor for the freedom and liberation that the country stood for. Significant in the land of the free. Took a quick tour of Haarlem with John Elkington, who shared much about his many years of experience in working on the many genres of ventures. Co-Authored the book, The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets that Change the World. Thank you for the inspiration and excitement in Moolah!

The trip was made complete with a visit from my dear brother, Dominic who very excitedly flew in from London to spend the 3 days in Holland.

Carpe Diem!

Children See, Children do | The Absorbent Mind

May 31st, 2010 § 1 shares their Joy

It’s interesting to peer back into our days of old. The memorable or maybe not so memorable times of our childhood?

Dr Maria Montessori has left an impressionable footprint in my view of child development and learning. Looking at the initial stages of child development, first three years of growth, Montessori calls the absorbent mind, ‘a special mechanisms exists for language.’ Not the possession of language itself, but the possession of this mechanism which enables men to make languages of their own, in what distinguishes human species[1].

As Mario M. Montessori explains in the Education for Human Development: Understanding Montessori, The absorbent stage where learning is mainly influenced by the result of unconscious mechanisms determined by the emotional development of the child and in turn is dependent on the adult who cares for it.

Introjections, imitation, and identification are of particular importance in the formation of behavior patterns and the acquisition of cultural attitudes.

This tells the story, Children See. Children Do.

I find myself almost as a replica of my mother’s way of being. She’d teach, “Others before Self.” And being in the company of children recently surfaced this point, I found myself teaching the little ones almost naturally the concept of sharing and giving before gratifying their needs. And reflecting on what Montessori mentioned, not only were the good results channelled this way, where imitation is concerned. Boy do I scream like my mother when I do :)

What about your version of replica? How has that changed the way you think about the world?

[1] Montessori, The Abosorbent Mind p.37

Writing, Thinking | Written as it is.

May 19th, 2010 § Say Hello Or Share your Joy!

So, I have been writing, scribbling, sketching and possibly hammering the keyboard as a measure of writing that we have become so used to. Sheets and sheets of paper fill my room, notebook after notebooks. Occasionally, I use Ommwriter, this one’s a pretty interesting tool that helps one concentrate as they write – something that technology has taken away from us (too many tabs maybe?). Then it occurred, why not go back to basics and attempt to manifest the streams of thoughts in words.

Writing becomes a way to solidify thought processes, concretize and make connections of the insane number of thoughts that run through our heads every minute of every day. The National Science Foundation has some interesting statistics. We think a thousand thoughts per hour. When we write, we think twenty-five hundred thoughts in an hour and a half. The average person thinks about twelve thousand thoughts per day. A deeper thinker, according to this report, puts forth fifty thousand thoughts daily.

What are some of the rituals that we have in our lives? The great thinkers have inspiring daily rituals have one thing in common, they all bring forth ideas of their own, novel ones, unique and independent in thought, almost revolutionary in their own ways.

Writing is time consuming – No doubt about that. What isn’t when it requires thought? And they said, time doesn’t come to you. It’s what you make time for that’s different.

Consumerism, Say What?

May 16th, 2010 § 2 share their Joy

Going back to tradition and the original meaning of consumerism as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, Consumerism is, “The state of an advanced industrial society in which a lot of goods are bought and sold.” ”When too much attention is given to buying and owning thing.” We are all living in an era where consumerism is no longer considered a novel thing, it’s penetrated into our every day lives and let alone can we consider this to have too much emphasis and focus.

Do we find ourselves paying attention to these things? Do we forget that consumerism is bombarding us in our faces everywhere we are, in every part of our lives?

In affluent cities, living in a time where access to capital is readily available, the consumer has a myriad of choices, every second, every minute of every day, to make a purchase, either on impulse or through cautious processing.

Delivery of a game through your mobile phone, transacted in a matter of seconds, purchasing your McDonalds delivery online warrants you a $1 discount off your total purchase, all at our finger tips, all in a matter of clicks and seconds. How do you say No to these conveniences in our purchase behaviours?

I was not spared with my trip in Phuket this weekend, almost a sort of aggressive consumerism I’d say. With the salesmen, young, old, child, adult popping by my beach chair, one by one, all selling different commodities. A walking mall that comes to you, bombarding me with purchases after purchases. It came to a point where I chose not to let our eyes meet, for fear of sending the wrong signals of me falsely seeming interested in making a purchase. It was easy to say No, but hard to ignore.

Looking at what we are used to in affluent cities, the malls we patronize today masquerades as a passive consumerism that unconsciously lingers in our midst. One that we actively choose to walk into the moment we decide to make a trip to the shopping malls. The passive consumerism now turns us to subjects of material temptation. “It’s window shopping”, we’d say. Does that make us sit and ponder why we place ourselves in positions where we endlessly seek the latest and the best, when will we ever have enough?

Our outlook to the awareness of the inherent consumerism that exists today should cause us to settle for some introspection in the things we consume and pursue.

Introspection, this came to mind.

April 29th, 2010 § Say Hello Or Share your Joy!

In teaching, I learnt.
In doing, I felt.
In reflecting, I understand.
In being, I become. (Thanks Meng)

The World and I Am

April 26th, 2010 § Say Hello Or Share your Joy!

The world is at my feet,
I dream, I think and I fleet.

To a heaven with inspirations,
that requires no mention and understanding
beyond the human mind.