It is a story about pursuing dreams, overcoming challenges, and building relationships. The same can be said for the parent-child or the leader-follower relationships. The same goes for any relationship. Is that person really unchangeable? Lesson 3: The success of everything depends on endurance If we want to build anything, whether it's a relationship The same is true in our own relationships.

She's always tried to have a good relationship with her mother-in-law, but her mother-in-law is very Soon after, her mother-in-law passed away, and she felt at ease that they managed to sort out their relationship

Have you ever been in an embarrassing situation and not know what to do in the moment? Recently, I was at a lunch event with one of my teachers, Venerable Chengde, and someone did something quite embarrassing. I was really impressed by the way my teacher handled the situation. Basically, lots of people were talking with my teacher and inviting him to give lectures at different places. He said, "I appreciate the invitations, but I really need to settle down and improve my own abilities first. Otherwise, I don't have much to help others with. Also, this year has been extremely busy for me. As you can see, I'm becoming more and more skinny. This is setting a bad example for people. If I don't make some adjustments, I'll end up heroically sacrificing myself." Then the person beside my teacher started clapping with a big smile. Immediately after, the person beside that person said, "What are you doing?! You can't clap!" He probably misunderstood Venerable Chengde's words, and when he realized that no one wants Venerable Chengde to die from exhaustion, he felt really embarrassed. I was thinking, "Well, this is quite awkward…" Then, Venerable Chengde said: "It's okay. We need to see the intention behind his action." Image Source Then he shared a couple stories: When I was studying under Venerable Jing Kong in Australia, there was a special guest who requested to sit near Venerable Jing Kong. That night at dinner, she found out her seat was right beside Venerable Jing Kong. She was quite startled and told the organizer 'I said closer, but not this close!' She was probably nervous because Venerable Jing Kong has such high prestige. Anyway, as they were eating, she suddenly said, 'Venerable Jing Kong, you truly have natural radiance!' Immediately, the person beside her said, "This isn't natural radiance! This is the magnificent image of Buddhism!" Suddenly, the atmosphere got really awkward, and no one knew what to say. Then, Venerable Jing Kong said, "Natural radiance is good." Immediately, she signed a breath of relief. You see, Venerable Jing Kong saw the intention behind her actions. To her, 'natural radiance' is already the biggest compliment she could come up with. She doesn't have 'magnificent image of Buddhism' in her vocabulary bank. The person who criticized her only saw her action, but not the intention behind her actions. A similar situation happened to the Buddha. One day, he went out to beg for food as usual. There was a little girl playing happily with some mud. When she saw the magnificent image of the Buddha, she felt extremely moved, and she rushed over to give him the mud she was playing with. When she put the mud in the Buddha's bowl, the student beside the Buddha got really angry and said, "What are you doing?! You can't put mud in the Buddha's bowl!" The Buddha immediately stopped his student and his, "It's okay. Today, I received treasure. Thank you." You see, the student was overly focused on the girl's actions, so he got angry. But the Buddha saw the intention behind the action. To that little girl, the mud was her favorite thing in the world, and she was willing to give it to the Buddha. That is precious. Likewise, we need to see the intention behind this person when he clapped for me. My feeling is that he has a strong sense of heroism, and he is willing to sacrifice himself for others, and that is very precious." After my teacher finished speaking, everyone's look towards that man changed from awkwardness to smiles. He himself felt relieved. My Reflection Oftentimes, people have positive or neutral intentions, but we misinterpret their intentions as negative, or we just overly focus on their actions. As a result, we create awkwardness, or even worse, conflict, when we really didn't need to. For example, one time my neighbor brought over a lot of pears from his pear tree to my house. I said to my mother, "Wow, that's a lot of pears." Shortly after, another neighbor came over, so I gave some of the pears to that neighbor. Later, my mother later said, "Why did you give so many pears to them? You should've consulted with me first! I had other plans for those pears." I felt upset because I thought I was doing a good thing to share the pears with others. My mother was logically correct that I should have checked with her first, but I would have felt better if she could affirm my intentions first by saying, "It's great that you like to share good things with others, but next time you should check with me first. After all, the neighbor gave it to us, not you, and I might have other plans for those pears." But anyway, we cannot demand others to change, we can only change ourselves. Therefore, I can cultivate my humility and remind myself to never assume negative intentions. Instead, either assume positive intentions from others, or check their intentions. I heard another example where a student was really tired and overslept past breakfast. When she woke up, she was angry at her roommate for not waking her up to go eat breakfast. Her roommate got upset too because she thought it would be better to let her sleep more since she was so tired. It would have been much better if the person said, "Hey I just wanted to ask why you did not wake me up for breakfast? Oh thank you for being considerate and letting me sleep more. Sorry for making you worry. By the way, next time, could you wake me up and ask me if I want to go to breakfast? That way I can decide myself. Thank you." To give one last example, one time I was chatting with some teachers, students, and parents. Everyone was sitting except for another teacher, myself, and a student. After a while, that student went to grab a chair. After the student sat on the chair for a few minutes, his mother suddenly said, "What are you doing? You should get chairs for the teachers!" The student probably had neutral intentions; he simply didn't think to get chairs for the teachers, but he was not purposely trying to be disrespectful. The parent was overly focused on the action and didn't consider her son's intentions, nor did she consider how her words would make her son and the people there feel very awkward. Then the other teacher said, "Oh thank you for warming up the seat for me!" Everyone laughed, and the student did not feel so awkward afterwards. Conclusion Don't overly focus on people's actions. Instead, see the intention behind their actions. Even better, always assume positive intentions; it can only make the situation better. Weekly Wisdom #238

If we always emphasize rules and logic, do you think we will have happy relationships? So if we want happy relationships and a happy life, we have to put human sentiment above logic and rules though I might win the argument, the mere fact that I make an argument out of it creates cracks in the relationship If I prioritized sentiment, that is prioritizing harmony and goodwill in relationships, then I wouldn't If we prioritize sentiment, then we will have good fortune and happy relationships.

But as I reflected more on this, I realized that this kind of relationship is not real love. We can apply real love to other relationships too. In a good teacher-to-student relationship, the teacher senses what is best for the student and takes In a good business-client relationship, the business takes initiative to sense what the customer needs If I just want a transactional relationship, then I don't need to do that.

This year, I have four big learnings: Memento Mori / cherish time Overcoming anger Relationship intelligence But oftentimes, relationships are complicated, messy, and troublesome. That's why it's so important that we continuously improve our relationship intelligence. blame others for not seeing our good intentions, we should blame ourselves for lacking sensitivity and relationship Some other blog articles from this year related to relationship intelligence include Notice others' good

"All people wear a little, invisible sign around their necks. It says, "Make Me Feel Important." —Dr. Alan Zimmerman Image Source Story One morning Mr. Cavett Robert looked out his window and saw a twelve-year-old boy going door to door selling books. The boy was headed for his house. Robert turned to his wife and said, "Just watch me teach this kid a lesson about selling. After all these years of writing books about communication, lecturing all over the country, I’ll show you how to get rid of a salesperson or anyone else, for that matter.” Mrs. Robert watched as the 12-year-old boy knocked on the door. Mr. Robert opened the door and quickly explained that he was a very busy man. He had no interest in buying any books. The young salesman was not daunted by Robert's brush-off. He simply stared at the tall, gray-haired, distinguished looking man, a man that he knew was fairly well known and quite wealthy. The boy said, "Sir, could you be the famous Mr. Cavett Robert?" To which Mr. Robert replied, "Come on in son." Mr. Robert bought several books from the youngster — books that he might never read. --- Source: Dr. Zimmerman’s Tuesday Tip, Issue 1095 - 3 Little Communication Strategies That Bring BIG Cooperation

Coincidentally, two of my friends also went through a really emotional week due to relationship conflicts Nowadays, it seems so many people are struggling in relationships, which shows how important it is for us to learn about how to have good relationships and how to resolve conflicts effectively. But if I want to have happy relationships, then I must improve on this aspect.

Introduction to Personality Your personality is the combination of your personality traits that lead to the way you think and act. There are many personality traits, and different personality tests measure different traits. Personality tests are basically surveys that ask you many questions. Then they give you a result telling you which personality type you are. Different tests have different personality groups. The three most useful personality tests I've used are DISC, Four Tendencies, and 16 Personalities. This article will focus on DISC. Why is it important to understand people’s personalities? Imagine you are listening to two computer programs argue. Excel complains that PowerPoint isn’t analytical enough. PowerPoint complains that excel isn’t visual enough. What would you think? That’s ridiculous. Excel is MADE to be an analytical program. PowerPoint is MADE to be a visual program. There’s no reason for them to argue and make those demands from each other. The same can be said with personality. There are two main reasons why knowing people’s personality is useful: 1. You know their objective strengths and weaknesses 2. You know how to create synergy with them Reason 1: Knowing People’s Strengths and Weaknesses First, personality tells you your objective strengths and weaknesses. Most people don’t know their strengths and weaknesses. They might have some guesses, but they don’t KNOW with 100% certainty. Or maybe they know 1 or 2 strengths and weaknesses, but we have a lot more than just 1 or 2 strengths and weaknesses. Doing the three personality tests from this course will tell you, in detail, all your strengths and all your weaknesses. Successful people focus on their strengths. They put 80%, 90%, or even 95% of their time and energy doing things that match their strengths. For their weaknesses, they patch them up to the point where it’s not a problem. For example, if your personality tells you that logic and analysis is your strength, and sensing people’s feelings is your weakness, then you know you shouldn’t be a therapist. That being said, it’s important to improve on your weakness to the point that it isn’t causing big problems for you in life. Reason 2: Creating Synergy Second, personality helps you understand other people who are different from you. That understanding helps create harmony and synergies. Synergy is when two people can create more than adding up what they create alone. In other words, 1+1 = 3. The mistake people make is that they assume people should be like them. They get annoyed at people for not being as _(logical, caring, open, etc.)__ as them. If they understood that people have different personalities, then they wouldn’t make those demands on others. For example, let’s say John likes to make plans and Mary likes to be spontaneous. If they didn’t learn about personality, then John gets angry at Marky for never making plans. Mary gets angry at John for being so inflexible and unopen. This conflict is a personality conflict. Personality conflicts arise because the two people don’t appreciate each other’s different strengths and weaknesses, and that ‘s because they don’t even KNOW that different people have different strengths and weaknesses. If they understood and appreciated each other’s personalities, then they wouldn’t get annoyed at each other. John would do the plans, and Mary would deal with unforeseen changes to the plans as they are carrying out the plan. They use their different strengths to cover up each other’s different weaknesses. That’s synergy. Now that we’ve mentioned the usefulness of personality, let’s talk about a simple personality test: DISC. DISC Personality Test DISC stands for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness. This personality test looks at two traits: how we interact with people and how we interact with work. You can take a formal test here, or you can simply answer these two questions: When you are with people, are you more outgoing or reserved? When you are doing a team project, are you more task-focused or people-focused? Based on your answer to those two questions, you will belong to 1 of 4 personality groups. Each group has different strengths and weaknesses. The group directly opposite of you is the group you're most likely to have conflicts with because their strengths are your weaknesses. For example, D-Types are likely to have conflicts with S-Types, and C-Types are likely to have conflicts with I-Types. But if you are aware of this, then you can change your attitude to focus on your strengths and appreciate other people's different strengths. D-Types D-Type means Dominance-Type. These people are outgoing and task-focused. They are demanding, decisive, and doers. Their main strength is that they get things done quickly. Their weaknesses are that they can be stubborn when giving opinions and they can miss details when getting things done quickly. Notice that in the picture, D is farthest from S, so the biggest weakness for D-types is group harmony, which is the strength of S-types. I-Types I-Type means Influence-Type. These people are outgoing and people-focused. They are inspiring, influential, and ideators. Their main strengths are talking and giving ideas. One of their weaknesses is that they tend to be slow to do what they say they will do. Also, I is farthest from C, so the biggest weakness for I-types is attention-to-detail, which is the strength of C-types. S-Types S-Type means Steady-Type. These people are reserved and people-focused. They are supportive and sensitive to people’s feelings. Their main strength is maintaining harmony with people, and they can yield to others. S is farthest away from D, so the main weakness for S-types is that they are slow to get things done, and it’s hard for them to make tough choices. C-Types C-Type means Conscientious-Type. These people are reserved and task-focused. They are conscientious (detail-oriented), careful, and competent. Their main strength is attention-to-detail. C is farthest from I, so the weaknesses for C-types are coming up with lots of ideas and socializing. How Common is Each Type? Here is the percentage split according to the Extended DISC 2019 Validation Study: Image Source Note that different countries will have differences. For example, the most common type in Germany is I-Type; for Brazil, it is C-Type. How I've used DISC in my Life With my leader One time, my school’s headmaster asked me to make a course, and he gave me some high-level requirements but no specific details or actions. I figured out that my organization’s leader is an I-Type. He has big ideas and he’s very convincing when he talks, but he doesn’t go through the details about how it can actually get done. I'm a C-type that leans towards D-type, so I tend to focus on details and actions. If I didn’t know about DISC, I probably would’ve tried to talk about details with him because it’s natural for us to communicate in the way that we are strong at. Fortunately, I knew about DISC, so I didn’t bother discussing the details with him. I also knew that my strength lies in figuring out the details, so I simply told him, “That sounds great. I’ll figure it out.” Examples of using DISC from my students I once put a group of three students together, and they were all A-level students. But they missed the rough copy submission deadline, and on their group report, they didn’t follow the assignment instructions. I was shocked. Then I checked their DISC (yes, I have the DISC profile of each student), and all three were I-types. I told them, if you guys had told each other what your DISC type was at the beginning, you could’ve identified that you’re all I-types, which means you all have the same weakness: attention-to-detail. Just by knowing that, you could’ve taken extra care to overcome those weaknesses by writing down the deadlines and making a checklist for all the things you need to submit. Another time, a student got very upset that her partner did his work in a very non-caring way. Based on what I know about these two students, I think the girl is a C-type and the boy is a D-type (who also happens to do things last-minute). C-types often get upset at others for their lack of attention-to-detail. The other team members didn’t get upset because they weren't C-types. By simply knowing about DISC, we can adjust our expectations for others (and ourselves) to be aligned with people’s strengths and weaknesses. Conclusion In this lesson, we looked at the importance of and usefulness of personality. We also looked at a very simple personality test: DISC. From this test, we can see that different personalities naturally have different strengths and weaknesses. We can use DISC to improve our communication with others, have more harmony in teams (by appreciating everyone's different strengths), and choose work that matches our strengths. In the future, we will look at The Four Tendencies and 16 Personalities.

Example 2: Relationships When relationship conflicts arise, we often blame the other person for being If we lack relationship and communication skills, then even if we had a "better" partner, we would still On the other hand, if we had excellent relationship and communication skills, then we could succeed with How can we improve our relationship and communication skills? By improving our reciprocity.

"How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?" —Jerry Colonna Image Source: Unsplash Commentary: We can apply this idea to both matters and people. Towards matters, we should look at how we've dedicated our time and energy. For example, I fell off my usual meditation practice this past week. It's easy for me to push the blame on busy-ness, but ultimately it's my responsibility to choose how I prioritize and spend my time, which I didn't do well. Towards people, we need to realize that our actions speak louder than our words. In this short excerpt from Knowing Where to Look, author Light Watkins gives some great examples: We are always teaching others how to treat us. If we are easily reactive, we teach people to sugarcoat the truth. If we routinely gossip about our friends, we teach others to question our loyalty. If we refuse to spread rumors, we teach people to trust that we will stand up for them too... If we consistently over-give, we teach others to take us for granted. If we give thoughtfully and in accordance to need, we teach people to appreciate our efforts... Every interaction is a teachable moment. What lessons will you teach today? Action: If you're unhappy about something or someone, ask yourself, "How am I complicit in creating the conditions I say I don't want?"

Attach the problem, not each other. Image Source: Unsplash "When wolves approach, wild horses form a circle with their heads at the center of the circle and kick out at the wolves, driving them away. When wolves attack a band of wild donkeys, however, they form a circle with their heads out toward the wolves and end up kicking one another. You have a choice; you can be as smart as a wild horse or as stupid as a wild donkey. You can kick the problem or you can kick each other." Source: Alan Zimmerman's Tuesday Tip #1082