Over the holiday season, I had a chance to meet many new people on different occasions. Also, I rekindled some people who I have not seen/spoken for more than a decade – It was like meeting people for the first time.

I am not anti-social but it is somewhat stressful to meet new people. I am excited about the new encountering but cannot deny angst associated with it. I used to be good at remembering people’s names but these days I can easily forget about someone’s name whom I just met several minutes ago.

To make my meeting less stressful, I deployed a new strategy this holiday season: Focus on listening and let the other person talk! It is a simple strategy but I can rarely enforce it because I’m not too fond of dead silence. With a slight pause in the conversation, I feel too awkward and start bubbling anything to keep the conversation rolling. But this time, I decided to become a total listener and only speak when I was questioned.

To my surprise, this strategy worked wonders for me. I was more relaxed and just listening to what they say. Sometimes there were some pauses. But, without my intervention, someone in the conversation broke them and the conversation went on. And I enjoyed learning about the people I encountered. That was a big plus.

With this realization, I am looking forward to meeting more people and learn about them this year. The more I practice meeting people, the better I am at it. More learning to do…

I am not trying to make a metaphorical statement here. The other day, I literally had to go through about ten turkeys blocking my path. It may be fine for some people but it was a gut-wrenching moment for me. Since I was a young child, I have been phobic about birds with a neck and wobbly things like wattles. I used to earmark pages with chickens’ photos in my science book to avoid turning into those pages.

It was supposed to be a pleasant morning walk. Too early to see many people on the path. The sun started rising and the air was crisp and fresh right after the rain. A perfect morning to have a mindful, solo walk. Then suddenly I saw the gaggle of turkeys: A group of the male turkeys fanning their feathers up, facing the other group of the female turkeys. Each side was making loud, gobble-gobble sounds. Instead of a mating ritual, it was more like watching a tense fighting moment of the West Side Story of the turkey version. Both were carefully sizing up each other and waiting for who will make the next move. Luckily a man was jogging nearby. I asked him if he could go through the path with me. He said that he was heading the other way. He looked at the turkeys and said, “Don’t worry – they won’t bite.”. As soon as he said that, I started having some lousy chain of thought, beginning with an incident when my sister-in-law got attacked by a wild goose. I thought about the scenes from the movie Birds.

Fear seized me. I was ready to turn around. Then, I had this feeling: If I turn back now, I will never conquer fear in my life. I felt that this could be a test for me to prove I can overcome any fear – a symbolic gesture but a significant trial.

So, I took a deep breath and marched toward them without any eye contact. I could feel their eyes are briefly on me, but, as I approached, they started to move to the right and I got pass through them. My heart was pounding but kept walking without turning back until their gobble sound faded away. I was joyous when I got to the path I wanted and the rest of my walk was one of the best hikes I had in many months. I was happy that the gaggle of turkeys did not foil my chance of a great morning exercise. Lesson learned – Don’t let fear take over your life. Don’t let the gaggle of turkeys ruin your plan.

Talking among my female friends, I realized that many are deeply offended by criticism. The source of the criticism can be from our spouse, family members, and friends. Sometimes it can be an acquaintance who may say something about your Facebook post. If it is a constructive criticism, we should learn to take it right. However, when you receive hurtful criticism, we tend to take it too personally and cannot shake it off.

The other day, I was discussing life in general with a group of women much older than I. During our two-hour conversation, I have never heard so many F words in my life from a bunch of the educated, mature women. But their attitude was very refreshing to me. Basically, they don’t give a damn about what other people think. We need to live our lives and be true to ourselves.

I don’t know if it gets easier to fend off criticism as you age, but that is a critical skillset we need it at all ages. We should learn to stay clear from insincere criticism from anyone. Give the person the bird in our minds and move on. Life is short. We have better things to do.

I recently joined a hiking group and started to hike long hikes with many hills and dales. When climbing hills, I feel like I am the Little Engine that could, huffing and puffing miserably.

During our hike, one of the hikers mentioned about a runner who suffered from a memory disorder. Because of the disorder, she could not remember how far she ran. As a result, she could run a marathon without getting tired. This episode reveals a fascinating point: endurance sports like a marathon is more mental than physical. We are physically capable of performing specific tasks, but it is the mental part of our brain that limits our ability.

So, I was walking by myself at my usual route. On this route, there is a steep hill I always dread to climb. To test out the mental theory, I decided to walk this hill without looking up. I focused on each step as if my foot was moving on the flat surface one step at a time. I had the temptation of looking up on the hill but kept an eye on my foot move. To my surprise, I was able to climb the hill without breathing hard!

This is a great lesson in life. Our cognitive mental process influences most of our endeavors. It is not our physical limit that is stopping us from doing something. The culprit is the anxiety and fears we mentally produce that physically manifest into physical constraints.

With this new insight, I look forward to our next hill challenge. I will make sure to quiet down my mental voice within me.

We had a small get-together for our friend’s birthday a couple of nights ago. I was dreadful about going out after work, worrying about many things like if I could meet them at the promised time with the heavy traffic, if I needed to go home to change for the appropriate attire, or if I got the right present for her, and so on. Thank goodness that this was not a potluck party! In any case, I always had to go through a set of my “worry” list before attending any events.

For this gathering, I was about to go through my worry ritual, but I paused a little. Why couldn’t I be utterly joyous about getting together with my dear friends and celebrate their birthdays without any worries? I should be grateful to be able to celebrate our birthdays, any happy occasions, and our lives at every opportunity we have. You don’t need to be a perfect host or attendee. You just bring the best positive, fun attitude to celebrate with the people you love. So, I just went to meet them, leaving all worries behind. And we had a fabulous time, talking, laughing, and sometimes crying.

When I came home, I was exhausted from all the talk but felt really happy to be part of a beautiful sisterhood we were able to nurture for almost a decade. I look forward to more celebratory occasions in our lives. And I Learn to celebrate every moment without any hesitation.

I was told a story about communication from a well-known communication coach once. He was at an airport waiting for his plane. He bought himself a magazine and a bag of cookies at the stand and sat down in his chair and started to read the magazine. Then he noticed that a lady sitting next to him was eating his cookies! He glared at her, but she just smiled at him. He said to himself, “How dare to eat my cookies!”. Before he had a chance to say something to her, he had to get going to catch his plane. When he got on board, then he noticed that he had an unopened bag of cookies in his bag.

He used this episode to teach us that the real, effective communication is to render you to have the correct perception/understanding of a situation. In this situation, he was not able to grasp the situation correctly and accused the woman of stealing his cookies. But the truth was that it was not his cookies: it was hers. He said that it was his fault not to understand the situation.

When I heard this story, I did not fully agree with what he said. It’s two to tango in communications. Is it just his fault that he did not get it right?

Then the other day, I felt something different about effective communications and what the communication coach was saying. I borrowed a few inspirational books from my friend. She must have read the books a few years ago, but there were underlines and marks. I was stunned to find out her inner thoughts through her notes on the book margins. She seemed to be very content and calm, but she had a burning desire to be better, happier, and successful in her life. I have been talking to this person for many years. How come I did not catch this side of hers?

If the goal of communication is to truly understand each other in contact, then it can be my privilege and obligation to reach out to the person to understand his/her undercurrent viewpoints and what they really think.

To be a good communicator, you need to be patient and compassion and willing to spend some time to get to know the person. More to learn…

It has been almost two years since I listen to Earl Nightingale’s Lead the Field CDs during my commute. These CDs have been helping me in developing better attitudes toward life. Naturally, I was curious about his other inspirational work – the Strangest Secret. Originally Earl wrote this short message for a group of salespeople. But it packs profound life philosophy for everyone.

So, what is the “strangest” secret? It is key to a successful life. The secret is to follow this simple concept: you will become what you think about. It is such a simple thought, but not everyone follows it. That is why it is “strange”.

I have heard many inspirational coaches say the same thing in different ways, but it originates from Earl’s Strange Secret…You become how you project yourself to be. How empowering!

So, as Earl suggests in the book, I decided to try this for 30 days. Since we literally become what we think about us, we must control our thoughts. If we project negative traits and qualities about ourselves, that becomes us! We must choose the right image/thoughts about ourselves for this concept to work. For 30 days, I would like to try this exercise and report the result.