The Pillars of "Difficulties only make you do it better"

Reading a lot of leadership articles and sharing from great leaders in LinkedIn, I was encouraged to put a simple summary of my very own philosophy. Let's take this as a kind of personal self-reflection.

I always believe in my life-motto that "Difficulties only make you do it better". And I would like to believe that it was very much influenced by my colorful upbringing, personal life experiences, other people that has influenced me in the journey of my life, my coaches, mentors and even books that accompanied me during my travels.

 So, here we go and I hope it can become a good read and useful for others:

1. "Gegenpressing" - As a Liverpool fan myself, I admire Juergen Klopp, the current coach who recently won the Best FIFA Men's Coach of the year. Gegenpressing was invented by him. It is a tactic in which a team, after losing possession of the ball, immediately attempts to win back possession, rather than falling back to regroup quotations. How this relates to leadership? I translate this as "Regaining Composure". I realized there will always be a time that we will 'lose possession of the ball' - where we lose our focus resulting in project delay, silly human errors, lack of knowledge drives slow in delivering, lack of focus and many others. But as we all know life is not about how many times you fall, it’s about how many times you get back up, regaining our composure, set our focus and move on! Look at the man in the mirror and ask "Have you tried your best?", if the answer is "Yes", embrace the result, learn from it and move on. If the answer is "No", go back at it and rock it out! The man in the mirror would not lie to you.
2. "Our Voice Matters" - This was influenced by my personal upbringing. As Asian, we have a typical culture of "just do what I asked you to do" - I know I am generalizing but at least this was what I experienced during my younger years and what I've been through in school (i.e teacher is always right!!). But I do believe that whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or whether we decide to lie to ourselves, that each one of us has a 'Voice'!. The truth is, each one of us has an opinion, a delicate thought, an inner partner in crime, a voice! And in the spirit of equality, each voice carries a similar weight, at least this is what I believe in. Whether the voice is being heard, or cared about, or taken into consideration in some kind of decision making, that's a different discussion. But understanding that our voice matters (at least we need to believe in that first), helps us to shape our thought process, builds our bravery, reduces uncertainty and builds a sense of community. This also helps me to be open to any type of questions, challenges that my colleagues put forward to me. The more the asked and argue, the better it is, as it will open up our mind for more creativity and not to say improved trust and engagement.
3.  The third one is "Put others first" - My mom has the biggest influence on this. "In everything that we do, be it when you have or you have not, in fullness or lack of things, be in challenging time or peace, always put others first" - a lesson that mom always reminds us about. Even when we were at the lowest period of our lives, I still witness mom managing and help others first. In professional life? I translate this as "balance of organization and employee needs" - not "my needs". When the balance is maintained, that's when harmony is created. When harmony is created, that's when culture is shaped, and eventually a community of great performers will be flourish.
4.  Last but not least the "Respect & Result" - this is from the place I work. The guiding principle of DPDHL Organization. We must be a result oriented individuals but how we delivery the result matters, it has to be in a respectful way. Who wouldn't agree with this right?

 There you go, what I call as my personal pillars in supporting the "Difficulties only make you do it better". Looking forward to add more from other sharing that I adopt from other LinkedIn friend sharing and articles. Have a great one!

And remember folks: You'll Never Walk Alone! :)

With Love.