Keeping Our Motivation and Passion Going

By J Y
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19 Dec

Keeping Our Motivation and Passion Going – Ask The Expert Series 1-2

“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion.”

– Simon Sinek.

In this second article in our Ask The Expert series on the CorporateTrainerConnect.com platform, we interviewed Ms. Amelia Marican, recognised as the new breed of Millennial Brand Transformer that emerges in tandem with the needs of competitive and ever-changing corporate training and coaching industry. A Bachelor of Business graduate from the NTU Nanyang Business School, she was a proud recipient of SME Full University Scholarship, Sinda and Mendaki’s Excellent awards. As a young Millennial Brand Transformer, she has already impacted more than 21,000 lives and delivered almost 400 speeches. Here are here answers to our questions:

Q1. How do we keep our motivation and passion towards our development when we meet with obstacles and constant changes?

The only constant in life is change. Change gives our life variety and fun. Whether it is a simple change in the weather, our schedule or an expected change of seasons. As Albert Einstein said, “in the middle of every obstacle, lies an opportunity.” How do we choose to see obstacles and changes; as roadblocks or opportunities?

Many of my coaching clients, who have been through major challenges in life like imprisonment, critical illness or disabilities, started out with a lack of hope and lack of clarity in their lives. Today, some of them live their lives with full of influence and impact. The thing that set them apart from all the rest is not that they were more skilled. Each one of these men and women have developed compelling enough reasons to tap their full ability or skill every single day. They have found reasons to drive themselves to give 1000% and above. When everybody else quit, they were still going strong, not just in terms of hours but on levels of commitment to excellence.

Their compelling reason will get them up early in the morning and keep them up late at night. They are not doing what they do just to earn money, they are doing what they do to leave their mark and have an impact. It’s about getting people to a place that is better than they were. What is your compelling reason? Let that be your drive to have constant motivation and passion towards your own development.

Q2. As a Millennial Brand Transformer, what is your advice to fellow millennial on building their personal brand?

As a millennial myself, here are the 2 advice I would give my younger self.

Firstly, never be afraid to stand out.

At 12 years old, I was given my first ever label by strangers, who don’t know me well. Nurses, who conducted yearly health checkup in my school judged me; GIANT!

I was 1.6 meters tall at the age of 12. Nurses told me I was too tall for my age. They quickly arranged an appointment with one of the local hospitals. My worried mother & I sat through a detailed consultation by a doctor. She gave us the advice to slow down my growth.

20 minutes later. My father rushed into the doctor’s room to join the consultation. When the doctor saw my father, she was surprised. After confirming that was my father and said “Amelia, if your father is that tall, there is nothing wrong with you. You are fine and can head home.” My family on my father’s side are all 6 footers and above. It is hereditary.

We laughed all the way home! That day I learnt an important lesson. A lesson about our society.

Many a times our society will try to make us normal to fit in

with everyone else but some of us are just meant to stand out from the rest; to be different; to be special in our own unique ways. You have a personal brand, whether you know it or not.

Secondly, embrace challenges because you will never be ready.

When a child is born, it is not ready to face the world. Its parents are not ready to bring the child up. When the child goes to school, it cries because it is not ready to face school. We will only be ready when we have the experience but many things in life come as we experience it. It’s a chicken and egg situation.

Embrace the challenges. Make mistakes, learn from it and move on because we will never be ready for the obstacles and challenges in life.

Q3. How can we better communicate and learn especially with our Gen X or older colleagues who don’t understand us?

Research shows that Boomers have often been characterized as “workaholics” and have been referred to as the “Me Generation.” They value ambition, monetary security, and self-sufficiency. Gen Xers value a strong work-life balance and the ability to maintain their independence. Millennials value life experiences over owning personal possessions. Our values are different and that makes it difficult for everyone to come together in a workplace setting and collaborate effectively.

As technology becomes more and more ubiquitous, the communication gap between Millennials and their Gen X and Baby Boomer colleagues grows. These vast differences in values, culture, and communication can make managing a multigenerational workforce a challenge. In every challenge, lies an opportunity.

While millennials may see no problem chatting with their coworkers through WhatsApp or Skype, older workers may see this laidback approach to workplace culture as indecent. Baby Boomers may prefer a phone call or an in-person conversation instead of an email or instant message. Millennials tend to favor efficiency over tradition and may view writing memos, wearing ties, and using company letterhead as tedious.

On my first week of life in the workforce, I made my Baby Boomer colleague so upset that she cried…

as I watched my baby boomer colleague manually key in data into Microsoft Excel, I was so eager to help. I excitedly went to her, helped her create efficient Excel spreadsheet formulae, using macros, formulae, and formatting, thinking it’ll make her work easier. However, her response was

“all these years I faced no issues doing this, why must I change”, “boss didn’t say what I’m doing is wrong, why must change my ways” and “if you are so smart, you take over my job ok!”

Despite good intentions, it was perceived negatively. I learnt through this episode that explaining the benefits and processes verbally first to our older colleagues is very important.

While it may sound cliche, mutual respect is a must in the workplace. The solution needs to be addressed from both sides. In order to truly address differences in communication styles among multigenerational workforces, management must work to demystify common misconceptions that each group may have about the other.

All of us have our strengths and weaknesses. We can mentor and guide each other in our strengths. Leverage on strengths with the team’s benefit and growth in mind.

Wisdom & life experience + enthusiasm & efficiency + team spirit = a team

CORPORATETRAINERCONNECT.COM PLATFORM

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. This article is part of the series from our newly launched CorporateConnectTrainer platform where we help connect corporations to trainers in the region. You can now search, qualify and connect directly with your best-fit trainer on one single platform, saving you time and hassle. We aim to share the subject matter expertise of our qualified trainers on the CorporateConnectTrainer platform through these articles.

Written by Janet Yung, founder of Trilogy People Performance Consultancy. We enable learning for businesses and individuals by bringing you programs, learning, and design delivery services, and technologies cum platforms, that will aid you and your team to build skills and be ready for current and future business needs.

All these People Skills, be it coordinating with others, leading others or influencing others, are very similar to what the World Economic Forum proposed in their top ten skillsets to thrive in the future as written in a previous article: THE 10 JOB SKILLS YOU’LL NEED IN 2020 AND BEYOND

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