The One Word Talk #TOWT - Episode 1: Introduction

As someone who is a fan of life-long learning and growth mindset, I have been rooting for this idea about doing a self-service blog-like series on LinkedIn for a while. Since we are entering Phase 2 Heighten Alert in Singapore very soon (from tomorrow July 22 until Aug 18), we are going into the “lock down" mode for 1 month or more and won't be able to meet up with friends or colleagues (no dining in, and social group sizes cut to 2), I thought why don't I kick start this mini virtual project now, as an additional channel to communicate and keep in touch. My heart goes out to everyone around the world, who is being affected by the Covid-19, either directly or indirectly. I have decided to name this blog-like series "The One Word Talk", as a forum of lift, hashtag #TOWT for short.

Dixit

The name for this series The One Word Talk appeared in my mind when I played the board game Dixit. How many of you have played Dixit before? If you have played it, you can roughly guess the idea. If you have not played it, the concept behind is that the game is a deck of cards illustrated with dreamlike images, players can take turn to become the storyteller, the storyteller would then make up a sentence or a keyword that might describe one of the images that he select (without telling the others), and the players (not the storyteller) select cards that match a title suggested by the storyteller. Then, each player gives their selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to the others. The storyteller shuffles his or her chosen card with the cards received from the other players, and all cards are then dealt face up. The players (except for the storyteller) then secretly guess which picture was the storyteller's, using numbered voting chips. For example, if the storyteller says the keyword: “Invisible", and on the table are these 4 cards, the correct card could be any of these 4. The beauty of the game is that you would find that with just one word but there could be so many different ways to interpret it, depending on your perspective or your creativity or your imagination.

#TOWT

Hence, the name of this series The One Word Talk would be about a one-word topic for every new episode. I would tell my story about what that word means to me, or how I interprete it, what is my point of view and my personal experience about that particular one-word topic. And in the comment, I would love to hear your perspective, your feedback, your thoughts, your intepretation, your views, and feel free to share with us your personal story or your personal experience of that one-word concept. With that in mind, I hope we can have an open forum and learn from one another.

For this first episode, as the word is “Introduction", I have shared with you the introduction about this self-service mini blog-like series The One Word Talk, as well as the inspiration, idea, and purpose behind it. For now, I plan to do this project for 1 year, starting from 21st July 2021. Every new episode would be posted weekly on every Wednesday. If there is no interruption, I hope to be able to complete 52 episodes after one year. You can follow to participate and be informed about the new topic. If there is any one-word topic that you feel passionate about, please put it in the comment box as a suggestion for the upcoming episodes. The second episode would be posted next Wednesday 28th July 2021. Can you guess what is the first real one-word topic that I would like to talk about? 1, 2, 3, It would be "Failure". You may ask why do we start with Failure. For me, I always believe that Failure is the Origin of Success. So let's talk about Failure first.

Values

And to end this Introduction episode, it won't complete without an introduction about myself. My name is Annie, and I'm a Strategic Account Director for Enterprise segment at Salesforce and I have been with Salesforce for 3 years now. I have spent the last 14 years in Enterprise Sales in Singapore and ASEAN in Solution Sales, Cloud Computing, and Tech Industry, among which is my 5 years of co-founding and managing my own start-up in SaaS in Singapore.

In terms of personal and professional values, below are my top 3 values:

1. Growth Mindset - I am a strong believer of life-long learning. I love to read books, especially books about business, marketing, leadership, mindset, and personal development. I also like to invest in my academic learning. I got my bachelor in Business Management 14 years ago from SMU, and I came back to SMU to do complete my part-time MBA there in 2018. I also love to have coffee chat with colleagues and friends, to learn from their point of view. I believe regardless how young or how old you are, you should never stop learning, and always have a curious mind.
2. Entrepreneurship - I love the spirit of entrepreneurship. I have co-founded my own tech start-up in mobile SaaS in Singapore 10 years ago with my hubby and the experience has taught me a ton. In my current role now at Salesforce, I also embark on this ship with an entrepreneurial mindset. Be ready to innovate, be ready to take ownership, be ready to tackle the territory, be close to the customers to understand the customers’ pain points and challenges, and make sure our customers succeed in their digital transformation journey and realize the business values.
3. Resilience - Life always has its up and down. Even in work, there are always stress, setbacks, and difficult issues that we have to deal with. So one of my values over the year is resilience, which has helped me to tap into my strengths and seek help from support systems to overcome challenges and work through problems. I believe this value has help me to become stronger when things get tough and empower me to adapt to a situation and move forward.

During my personal time, I love to go for 30 mins walk/exercise every morning and then stop at a barista at 8am for a cup of coffee with a nice breakfast before kick-starting a new working day. I don't drink black coffee but will normally order mocha, flat white, or cappuchino. During the weekend, I would love to do some trekking with my hubby in the nature or in the park. When I have free time, I enjoy playing with my 2 little bundles of joy, playing boardgame or Poker with my family, reading a new book, or watching a new show on Netflix or Disney+. I love to read your feedback or suggestion or your self introduction in the comment box below. What would be your top 3 values as an individual and a working professional? Remember, today's episode is about Introduction, so let's get introduced.

So that's it for today. See you in the next episode of The One Word Talk #TOWT next Wednesday 28th July 2021 where the one-word topic is about “Failure”.

This is Annie, signing off for now. Please take care and stay safe!

The One Word Talk #TOWT - Episode 2: Failure - Click here

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