Category Archives: Fitness

SOS answered, but DOA count mounts.

SOS – Supply Of Supplication Supplicants the world over beam their SOS signals every day. They ask for love, appreciation, fulfillment, excitement, purpose, gratification and so forth. This is besides the need for air, water and food so they can go on living. Increasingly, wants disguised as needs are also broadcast as SOS. We call this […]

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Think Before You Feel! Thoughts Lead Emotions!

“Look before you leap.” “Think before you act.” “Logic makes people think, emotion makes them act.” Yes, we’ve heard all these before. Some of us might even be living by them. Level-headedness is more the exception than the norm. “Go with the flow” is often taken to the extreme and becomes nothing more than impetuousness. […]

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Tell-Tale Signs

Kate Thome wrote a three-part series on Executive Presence on LinkedIn recently. She discussed three kinds of observable behaviours which would indicate whether or not a person has that X-factor commonly known as Executive Presence. I call them tell-tale signs. Uptalk. This is when every statement you make sounds like a question from someone with a […]

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Disruption? So what, Leader?

A comrade of mine recalled an incident when he was training cadets. It happened to be an offensive operations exercise, and the cadets had fared very badly. During the main debrief, which was of course after all the After-Action-Reviews (AARs), “Hotwashes”, or what I personally have come to disdain as “Hogwashes” and so forth. When the […]

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Defaulting to the Pharmaceutical

~ Take a couple of Aspirin and come see me in the morning ~ A Doctor Recently, NUS Business School produced a video which featured, besides Singapore Airlines and one or two other companies, the Narayana Hrudayalaya Heart Hospital in Bangalore, India. What had happened was that the hospital had industrialized open-heart surgery to the nth […]

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If You Need External Funding, Do You Have A Viable Business?

I have the military to thank for this concept. That is, when you’ve been assigned a mission, you are expected to assume that all resources necessary for the successful prosecution of the mission have been allocated. If you request for more resources, that request is always predicated on the assumption that it will accelerate the […]

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Anti Ageing? Just Enable Exuberance!

Mankind has been searching for the elixir of youth for a long, long time. Anti ageing, the quest for youthfulness, indeed, the search for eternal life, is something innate in all of us. Even those who talk about an eternal blackness, of no consciousness, actually seek an unimaginably joyous eternity but sink into blackness because […]

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Rated PGA. Post-Grants Action Advised.

There has been a spate of increases in grants, as in funding, as in monetary, being given by the Singapore Government in recent years. Of course, they are meant to encourage Singapore companies to become more productive, more entrepreneurial, more organized, get more research work going, and a host of other things besides. The amounts […]

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Skills? Competencies? Grow Or Die!

On 17 Sep 2014, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam spoke about the need to adopt “meritocracy through life” at the official opening of the Lifelong Learning Institute, which aims to raise competencies in citizens, among other things. I was flicking through the news when this caught my eye. It caused me […]

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Fear Of Failure

Never Fail? Do you fear failure? Do you know people who say things like “I never fail, I only learn”? Well, I respect where they’re coming from, and I also know that language controls communications and controls our thoughts. It is not only a tad hypocritical to say that we never fail, it actually causes […]

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Russian Dolls. Russian Boxes

Are you someone who is constantly “Thinking out of the box?” Is your organization known for “Out of the Box” thinking and innovation? Why? Do simple re-conformations and incremental improvements represent “breakthroughs”? How often do genuine “breakthroughs” occur, anyway? While you’re pondering that, has anyone realized what the “Box” actually IS? You know what Russian […]

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There Is Always Another Chance! A Second Chance!

The concept of “There is no second chance in life” appears to be quite deeply rooted in society. It is manifested in various ways. One of them was that if you as a young student went to one of Singapore’s Institutes Of Technical Education (ITE) then you’re done for. “It’s the end!” as some people […]

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Change Management. Where Are The RMs – Resentment Managers?

I had a rather refreshing conversation with a younger person this morning. It was refreshing because he was giving off good vibes about his developing and sustaining good relationships with his clients as well as his suppliers. He was able to provide details about how he went about doing so, and how he visualized growth […]

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Pride. Prejudice. Powerlessness.

With apologies to Jane Austen. Consigning other people to hell as we define it, thinking less of them than we ought to, and thinking better of ourselves in the same manner, are all manifestations of pride, of prejudice, and ultimately, a sign of utter powerlessness. Contrary to popular misconception, power does not corrupt. Powerlessness corrupts. Power […]

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It Only Takes A Spark. Tinder, Fuel And Fanning Might Help, Too!

People love fireworks. Stunning, beautiful displays of harmless power. Well, harmless if fired as intended. We also like sparks. New beginnings. Picturesque showers falling from new buildings under construction. Cute little babies, kittens, puppies, tiger cubs. We love the playfulness and wonderful, latent promises of future potential. Just a spark fires the imagination. Now, wouldn’t […]

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The Boy Scout Motto: Be Prepared!

Sure. Like, how can you be prepared for things you don’t even know will happen yet? How can you be prepared for eventualities that you still have no clue about? Exactly. If you have read the original “Scouting for Boys” by Robert Baden-Powell, you would probably be able to answer that question. Since all of us […]

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Preferences Aren’t Limitations

They’re possibilities. Expressions of possibilities, to be exact. When will we stop thinking about our preferences as limitations? Yes, we all have basic preferences, as we are all designed differently, and our different preferences, tastes and inclinations make up for a very interesting and diverse mix. We all have preferences when it comes to clothing, […]

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Plants Produce Poisons, Too!

Some of us prefer certain foods over other types of food. Still others eschew meats in favour of fruits and vegetables. Many today are warned against starch, and there are some for whom meat is the major portion of their daily diet. The saying that one man’s meat is another man’s poison seems to be […]

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The Tyranny of the NOW

We live in an age of instants. Instant coffee, instant milk, instant music, instant weight loss, instant gratification. “It’s now or never!”, “Last chance to win great bargains!”, “If not now, when?” are phrases we are bombarded with constantly every day. Our culture predisposes us to act first, ask questions later. We are constantly encouraged, […]

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Are You With The “In” Crowd?

You know, the “In” crowd. Insecure. Insincere. Intolerant. Inhospitable. Indecent. Inhuman. Incontinent. Inebriated. Inappropriate. That’s what you will become when you seek to become “special” by joining, or by trying to join, an “exclusive” or “elite” group. I am not saying that we do not pursue excellence. That ought to be a lifelong affair! I […]

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Safe And Secure?

Helen Keller was certainly right, and she lived by that quote. Security is something that we naturally look for, for without security the business of everyday life becomes rather difficult, if not impossible, if the environment is highly insecure. Life seems quite secure these days, if we look at the statistics about increasing life expectancy, […]

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