Inspirasi dari pengasas EMKAY Group - Tan Sri Mustapha Kamal

Tan Sri Datuk (Dr) Mustapha Kamal merupakan salah seorang yang tidak asing lagi dalam dunia hartanah di Malaysia. Beliau merupakan pengerusi EMKAY Group, MK Land Holdings Berhad, Setia Haruman Sdn Bhd dan beberapa buah syarikat yang lain. Pada 26 Oktober 2013, Yayasan Universiti Multimedia telah dijemput untuk ke sebuah sesi bersama Tan Sri MK dan saya bersyukur kerana berpeluang untuk turut serta dalam lawatan tersebut. Seramai 37 pelajar menghadiri sesi yang penuh dengan inspirasi ini.

Tan Sri merupakan seorang yang sangat rendah diri. Beliau membahasakan dirinya sebagai Pak Cik kepada pelajar-pelajar. Beliau memberikan beberapa nasihat yang beliau rasakan perlu untuk beliau sampaikan kepada anak-anak muda. Disini suka untuk saya berkongsi dengan rakan-rakan pembaca untuk manfaat bersama.

Sebagai Manusia kita mempunyai nikmat berupa pilihan
Antara nikmat yang dinikmati oleh semua manusia ialah kita boleh buat pilihan. Dalam kehidupan, bermacam-macam pilihan yang boleh kita buat. Dan setiap pilihan yang kita buat akan menentukan siapa kita.

"The choice you make, makes you."

Dunia diluar sana adalah dunia yang kejam. Mereka tidak memandang sekiranya anda tidak mempunyai nama, jawatan dan pangkat. Itulah realitinya.

Cara Mencari Rezeki Yang Halal
Terdapat dua cara untuk mencari rezeki yang halal:
1. We have to do - kita perlu buat.
2. We want to do - kita mahu buat.

Sekiranya kita memilih what we  want to do, ianya less stressful. Kurang tekanan dan kita boleh hadapi segala cabaran kerana kita ingin membuatnya. Bukan terpaksa membuatnya.

Self-motivated
Sekiranya kita membuat sesuatu berdasarkan what we want to do kita akan bermotivasi secara sendirinya. What we want to do sangat berkait rapat dengan bakat semulajadi. Setiap orang ada bakat semulajadi. Cuba kita suruh Dato' Nicole David bermain badminton. Walaupun sama seperti skuasy memegang reket, beliau mungkin tidak boleh bermain dengan baik, sebaik beliau bermain skuasy. Sama juga kesnya sekiranya kita menyuruh Dato' Lee Chong Wei bermain skuasy.

Gratitude Can Increase Your Happiness?

"Gratitude for the abundance you have received is the best insurance that the abundance will continue."  

-- Prophet Muhammad s.a.w.

Can money buy happiness? For some, they might say yes. But that might not be the root-cause why they are happy. Money just a mean of someone's happiness. But what makes people happy? One of it is Gratitude.

First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to you for reading this post. 
In this post, I am going to share with you 3 things:

1. 4 Tips on practising your gratitude. Simple way to remind you to be grateful.
2. An Experiment of Gratitude by Pancake. How you can increase your happiness with Gratitude.
3. When things get tough, how to express gratitude?

4 Tips on Practising your Gratitude

Fauzia Burke in her post shared her 4 tips on how to be grateful:

1. Keep a journal and write what you are grateful for every day. This to me will force you to find out what are the good things that you have and what are good things that has happened. It automatically shift your focus from looking into your life and create positivity within you.
2. Create a Gratitude Bulletin Board. Post on whatever you are grateful for and showcase it to people. While some people keep a manifestation board (things that have not yet happen), she puts on things that already happen. Because as quote above, that is the best insurance that the abundance will continue.
3. Practice Gratitude with Your Family. Sharing is caring. Fauzia recommend during meal time to share with family members on ups-and-downs of the day. Facing challenges also something that we can be grateful of because when we successfully faced the challenges, we are learning new things, we are actually growing. (Watch the video of Oprah at the end of the post).
4. Have Some Gratitude Reminder. Put some anchor on something happens to remind you to express gratitude; most of the time, the first thing we wake up in the morning. But you also can include normal activity such as when you close your door everyday to work to express your gratitude.

Best Practices are Stupid?

Well, the title sounds controversial. Yes, this is the title of the book written by Stephen Shapiro. He is the type that would challenge the status quo and promote the culture of innovation. Well true enough, if we follow what everybody is doing, we will become a mediocre. And he got his argument to back-up his statement. Steve Jobs said Leadership is about innovation. And leaders should not be a follower to follow what others did well. Furthermore, the best practice might not suit to our environment.

Innovation distinguished between a leader and a follower - Steve Jobs

Face it, the world is changing. As my previous post the world no longer looking for productivity or quality. If we are looking into that, following the best practice might help. However, we are now looking at Innovation. Innovation is creating something new, something different. But if we follow the traditional wisdom that worked in the past, how do you expect us to be different? How can we be innovative?

Latest Book by Stephen Shapiro

5 topics that has been discussed by Stephen Shapiro. (Watch the video at the end of this post) These 5 topics are:

1) Stop Asking for Ideas
2) Don't Think Outside the Box - Build a Better Box
3) Hire People You Don't Like
4) Stop Praising People
5) Expertise is the Enemy of Innovation

STOP ASKING FOR IDEAS
As we asked for ideas, people will contribute the ideas as many as they can. In the BP oil spill case, 123,000 submission of ideas. But guess how many ideas that really count? About a dozen. This means that 99.99% of the ideas goes to the drain. Think of how much cumulative time were wasted for people to think, input and the staff to screen and debate those ideas?

In engineering we studied signal-to-noise ration (SNR). In real life, the signal is things that really matters and noise is things that does not matter. Output is no good if the noise is too high. And most organizations are spending time for things that does not matter.

How to do?
Frame something that is solvable and let people contribute their ideas within that parameters. This will help people to focus. We don't need everybody to contribute in order to make the best ideas. But if that small group can focus, they can find great solutions without wasting to much of time.