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Applying the Teachings After cultivating my speaking habits, I’ve found my communication abilities and

For example, most people simply aren't taught how to be a good person, how to communicate effectively I feel that clearing up this misunderstanding is important for our relationship, then I can calmly communicate Common folk conform but are not harmonious." (Original Text: 君子和而不同，小人同而不和。) Common folk often follow the herd. know that the amount of work and difficulty level I give is a fair stepping stone to university, and I communicate

I also didn't take initiative to communicate my situation, so of course they would end up guessing based

I recently heard Jay Shetty interview Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry, and a key idea that really stuck with me is to not ask "What's wrong with them" but rather "What happened to them." The former creates negative judgment, while the later creates empathy. In this post, I'll share some of my own experiences on this topic. Image Source: Unsplash This school semester, I've been teaching a health course, and part of it involves healthy eating. I've come to realize how emotionally sensitive the topic of food can be for people. I remember my mother was very against me drinking celery juice for example, which caused a lot of conflict between us. Back then, I was thinking, "What's wrong with her? It's just celery!" In the health course I'm teaching, when I showed a talk on veganism, some students reacted in a very emotional and illogical way. One student even said "I don't care if animal products are unhealthy or cruel or bad for the environment. I must eat meat." To which, I thought, "What's wrong with them?" But that question just creates judgment and negativity in my own mind, which hurts me more than anyone else. When I ask the question, "What happened to them?", then things start to make sense, and I can have more empathy for them. In the case of my mother, she was very sick in the past, and she healed after following the advice of a specific doctor who taught her that we need to eat more "warm" foods like ginger, cinnamon, fennel, hot peppers, etc. We should limit cold foods like fruits and vegetables, and when we do eat "cold" foods, we should add in the "warm" spices to reduce their "coldness". Regardless of whether I want to debate the logic of that, the fact is, she healed from that doctor's advice, so emotionally, she is very attached to that viewpoint. That's why she's so against me drinking pure celery juice. It's not a logical debate. It's an emotional thing. In the case of those students, I can imagine that they probably grew up (like I did) eating animal products. They have fond memories of family dinners at home or at restaurants filled with different meat dishes. They love getting milk tea with friends. They order barbeque skewers all the time. They eat eggs every day and drink a glass of milk before bed. It's not a big surprise then that they would feel emotionally attacked when presented with information that says that the innocent happiness they had in the past was somehow wrong or bad. That one rude student in particular was maybe going through a bad day that day. Or perhaps he was spoiled at home to get whatever he wants. Or perhaps he often argues with his parents that way. Going through this mental exercise helped me have more empathy for others. It also reminded me of something that Peter Crone said: If you were them, with their exact genes and childhood and accumulated life experiences, you would be behaving exactly the same way as them. So to judge them is completely nonsensical. The point isn't to excuse other people's bad behavior, but rather to reduce the negative emotions within yourself because those negative emotions hurt you and prevent you from acting logically and effectively. When we can approach others from a place of care and patience, only then we can have a positive influence on them.

Published Date: Sunday, August 11, 2019 Hi All! This week's newsletter is centered around the book Influence by Robert B. Cialdini. Reading this book has changed me from an ignorant victim of sales tactics to an educated consumer, so I would definitely recommend it. Here are the chosen learning points: Companies and salespeople use psychology and your evolutionary instincts to influence you to buy things. There's 7 in particular: Contrast, Reciprocity, Consistency, Social Proof, Liking, Authority, and Scarcity. (see table below) On Liking, there's 5 factors that make people like someone: physical attractiveness, similarity, giving compliments, cooperation, and conditioning. To defend yourself against these tactics, the main approach is to identify which tactic the salesperson is using on you. Then separate the tactic from the item itself and ask if you would still want the item. For a more detailed summary of the book, check out my blog post: Influence -- 7 minute summary. If you think someone else would find this newsletter useful, please forward it to them. Thanks, and have a wonderful week ahead!

week's chosen learning points, featuring wisdom from Gretchen Rubin's Happier podcast: Maintaining Communication : When it comes to communication and visiting people, frequency is more important than duration.

After my spectacular debut poem as a philosophic poet, I'm going to do another poem today! Just kidding, I'm actually just translating a short verse from Lao Tzu's Dao De Jing, but I did try to make the translation sound poetic. If I had to name this poem, I would call it, "Accomplishing Greatness." Big arises from small. Much arises from few. Return hate with virtue. Solve the difficult when it's still easy. Accomplish the grand through the small details. Original text: 大小多少。报怨以德。图难于其易，为大于其细。 Source: Dao De Jing, Chapter 63 Image Source: Unsplash Commentary "Big arises from small. Many arises from few." This line reminds me of The Argument of the Growing Heap, which states, "If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so." To relate this to our daily lives, we need to break down big goals into small recurring actions and then persist in those actions. My newsletter (and later blog) is an example of this line. What started as a tiny weekly newsletter three years ago, through consistency, has now become a website that has had over 3000 visitors in its first year. "Return hate with virtue." When I first read these four lines, I felt this second line was out of place. The other three lines are all telling us the importance of small matters, why was there a random line about hate and virtue in the middle? Then I realized that all sages, be it Confucius, Lao Tzu, Socrates, Seneca, or the Buddha, teach people to succeed in their virtues first and foremost. After all, if you want to achieve anything great in life, your virtues are bound to be tested. An example that illustrates this line is of a person named Dou Yanshan (竇燕山) from the Five Dynasties period in China about 1000 years ago. One of his servants stole two hundred thousand dollars from him, which was a lot of money! The servant was very scared about how his master might punish him, so he fled to another country. He also left his daughter there with a note saying, "Sell my daughter to collect the debt I owe you." Dou Yanshan didn't respond with anger or disgust, but rather, he chose to forgive the servant and raised the young girl as his own daughter. Aside from this, he also accumulated many other virtuous deeds throughout his life, which made him a recorded role model in Chinese history. Although the servant didn't treat Dou Yanshan with "hate" per se, I interpret "hate" here as any vice or ill-intentioned behavior. Being a person of great virtues like Dou Yanshan is a big task, and it is accomplished through the accumulation of small matters, such as being patient towards others when they talk too much or being warm-mannered towards others when they make small mistakes. "Solve the difficult when it's still easy." All big problems start off as small problems that can be solved easily. Being able to detect small problems and nip them right away is crucial. An example that comes to my mind is health: people don't get major diseases out-of-the-blue; it's accumulated over time. A couple of years ago, when I got a really bad skin illness, at first, I thought it was an allergic reaction to something I ate recently. Later, I learned that I had accumulated toxins for multiple years in the past, and this skin disease showed up after my accumulation surpassed the tipping point. Healing from that illness took over year. Another example is relationship health. Don't let minor miscommunications or unhappiness slide under the rug. Solving these small problems accumulates wins in the relationship, while neglecting them accumulates resentment. If the resentment reaches a tipping point, then the "easy" has become "difficult", and you'll need the virtues of someone like Dou Yanshan to keep the relationship alive. "Accomplish the grand through the small details." This line reminds me of the phrase "Focus on the process", which I learned from Ryan Holiday in his book, The Obstacle is the Way. Holiday explains, “The process is about doing the right things, right now. Not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture.” Happiness Gretchen Rubin also says that a key to happiness is to "Enjoy the process." Many people delay their happiness until after they achieve something big. But that moment of happiness is fleeting. If we enjoy the process, then we can have long-term happiness that is not dependent on the result. Throughout these past few years, I've focused on doing the small details, which is writing the weekly newsletter or blog post, with my best effort. Then I just let the outcome be whatever it is. A big reason I persisted is because I enjoy the process. Whereas the first line emphasizes the importance of persisting in small actions, this fourth line is telling us to do those small actions well. Grand achievements are accomplished by persistence plus conscientiousness in the small matters. Conclusion Break down big goals into small actions and then persist in them. Build your moral character by responding to vice with virtue. Detect problems while they're small and nip them right away. Focus on and enjoy the process. --- Weekly Wisdom #159 Interested in receiving Weekly Wisdoms in your email? You can subscribe here

These little but unrelated things to the topic communicate that I have good intentions at heart, so if You also have to communicate why the adapting quickly to the change is extremely important for them, online system, then they are open to learning the new system. 4: Provide Encouragement not Criticism A common

There were three brothers who lived together. The youngest brother loved to fool around, and he often came home past midnight. The eldest and middle brother both wanted to change the youngest to come home earlier and be more responsible. The eldest brother got very angry at the youngest, often scolding him loudly and fiercely. The youngest was already a young adult, and the more he got scolded, the later he came home each day. The middle brother saw the result and reflected on the eldest brother's methods. He then told the eldest, “Please let me try helping our younger brother. You can relax and leave it to me for the time being.” From that day on, the middle brother waited by the front door every night for the youngest to come home. The first night, he watched the clock pass by 10:00PM, 11:00PM. Rather than get impatient or angry, he cultivated his patience, waiting past 11:00PM, past 12:00AM, until finally, the youngest appeared. The middle brother immediately opened the front door, walked up to the youngest brother, and took his hand. The middle brother said, “It's so cold outside. Are you warm enough?” as he took him into the house. He also said, “You must be hungry. I’ll go cook some noodles for you.” The middle brother continued doing this for many weeks. Later, the youngest brother slowly started coming home earlier, day by day, until eventually, he came home at normal times. The middle brother kept encouraging him and giving him proper ideas about life so that his younger brother would have a bright future. Commentary: How often do we get angry at others for their bad habits? Getting angry doesn't help, and in fact, it usually makes the situation worse. If we want to inspire others to change, we must show genuine care for them and be patient. It took the middle brother many weeks to finally move the youngest brother's heart. Once the youngest brother really felt how much care and love the middle brother had for him, he naturally started to change.

Alan Zimmerman often says that the most common complaint in the workplace is, "You could do a hundred The Five Love Languages, explains that there are five different ways or "languages" in which people communicate The Four Methods of Guidance are Giving, Loving Words, Beneficial Action, Activities in Common. When combine the two, we get Words of affirmation (Loving Words) Quality Time (Activities in Common) commonalities with them.

Published Date: Sunday, September 1, 2019 Hi All! Here are this week's chosen learning points: Stress: How we view stress affects our perception of it. Intermittent stress (not chronic) actually boosts performance and is a good thing. (Source) Trust: "When words and actions don't match, pay attention to the actions." -Victor Cheng Complaining: If you're going through a tough time, give yourself 10 minutes a day to complain, scream, whatever, in private. Then no more for the rest of the day. If anything comes up later, save it for tomorrow. You'll find that you often don't even need the full 10 minutes before you get tired of complaining, and what seemed like a big deal yesterday will seem trivial today. -Paraphrased from Kate Sackhoff on this interview Here are this week's recommended actions: Thank all the good, temporary stress that you have that's allowing you to perform better than with no stress at all. Reflect on whether your actions match your words. Align them to become trustworthy. If you're going through a tough time, try out Kate Sackhoff's 10-minute venting suggestion. If you think someone else would find this newsletter useful, please forward it to them. Thanks, and have a wonderful week ahead!

But such a relationship is largely about teamwork, which requires effective communication. And these four questions get at the core of what needs to be communicated.