Category: featured

It is that time of year again, when we re-assess our lives and ask ourselves where we’ve been and where we are going. In , Robert Kiyosaki described his life changing skiing trip in December 1984 with his wife Kim and his best friend Larry. Robert and Kim were down to their last few dollars, and Larry was on his way to building another business.

Highly inspired by this story, Hwei Min and I decided to have our own annual retreat, where we set goals and set to achieving them. Looking back, it had been four years now.

I still remember our first retreat in 2005. It was a huge paradigm shift for both of us, as we actually planned a long holiday trip that wasn’t a holiday trip. We planned to go to Genting because that was one of the cheapest option then. We needed a place that was different enough from home, yet cheap enough that it wouldn’t burn a hole in our pockets. Of our four day three night itinerary, three and a half days were jammed packed with discussions and visioning exercises, and only half a day for shopping. (By the way, the fact that Hwei Min was totally aligned to this plan was a hundred per cent why I am so blessed that she is my partner in business and life. How many ladies would be open to such an idea?!)

It was a huge leap of faith because no one seemed to understand the importance of what we planned to do. Everyone asked us, “Genting, for four days? What are you going to do up there??” I remember everyone’s reaction when I told them we were going up the mountains to talk. 🙂

Anyway, this year had to be different because of our little boy, we can’t travel too far. Here we are now, at Orchid Country Club for two nights, he’s here, by the way, oblivious to the fact that we would be dreaming, and planning for all our future, and making it a reality. And in fact, that HE was a a dream turned reality, our little bundle of joy.

You know how most of us are thought that 93% of communication is body language, and only 7% is verbal? Well, it’s time to let go of that myth. It’s a classic case of oversimplification and making use of statistics out of context. Here’s a short video to illustrate, watch it, it’s an interesting 5 minutes:-

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dboA8cag1M[/youtube]

And here’s more about Albert Mehrabian on Wikipedia, the psychologist whose work is still being misquoted at communications seminar.

One thing I’ve noticed, though, body language does count a lot when it comes to holding the audience’s attention, so the lesson is still accurate as far as I am concerned.