I visited Boston Toastmaster club meeting. At table topic (impromptu speaking), I was asked to talk about ‘not only survive but thrive’… Two recent Toastmaster experiences were great examples and thanks to Covid-19: (1) Many clubs have brought their meetings online so I ‘could’ join tonight’s meeting. I couldn’t make the meeting in person with …
Category Archives: Creativity
Always Making Progress
Over the past two weeks, a colleague and I have been calling sales to get buy-in and prepare for customer interviews. Most sales and ops teams were enthusiastic about product/ UX team’s interest in getting customer feedback even if it may not be the right time or circumstance to talk with customers now. What we …
Tea Time
My roommate and I have been working from home since mid March due to Covid. We’re busy during the week, barely talk with each other, and usually work late. Today for the first time, we decided to have a tea in the late afternoon. I love Indian Chai masala tea, hot and comforting, just the …
Alternative
I got up at 7AM on a Sunday morning to watch Toastmaster International’s panel discussion about the partnership of Toastmaster and Rotary Club. Somehow, the link didn’t work. I tried several times and waiting, nothing happened…I was a bit annoyed of wasting time and sleep. Then I reminded myself that I ‘gained’ some time to …
Customer Interview
My boss asked me to work with the product and UX/ research teams in designing and preparing customer interviews of a customer portal. Learning a new system (totally different from the one I’m leading and the opposite end of user journey) and about customers are very exciting to me. However, for several team members, interviewing …
Listen and Slow Down
2 weeks after writing ‘Stretch: Do Less’, the 2 things I started practicing are working and I’ll continue… Daily to-do list: start with 3 Meeting, speech: plan less Yet I realized that they’re mostly related to ‘do less/well’. Fort the other 2 goals: listen more and slow down… Count to 3 after others finish before …
Stretch: Do Less
Stretch: do less? For many people, stretch means doing more and trying new things yet if you’re a super curious, highly-energetic, type A person like me, stretch would be the opposite: to listen more, slow down, and do less/ well… I decided to start with below: Daily to-do list: start with 3 (vs. 5 often …
Learning
When Y suggested ‘Show, don’t tell’ for writing, I googled to learn more, see ‘Writing’ post for more details. I was fascinated to see the examples and impacts (to myself), meanwhile, worried how could I ‘match up’: others wrote so well, how much re-write I need, how long the editing would take (for sure beyond …
Rebel Talent
I read Rebel Talent book by Professor Francesca Gino at Harvard. She described different rebel talents that bring joy and meaning in life. For example, Massimo Bottura is the owner and chef of Osteria Francescana, a Michelin 3 star restaurant yet he hasn’t been to culinary school (dropped off law school). He has 2 sous-chefs …
Listen More, Talk Less
When I came to US to attend business school, I was shocked that students raised their hands ‘before’ professor even finished the question. How could people ‘think’ that fast? At first, I thought it’s my English (to understand) or classmates were ‘smarter’ than me. As time went on, I realized that it’s a strategy (as …