Today I want to share someone inspiring with you. 🙂 His name is Don Ritchie and he had saved 160 lives in his lifetime — that’s just the official estimate. The real number is said to be 400 according to his family.

How did he do that?

Don happened to live near The Gap, an ocean cliff at Sydney. It is a popular visitor destination which has gained infamy as a suicide spot over the years. It is estimated that about 50 people end their lives here each year.^[1]

As individuals walked up to the cliff, looking at the crashing waves below and wondering whether to jump, Don would approach them with a smile asking, “Why don’t you come and have a cup of tea?“

Accepting his offer, these people would be invited into his home where they would have a chat over tea. No counseling, no advising, no prying. Just one human being lending a listening ear to another. Some of these people had mental problems, some had medical illnesses, some are just people going through a rough patch in life. For many, a listening ear was apparently what they needed as they changed their minds about jumping after the chat, and turned back home.

As Don put it in this video,

This was what Don did for almost 50 years. Talking to the people who walked up the cliff and were contemplating suicide. Extending a helping hand. Giving them a listening ear. And saving countless from suicide in the process. One woman whom Don and his wife saved would write back or visit about once a year, letting them know that she is happy and well.

In 2006, Don was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for “service to the community through programs to prevent suicide.” Him and his wife Moya were named “Citizens of the Year” for 2010 by Woollahra Council, the local government authority responsible for The Gap. He also received Local Hero Award for Australia in 2011.^[3] Don died in 2012 at the ripe old age of 86.

Don didn’t manage to save everyone in his time, naturally. Some were already gone by the time he rushed to the cliff. Some rejected his invitation and jumped. Sometimes he would climb over the fence and forcibly hold them while Moya called the police. Once it almost cost his life as the woman tried to launch herself over the side, with Don being the only thing between her and the abyss!^[4] 

Yet, Don didn’t weigh himself down with those who were lost. He said that he could not remember the first suicide he witnessed, and none had plagued his dreams. He did his best with each person, and if he lost one, he accepted that there was nothing more he could have done.^[4]

What can we learn from Don’s story?

Sometimes, in our very busy life, we tend to forget about people.

The people who need help, who are just trying to do their best to get by, who are facing their own stresses and worries.

The people who are next to us, or are behind the computer screens at the receiving end of our email/message, or are donning official roles and titles but are people nonetheless.

We may sometimes forget that they are people. Sometimes, we may think of them as objects to help us get things done. Or we may think of them as people who have it altogether, and it doesn’t matter what we say to them or how we treat them — they can deal with their own issues and emotions as we have our own problems to deal with.

But that ain’t true. Every human being is a person. A person with feelings, thoughts, aspirations, fears, responsibilities, and commitments. Just as we’re struggling with our problems, the person next to us, opposite us, or at the other side of the world using the internet to communicate with us also has their own problems that they are struggling with. Just because people aren’t screaming about their issues or aren’t walking around with a tag saying that they are stressed or frustrated doesn’t mean they don’t have their problems.

So how about stopping to show some kindness to a fellow person? 🙂

• Send a simple text to check how a friend is doing
• Start a conversation with someone
• Give a smile to a stranger or service staff
• Give a hug
• Give a genuine compliment to someone who did good work
• Give someone a call to say hi
• Lend a helping hand to someone who has a problem. For example, if you have a friend who is trying to find a job, see if they need help with their resume, or if they need pointers on job search. Or if you know someone who just went through a breakup, see if they need a listening ear or want to hang out.
• Send a thank-you note to someone who made a difference in your life
• Give a tip to someone who gave great service

So the funny thing about today’s world is that when you try to be friendly and kind, some people may think you are crazy. Some may react adversely and push you aside. Some may be busy and not be able to take you up on your offer (though that doesn’t mean they won’t do a rain check).

But there will be some people who will need this care and love, right now, right when you show it. Perhaps they don’t even know that they need it. Perhaps they may push away your offer of kindness, only to take it up soon after. Perhaps they will react with shock as they never thought someone would care, and then gratefully reciprocate.

For these people, your small little act will make a world of a difference. You may think it doesn’t matter, but it does make a big difference to them. Just as Don’s little invitation for tea and a chat may seem inconsequential to practical people of the material world, such human touch and empathy is exactly what is missing in our world today.

You never know whose life you may change in the process. And perhaps in doing so, you may end up changing your life too. 🙂

Check out my kindness challenge, which consists of 14 tasks of kindness over 14 days: Kindness Challenge Overview

Other articles I’ve written on inspiring individuals 🙂

• Barbie Thomas: Body Builder with No Arms, Mother of Two
• 11 Life Lessons to Learn From Steve Jobs
• 7 Inspiring Lessons I Learned from a Blind Stranger

https://personalexcellence.co/blog/don-ritchie/

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Many times in the pursuit of our goals, we hit brick walls that stop us from advancing. This is especially so when what we are trying to achieve is bigger than what we are capable of accomplishing at the point.

To achieve a state where we become bigger than our problems, we need to level up! 😀

What is level up? It’s a concept that I learned from games. If you have played games like RPGs before, you will be familiar with it. 🙂 In RPGs, it is normal to enter a new section of the game where you can’t proceed because your characters are not strong enough to defeat the enemies. This happens when the new enemies you are fighting are much stronger than the ones you’ve fought before. At this point if you insist on progressing, you’ll probably get killed and have to return to a nearby inn to rest.

So what do you do now? Do you stop playing? Of course not! The next step is to train and level up your characters. When your characters level up, they gain an increase in their stats, such as HP (hit points = your health bar. the more HP you have, the more damage you can withstand), strength, defence, dexterity, and so on. Sometimes leveling up results in the characters acquiring a new special move/technique (or limit break for those of you Final Fantasy fans) that makes them much more powerful than before. 😀 With their increased powers, defeating the new enemies becomes a piece of cake and you are now able to advance to the next stage of the game!

So how does this apply to real life? When you face obstacles in a goal, obstacles that you’re not able to tackle at this moment, it just means that the goal is currently bigger than you. What you should do then is to level up. Level up such that you become stronger, better, and smarter and you are able to conquer these obstacles consequently.

In games, you level up by fighting weaker enemies, gaining experience points (XP), and accumulating your XP such that you hit the next level. The more XP you gain, the more levels you gain. The more levels you gain, the stronger you become.

Mirroring this to real life, this means you should tackle a smaller version of your goal first. Tackle it and become great at doing it. As you do so, you’ll gain XP, which then helps you level up.

So meaning,

• If you want to be a great coach, start by coaching people around you first. Get good at coaching them before you look at doing this at a professional level. Read: Are Coaching Courses Necessary To Be a Coach?
• If you want to be a great artist, start by mastering simple artwork.
• If you want to be a great public speaker, start with presentations to small groups. Perfect your oration and presentation skills in front of these folks. This will help you speak to a larger group with ease. Read: 9 Essential Tips to Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking and 21 Ways to Deliver Interesting and Engaging Presentations
• If you want to be a great programmer, start by developing simple software that solves simple problems.
• If you want to write a book, try blogging first. Or if possible, write on a platform with an existing audience, like a newsletter column for a company/school. Get good at your writing skills and be comfortable writing to a live audience before you jump to a book, which is infinitely harder than writing short articles. Check out my podcast: How to Overcome Writer’s Block
• If you want to build a traffic of 10,000 visitors per day but your blog is new, start with 100 visitors first. Master having a traffic of 100 visitors/day, then look at a higher tier like 200 visitors/day, followed by 500 visitors/day, etc.
• If you want to earn $10,000 a month, work on earning $5,000 a month first. If you’re not earning anywhere near $5,000 a month, then aim for a target that’s 10–20% higher than your current income.
• If you want to earn passive income of $X, master earning an active income of $X first. Earning passive income is significantly harder than earning active income, something I taught my students in my passive income course.

The process of working on these small goals will help you gain skills and XP, eventually reaching a new level. You know you have leveled up when…

1. Your current goals are too easy for you
2. You can complete what you set out to do and still have buffer to do more
3. You keep getting positive feedback for a job well done

When that happens, it’s time to up the ante. 😀 Instead of playing in your current sandbox, you are now ready to move on to a more challenging goal! That’s because when you keep working on the same old goals and the same targets you’ve already achieved, you don’t grow. You can only stay at the same level. By progressing to a bigger goal, you (1) push yourself out of your comfort zone and (2) stretch yourself to develop new skills.

This means…

• If you are getting many people approaching you for coaching advice, start charging a small fee. This will help you manage your demand, give targeted attention to your clients, and push you to provide a better value service.
• If you have developed simple software that works well, create more complex software that solves bigger problems.
• If you are getting 100 visitors/day to your blog, aim for 200 visitors/day next.
• If you’re comfortable presenting to 10 people, then speak to an audience of 20 next.

As you do this, you will gain even more XP. At one point, you level up. Soon, your “new” goals become easy for you and you are ready to take on bigger goals.

Before you know it, you have reached such a high level that you are ready conquer that very goal that stumped you in the beginning. Except this time, you have become so skilled in your craft that it’s no longer a nerve-wrecking process doing it. Rather than it being an insurmountable obstacle, it’s now just a small hurdle to cross. 🙂

Is there any goal you have been struggling with? How can you level up such that this goal is no longer a struggle, but a simple breeze? 🙂

This is part of the Skills Development series:

1. Skill Building 101:
   • Skills Development
   • Level Up
   • 10,000 Hours To Develop Talent
   • How to Build an Edge: Develop Your Talent Stack
2. Add-on tips:
   • Is Your Goal Worth 30 Minutes of Your Time Every Day?
   • How to Increase Your Learning Multifold
   • How to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
   • How to Turn Your Weakness into a Strength
   • Start with baby steps: The Power of Little Changes
3. Obstacles you’ll face:
   • Are You Looking for a Magic Bullet to Your Goals? (Stop looking for shortcuts)
   • 7 Tips to Overcome the Impostor Syndrome
   • Why Do Some People Have Innate Talent? It’s Not Fair!
   • Recognize Your Blind Spots: Blind Spots In Personal Growth
   • https://personalexcellence.co/blog/level-up/
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Successful people have certain common routines and habits that they follow daily. Today’s infographic shares 16 common things that successful people do at the start of every workday:

My favorite ones are saying no (#11), helping others (#9), stretching and moving around (#5), and being grateful (#16). Just saying no has helped me regain hundreds of hours that I’ve been able to devote to my Q2 activities. Helping others energizes me — even when I’m very busy, I try to find a time pocket to do a kind deed for someone, including giving a simple email reply with advice — and that perks me up after that. Stretching is super important — given that my work is all digital, I take frequent breaks and walk around as much as I can during my non-work hours. And gratitude allows me to constantly remember how lucky I am to have what I have and appreciate the good things in life. 

What do you do at the start of your workday? 🙂 Any tips above that you can incorporate in your own workday? Check out my resources on creating your best routine:

• Is Your Routine Empowering You?
• Do You Have a Morning Ritual?
• Live a Better Life in 30 Days Program, Day 9: Evaluate Your Routines

Check out more infographics here | PE manifestos here

https://personalexcellence.co/blog/successful-people-workday-infographic/

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In a world where we are increasingly connected, I feel oddly disconnected.

While we have Facebook that connects us with people, I feel that social media has become a tool for low-level messages and knee-jerk reactions. Facebook today tends to showcase posts that are already getting traction, and because the posts that gather quick responses tend to pander to low levels of human emotion or just consists of derivative information that is easy to read but does nothing to change your life, the posts that get tons of likes/shares are then things like selfies, meme, and surface tips, which get prioritized by their news feed algorithm to get seen by more people, hence gaining more likes, shares, and comments.

We have the internet with over a billion websites today.^[1] But I haven’t felt as alienated as I do now. The online coaching and business world has become a semi-Ponzi scheme, with people getting rich from telling people they can make them rich, and people getting starry-eyed and jumping in. Think Yahoo in the 1990s with banner ads.^[2] Yahoo was hugely successful in the 1990s and early 2000s, not because it had something huge going on, but because investors, in general, were just excited about the internet, which got them investing in startups, which then led to the startups spending money on Yahoo’s banner advertising, which then got Yahoo’s revenue to grow, and got even more people excited. By the way, Yahoo got sold in July 2016 at a small fraction (4%) of its market capitalization in 2000.

But no one realizes the huge bubble building here, where the big winners are (a) those already at the top of the game, (b) those who sell the “make money online” dream to the users still not on board, and (c) the 0.01% of hustlers who manage to navigate and carve their niche despite the noise online. And the reason group (c) will succeed will have less to do with the “internet business gurus” than their own hard work, intellect, and ability to stay focused. The others are just part of the bubble, keeping the money flowing and the cogs turning. (I share more on the problem with the online world here, here, and here.)

Then as more folks come online to start their business, we have even more noise. Popups everywhere, everybody fighting to get your email, and everybody trying to get you on their list. After you get on their list, you are bombarded with all kinds of pre-sales content, marketing messages, and urgency triggers. In the end, many people are talking and talking, selling and selling, but very few have something going on.

I am connected to so many of you, but I feel like I need to fight with so many people just to get your attention, so that I may perhaps give you one nugget of information to help you in your growth. Enticing article titles; exciting openers; keeping my articles short yet deep and full of examples, all while making them fun to read at the same time. How am I realistically supposed to do all of that?

I am connected to so many of you, yet I feel like I can’t connect fully with you. Because when I open up a contact form, the channel becomes loaded with spam, noise, and requests for favors that have nothing to do with PE. I am literally scared of connecting with anyone today except my trusted friends, because any other communication always invariably ends up with a request to promote stuff, be an affiliate, etc… which then turns out to be the true reason for the connection.

I come from Singapore which is the third most densely populated country in the world^[3], yet I have never felt more alone here than anywhere in the world.

• Everywhere you go, people are jostling, side-stepping, rushing from place to place, with stressed, tired, and empty looks on their faces.
• The walking and living spaces here are optimally designed for walking and living, and that’s about it.
• I walk along public stretches to trains/malls, and I feel like a dollar sign with legs as promoters eye me from afar and zoom in on me to pitch some credit card or new estate launch when I’m just trying to get some alone space.
• I see very old people in their 60s, 70s, 80s wiping tables and cleaning toilets, and I have no idea why when they have probably given up the best decades of their lives toiling for a nation that has become so rich, in part due to their sacrifices.

For the third richest country in the world^[4] with the most number of millionaires per capita^[5], I sure don’t feel rich, be it emotionally or spiritually, here. To say that I feel disillusioned would be to put it mildly.

In a world where everyone is more interlinked than ever, it means that we now have ready access to everything at our fingertips. News, videos, messages; everything can be accessed with a click. Social media floods us with content every second, content filtered by algorithms, trending news, or messages being pushed through by the powerhouses.

But just because we are connected to something doesn’t mean that it’s the best for us.

Just because a site is popular or the official news site doesn’t mean that it is broadcasting good quality news, as it could just be driving concealed propaganda to further its cause.

Just because a blogger is more aggressive at pitching their stuff doesn’t mean that they have better stuff to share; it just means that they are aggressive at pitching stuff.

Just because Facebook is showing you some 30 things in your news feed now doesn’t mean that these are the 30 best things that will improve your life. Most web algorithms today are based on what’s trending, which tends to be driven by the lowest common denominator of user preferences. Meaning, angst-driven messages, things that scratch an itch, content that doesn’t require much thought, or things that are just funny — maybe because most of us lack positivity in our lives today.

Sometimes, you can be seeing a message that’s carefully constructed to break down your self-control and make you buy into their agenda, sales pitch. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it’s good or the best. Just because something is highly engaged, with lots of shares doesn’t mean that it’s useful — it may just be noise.

In a world where everyone is interconnected, we may feel disconnected if we try to connect with everything and everyone. Doing so means being overloaded in all things. It means being overloaded with many connections, yet these connections are superficial at the same time — touch and go, hi-bye, nothing more than that. It means receiving a lot of information, yet it’s questionable as to how much of this info will help us become conscious human beings and live better lives. It means being weighed down by the lowest level of drivel online, from fear-based messages to hate to just low-quality stuff. Online has a flood of information now, but I’d say that much of this is nonsense/noise, and online has also become a terrible way to build high-quality connections and communicate in a meaningful way.

This is where we disconnect.

We disconnect, not in the sense of disconnecting from the internet. The internet is great despite its issues (which are really caused by being connected to everyone, good or bad), and it’d be silly to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We disconnect in the sense of disconnecting from what’s negative, what doesn’t help us (or others). Meaning,

• Disconnect from media outlets that are constantly broadcasting nothing but fear-based news and/or propaganda
• Disconnect from sites that are bullshit
• Disconnect from sites that load you with repetitive, trivial stuff that keeps you busy, yet does nothing to change or help you act on your life
• Disconnect from the negativity and angry discourse, along with very low-level discussions, online
• Disconnect from content that keeps you at low levels of consciousness, such as greed, desire, lust, self-doubt, a quest for materialism, pride, among others (read my Map of Consciousness article). For example, there are tons of beauty content online today but one should ask if these really empower women in becoming beautiful, or if they simply keep women locked in mental constructs on how they should see themselves and beauty.
• Disconnect from people who are negative, who take us for granted, and who expect and take from us without reciprocating

Basically, disconnecting from being busy. I call this conscious disconnection.

And then we connect.

• Connect with the meaningful stuff.
• Connect with people who value what you do. People who show their care and support.
• Connect with sites that have deep, long-form content that gets you thinking. I find Feedly a great tool to subscribe to your favorite sites, bookmark articles, control the content you see, and stay away from the noise online. It’s free too.
• Connect with sites that match your interests, rather than sites that are popular or that happen to appear in your news feed. I figure that following content that I like is much more valuable for my growth than reading about yet another fear-based news pushed to my face by a news site or seeing the average trending update on Facebook/Twitter.
• Connect with people who are doing good work in this world. Who cares about making a difference, rather than maximizing time spent on site or shareholder profit or how to make more money at the expense of all things. Connect with people whose life’s work isn’t about just hedonistic living or self-gratification at the expense of all else.

And make a conscious effort to share the content that matters, that has made some difference to your life. I notice that people who are most proactive about sharing, talking, and reacting online tend to be angry people, which is why the popular stuff online tends to be the negative or fear-driven. And then there is the younger population whose interests are probably similar to what we liked when we were younger, like fashion, beauty, material goods — largely things that keep the society busy but don’t forward the human civilization ultimately. If all of us who normally just silently read stuff make an effort to like/share the meaningful and good stuff, this may well raise the average consciousness of the things we see online.

I call this conscious connection.

So in the end, we are still connecting. We are connecting consciously. Being mindful of what we see and disconnecting from what we don’t want to see, that doesn’t serve us and make us better.

Maybe as we consciously connect and disconnect, this will help give us more order and value in our lives. While there are many things we cannot change about the world and internet yet, we can change how we interact and connect with content and people online, in turn creating a world of highest meaning to us. Actively seeking conscious material, actively sharing conscious material with others, rather than being a passive observer. By first creating a life that is emotionally and spiritually rich to us, we can then give to others, and help lift everyone up to create a better world.

Check out as well:

• How to Deal with Disillusionment as You Grow Older
• What is Your Impact on the World?

https://personalexcellence.co/blog/disconnect/

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Dearest X, I’m really sorry to hear that you’re going through this. Let’s see if we can try to break this down together.

The first thing that comes to mind, without knowing more about your situation, is that your problem sounds like it’s self-created. By that, I’m not trying to disregard your problem. Suffering, whether it’s self-inflicted or not, is still suffering.

What I mean is that it doesn’t sound like there’s something physically threatening in your life or something immensely life altering (like a deep illness, loss of a child, disability, etc. — all of which I’ve seen other PE readers/coachees face) that’s creating your anxiety/unhappiness. Rather, this anxiety seems to be coming from a mental feeling about a certain mismatch in your life.

This doesn’t mean that your problem is any lesser than other people’s problems, though one can say that a self-inflicted, mental unhappiness is, in a way, a “luxury” problem compared to someone who is homeless and struggling to get pennies for the next meal. It’s important to be aware that what has been driving your unhappiness, anger, or bitterness isn’t in fact a pressing life-and-death issue (like someone pointing a gun at your head or trying to harm a loved one), but something internal. The latter is in fact the case for most of modern day problems really, like misery from being single, depression from not fitting into a certain beauty mold, unhappiness from not having a certain level of wealth, etc., and it’s important to be aware of this as we dive into the issue.

That said, let’s take a deeper look into your problem. Because I can only reply based on your question and there isn’t much to go on, I can only make some assumptions here.

What is “Progress”?

X, you say that you feel depressed and regretful about your lack of progress. What exactly do you mean by “lack of progress”?

• Do you mean that you’re not at a certain place in life yet?
• Or that you have not reached a certain target for your goals?
• Or that you are simply not making any progress in life at all, as you haven’t been taking any action on your goals?

Because each of these situations is very different, getting clarity on what exactly you mean by “lack of progress” can provide more insight into your problem, which can then allow you to act appropriately.

If we look up the word “progress,” it means “forward movement toward a destination.” My guess, X, is that you have a specific definition of “progress” in your life and you have likely developed a mental target of what you want accomplished by a certain date, age. Perhaps this target is to set up a successful business. Perhaps it’s to earn $XXX. Perhaps it’s to be in a certain job with a nice pay check. Or maybe it’s to be happily married with kids, or to be living in an apartment of a certain size, or to have traveled XYZ countries. Maybe it’s several of these goals combined.

My guess is that when these targets were not achieved in your target time frame, you then felt like there was a lack of progress. This then led to feelings of regret, anxiety, or even anger and bitterness.

Our Goals

Have you attended my How to Achieve 10/10 Self-Esteem webinar before, X? In my self-esteem webinar, I talk about how many people — all of us on earth really — tend to feel unconfident because they have not accomplished their goals. Goals like losing weight, finding their soulmate, earning a certain level of income: basically similar to the targets that I mentioned above.

So they spend their whole life trying to achieve these goals, so as to be confident and happy. Those who are single fork out chunks of money to join dating agencies so that they can perhaps find love; people who have not reached their ideal weight spend thousands of dollars on weight loss programs; those who have yet to earn $X amount of money work extra hard to earn that income, or even spend thousands of dollars on ridiculous internet/wealth courses that promise to give them the ticket to riches/freedom. And so on.

These are not overnight goals for sure. So for many, it takes them half their life to achieve these goals. Some may fail in doing so. Others succeed after much hard work.

For those who succeed, they naturally become ecstatic. To achieve Xkg, to be in a good relationship, to earn a high level of income, to become highly recognized at work, etc. — doing so makes them feel like they have reached a new place in life. They celebrate these milestones with pride and soon, they’re onto their next goal.

Now, for the goals that are irreversible, like achieving an award, they stick with you for life. By “irreversible,” I mean the achievement of these goals can never be taken away. So for example, when you win a gold medal at a race, you are permanently the gold medalist of that race, for that year. When you graduate as the top student in your school, you’ll always be the top student for that cohort. That is, unless you pull a Lance Armstrong and have your achievements retracted, which is a totally separate thing altogether. Such goals are great of course, because nothing can ever change the fact that you have achieved them.

But then there are the goals that are reversible. For example, someone working in a great job can always be retrenched. Someone who is having a great pay can always get a pay cut. A thriving business can suddenly go bust due to changing market forces, as has happened to many companies, big or small. The kings of the early internet age, Yahoo, MySpace, and Napster, are no more than shadows of their former selves today, while former smartphone powerhouses BlackBerry and Nokia have been totally killed by Apple and Samsung.^[1] Body weight that is lost can always be regained — those of you who have experienced yo-yo weight loss before will know. A great relationship can always end due to irreconcilable differences. Someone with incredible wealth can lose all of it overnight when the market turns. A thriving career can just be obliterated overnight, as Edison Chen, a once high-flying actor/singer/musician in Hong Kong / Asia, found out for himself after his sex photo scandal in 2008.

So what happens when these things happen? Some sink into depression as they try to reconcile what had just happened. Some are not able to accept the loss as they enter into a period of stasis. Some become angry, bitter, and start hating the world. In serious cases, some take their life, as was the case with Adolf Merckle, a German billionaire who took his life when he lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the economic crisis in 2009^[2], as well as the people who allegedly committed suicide after their names were found in the 2015 Ashley Madison data leak.^[3] (Ashley Madison is a site for adultery/affairs, so by virtue of having their names found in the leak, it can be implied that these people, if they are/were attached/married, were cheating or trying to cheat.)

And then there are those who are deeply unhappy despite living the dream life, or at least, the life that many in this world can only dream of. Award-winning comedian Robin Williams committed suicide in 2014; he was one of the best comedians of his time, a multi-millionaire with a $100 million estate, and well-loved by everybody, young and old. Williams’ publicist said that Williams had been suffering from severe depression prior to his death.^[4]Supermodels, with the body that many girls could only dream of and the attention and adoration of men all around the world, are known to be depressed with heavy insecurities, at times having substance abuse problems.^[5][6][7][8] There are many girls who aggressively lose weight only to still be insecure about their bodies after they hit their dream weight, something which I myself had experienced before.^[9]

And did you know? Japan, South Korea, and Iceland, which are some of the wealthiest nations in the world, have some of the highest suicide rates in the world.^[10] In China, suicide was the cause of 23.6% of deaths among the extremely wealthy between 2008 and 2010.^[11] Says An Lan, a physiological counselor and the founder of a counseling organization,

Obviously this is just a figurative comparison, because I don’t think anyone would reasonably think that millionaires and billionaires truly live harder lives than the poor. At the very least, the rich doesn’t have to worry about basic survival issues.

But I think his point is that despite one’s wealth, accomplishments, and/or good looks, one can still be depressed and empty on the inside. You can be filthy rich and this will help ease living a bit, because you don’t have to worry about resource limitations due to a lack of money. However, it will never cover up a deep-set unhappiness that is in one’s soul.

Getting to the Root

This is not to say that all people who have accomplished great goals are unhappy. Neither is it to say that we shouldn’t work on our goals or work toward big goals because they won’t make us happy. The process of pursuing our goals helps us learn, grow, and become better humans. This pursuit helps us create a better existence, both for ourselves and for other people. There is a huge merit in setting goals and pursuing them, and to write off goal achievement based on the above would be to miss the whole point altogether.

What I’m trying to say here, X, is that I don’t think your “lack of progress” is the root source of your issue. I suspect the real issue is something else, something that has nothing to do with a “lack of progress.” What this “something else” is, is something you need to find out. I can, however, share some clues:

1. Are you expecting the accomplishment of your goals to give you something? What is that? Let’s call this Y.
2. Why is it that you can’t achieve Y now? Why is Y contingent upon the accomplishment of your goal(s)?
3. Do you recognize that the reason why you can’t achieve Y now isn’t because you haven’t accomplished your goal(s)? Rather, it’s because you aren’t allowing yourself to do so, for some reason or another?

Y can be happiness. Y can be confidence in yourself. Y can be self-respect. Y can be self-love. Y can be freedom.

Whatever it is, the reason why you don’t have Y yet, the reason why you have been feeling unhappiness, anger, bitterness, regret, etc., especially when you’ve been having these emotions for a while, isn’t because you haven’t achieved enough. The reason stems from within. Maybe you were once taught that being more successful would earn you the respect of others. Maybe you believe that being skinnier or more attractive would get you love. Or that being more wealthy would give you confidence and love. Or that once you are accomplished, others would like you, love you.

But it doesn’t. Maybe it does, in that when you have X, people may fawn over you. But these are conditional friends and rewards. Why would one bother with having conditional friends, or seek for a positive emotion that is contingent upon the momentary accomplishment of a goal? Your happiness should come from the doing of a goal, vs. something that only comes when you have accomplished something. At the end of the day, achieving your goals will change your life, sure.  But they will not change your underlying dissatisfaction or unhappiness with yourself and life, especially if it were never there to begin with.

My Experience

For me, after I lost all my excess weight in my 21-day fast back in 2011, I was ecstatic because I had finally got rid of the weight that I had been wanting to lose for years. This is it! I thought. I’m now thin and beautiful. I can now celebrate my body and be seen as attractive to guys! This was back when I was still single and looking for love.

But I was wrong, because I was still oddly insecure about myself and my weight. While my previous battle was in losing weight, my new battle switched to not overeating so that I wouldn’t regain the weight. I was constantly fearful of regaining the weight, in that I was worried of becoming ugly/unattractive should I even gain an extra kilo, or half a kilo. I wound up overeating due to my own stress issues, and regained all that lost weight back and more, over the period of a year. I felt so ashamed and miserable. It was after I addressed my internal issues that I subsequently lost all that weight again, this time permanently, without a fast, without some massive diet or exercise regimen. (I share my framework to stop emotional eating in my How to Stop Stress Eating Program.)

After I reached my highest ever income in my business last year (2015), I was very fulfilled by the lives that I had changed. I was getting many success stories and case studies, including from the people whom I had worked with prior to 2015, and I was happy to even make a small impact on their lives.

But I was miserable on the inside. I was miserable because I became stretched very thin by all the things that I was doing, as well as all the people I was serving/helping, often times going way out of my obligation/duty to address their individual issues, causing my own self-deprivation. Such issues could sometimes include an insensitivity or inconsideration to others’ goodwill/generosity, so it could be cases where I was offering X not out of my job commitment but out of goodwill, and some could try to take 10X without consideration of my own space/needs.

After I started protecting my own space and needs, I became much happier. I began to plan from the perspective of my needs/wants, and designed my agenda around that. I also started to pursue things like say, The Personal Excellence Podcast, which don’t bring me any revenue but help me forward my mission.

Just to be clear, it’s not earning more money that’s the issue here. One can earn more money and still have free time, with good time management and delegation. This is especially so if you are a business owner. Neither is it an issue of “money is evil” or that “we shouldn’t earn more money,” which I find a self-limiting belief in nature.

What this experience validated to me was that just because someone has more income, doesn’t mean that the person is naturally happier. Once you are lucky enough to have enough money to take care of your basic needs and maybe pursue some personal goals (and by that I don’t mean materialistic goals; these fill a bottomless pit), money doesn’t significantly change the emotional narrative of your life. The extent to which money does change your life then becomes tied to the story that you tell yourself. Which comes to the question that I asked above:

What do you expect to get from the accomplishment of your desired goal(s)? 

Is it…

Respect?

Attention from other people?

Fame?

Glory?

A feeling of self-worth?

Self-confidence?

Happiness?

Freedom?

Or even love?

Whatever you are looking for, if you don’t feel it in you right now (barring real physical limitations due to your environment/life), you ain’t gonna get it even when you accomplish your goal. You may feel good for a moment, sure. But when the dust settles, as the adrenaline of reaching the goal disappears, you will be left with the same struggles, issues. And how happy you are, how self-motivated you are at this point in time, will depend on who you are on the inside and your self-beliefs.

So, here are some pointers for you:

• If you’re trying to look for respect, you don’t need respect from other people. You just need to first respect yourself. When you respect yourself, others’ respect wouldn’t matter, not as much.
• If you’re looking for confidence, confidence starts from within you, how you see yourself. Read: How to Be The Most Confident Person In The World and 7 Tips to Overcome the Impostor Syndrome
• If you’re looking for happiness, realize that happiness starts from your ability to appreciate what you have, the ability to see the glass as being half full — or “full” full as I like to say it (half full with air, half full with water 🙂 ). Read: 10 Timeless Principles for Lasting Happiness and How to Stop Comparing Yourself With Others
• If you’re looking for love, love comes from first loving yourself. When you seek love out of self-hate or lack of love, you need to ask yourself the kind of broken souls you’ll be attracting to fill your “gaps” and “voids”. Is that what you want? Read: How Can I Stop Feeling Lonely? and Are You Looking For A Relationship To Complete Yourself?
• If you’re looking for popularity/attention, realize that popularity comes from first being someone you are proud of, someone you aspire to be… starting from your values and day-to-day behavior. When you radiate active energy, zest, and drive, you naturally become charming. Read: How to Be Charming in Under 500 Words
• If you’re starting from a place of zero, and you have no idea how to start, read: How to Start When You Have Nothing and How Do I Prepare For My Comeback in Life?

Working on the above may seem like an absolute waste of time. But it’s not. In fact, it’s by working on these highly crucial internal tasks now that you break out of the vicious loop of negativity and unhappiness. In fact, I dare say that some of the feelings you’ve been feeling are likely due to the neglect of the above in the past 5, 10, 15 years, leading to this struggle today.

On the other hand, when you try the usual, make-believe path of working on an external goal purely to feel happy/confident, you are actually going down a rabbit trail. You will gain some skills here and there, and this is important. But in the end, you will find yourself right back where you were, in terms of your personal happiness.

Oddly enough, as you do these seemingly unconstructive tasks, you will find yourself getting the desire to act. As you start working on your inner world, you begin to naturally take action. Without forcing yourself, without repressing yourself, without angst and unhappiness.

I wish you all the best in your journey, X. And let me know how everything goes. 🙂

• Check out my related podcast: How to Deal with Depression When It Comes to Our Goals?
• Read: Are You Facing Repeating Patterns in Life?

https://personalexcellence.co/blog/depressed-progress/

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Do you hate to say no? Do you often find yourself saying yes because you don’t like to make others feel bad?

Well, I do, and I can relate. I used to be terrible at saying no until I realized that continually saying “yes” was digging myself into a ditch and led me with little time for my personal goals and relationships.

In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share 6 tips to say no that I’ve been applying, along with personal examples:

• Tip #1: Know what you want to say yes to [00:57]
• Tip #2: Know that saying no is okay [04:43]
• Tip #3: Many little yeses to irrelevant things, or mildly relevant things, even if small, can deviate you from your main goal [08:26]
• Tip #4: Be honest about it [13:22]
• Tip #5: Give alternatives (if you like) [19:04]
• Tip #6: Do a life audit if you’re getting a high noise signal [20:04]

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How to Say No [Transcript]

Welcome to the Personal Excellence Podcast, the show that’s all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua.

Celestine Chua: Hey everyone! Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 6. I’m Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. Today’s topic really hits home for me. It’s about how to say no.

I don’t know about you, but I used to be really bad at saying no. In a way I still am. But I’ve learned to be a lot better at it. If you are someone who has difficulty saying no, today I want to share with you six tips that have worked really well for me and I hope you’ll find them helpful.

1) Know what is it you want to say yes to

My tip number one is to know what you want to say yes to. For me, when I just focus on learning how to say no as an action in itself, it becomes a hollow quest. Because my default self is to help people. I like to agree to requests as much as I can. And I like to be there for other people.

Obviously, this has its own implications. After countless situations where I just kept saying yes, yes, yes to every single person, request, and favor, I just didn’t have any time for myself, for my goals.

On the other hand, when I focus on the things that I want to say yes to, meaning my biggest goals and dreams, my Quadrant 2 projects, this helps me define this clear vision of the real big priorities in my life. Let’s say I don’t have this clear vision. Everything can simply be important. Yet, when framed into the context where we all have limited time on Earth, we all have certain ambitions to realize within our lifetime, then it becomes clear that we need to prioritize the things that we say yes to, and hence no to the other things.

For me, what I want to say yes to would be PE. All of you guys. Growing it, creating more content for you guys, creating more great courses. Just being there for all of you, through my content. And of course, my loved ones, my family members. And my own personal growth and health. These would be the biggest rocks I wish to say yes to. So these priorities will never change. They will just be there, till the day I die.

Knowing these key big rocks puts into context the things I should say yes to, and the things I should say no to. For example, let’s say someone may be asking for a favor or pitching a proposal or an idea that is not a good fit for my business. Then letting it drag on will not help my Quadrant 2 goals, and in fact, waste the other person’s time. It’s clear that I need to say no to the distractions, the things that deviate me from my mission, as well as time for my loved ones, my personal health, and sanity. 

So my question to you is:

1. What do you want to say yes to?
2. What are your biggest goals and dreams?
3. What are your personal ambitions?

By having this clear idea in your mind, it helps you become more aware that — some of the things that you have been having difficulty saying no to? These are probably things that you need to say no to. By dragging on and saying yes to things that you may not be 100% committed to or passionate about, that’s not really helping you realize your highest goals and dreams.

2) Saying no is okay 

My tip number two is to know that saying no is OK.

In the past, I felt that when I say no, I would be regarded as an asshole. That people would hate me. That I would just be seen as being ungenuine, just not being true to my mission. I didn’t want that because I just truly from the bottom of my heart want to be there for everybody as much as possible.

So I just kept saying yes to every single request, favor, that came along my way. In the end, even with giving up my own sleep and just working around the clock, I still did not have time for the goals that I wish to pursue, my own priorities, and my loved ones, and much less my health.

So I learned the hard way that saying no, not only is it OK, but it is very much necessary. For such a long time, I just tried so hard and tried my best not to say no to people. Because I felt that it wasn’t OK. But I learned that hard and painful way that this isn’t true and saying no is okay, and in fact necessary in many circumstances.

What I’ve learned from this episode is that when you say no, it doesn’t mean that you are being rude or you’re not being true. If anything, when you say no to something that you are not 100% committed to, and you’re really just saying yes because you’re afraid to say no? That is when you are not being true. You’re not being true to yourself and you’re not being true to that person you are saying yes to. Because you do not feel 100% committed to that cause or request or favor, whatever the other party is requesting.

Being true means that you are being honest and authentic in terms of how you feel. If it’s a no-go, or you don’t feel like it’s something you can say yes to, then just be honest about that. That is what it means to be truthful. You can’t expect everybody’s question or requests would always be 100% aligned with your own needs and expectations. Many times, they are just not going to be. This is especially so if you are in a position where you often get people pitching things to you, where people want your time and attention, or maybe you are a consultant that people would like your advice. You would probably find yourself in situations where there are things that are not aligned with your own priorities and needs, and you have to say no to.

When that happens, this is 100% okay and normal. You shouldn’t feel that you are an asshole, or that you are a negative person, or that you are in the wrong because that is not true at all. People say no all the time in this world, be in relationships or in business. Saying no is needed to let other people know that this is not aligned, this is not working out. Then they can move on to find the right person that would be a good fit for whatever they are requesting about.

3) Many little yeses to irrelevant things can deviate you

My tip number three is to know that many little yeses to irrelevant things, or mildly irrelevant things — even if these things are small, they can ultimately still deviate you from your main goal.

This is also something that I had to realize for myself. I always try to accommodate other people’s needs. I always want to make sure that everyone is happy, and there are no conflicts and so on.

So that means that oftentimes in the past, I would want to say yes. Sometimes when it’s a very clear-cut situation where it’s about saying no, I just say no. But then there are the situations where it is just something that requires a very small amount of your time. 30 minutes, two hours, one hour, whatever. It is just a small commitment of your time, and then you would be thinking, Yeah why not?

So doing that, I ended up saying yes to so many things. It could be a favor, a request, an invitation to something, an interview with X publication, meetups, and so on. Like everything! I just kept saying yes because I’d be thinking, Yeah why not? This looks like something I can allocate a couple of hours to. And I just genuinely wanted to be there for each and everybody who contacted me.

But after years of doing that, my agenda became flooded with people’s requests, wants, and needs. Even though each request would take maybe 30 minutes, an hour or two or three, when added together, it became a huge load on myself. It got to a point where I was going crazy. I would be staying up late every day, replying to emails or fulfilling certain things that I had agreed to in the past. And because I always wanted to put my best foot forward — I don’t believe in agreeing to something and then just doing it shabbily. I always feel like if I’m agreeing to something, I want to put my best foot forward to that. And I did. So Ken would be seeing me sleeping so late every day, and he would always be expressing concern. I realized that I really need to be more watchful in how I allocate my time because we don’t have unlimited time on Earth.

This tip is really about being discerning of the things that you say yes to. Because even if it’s just one small thing that seems mildly relevant and takes a little bit of your time, when you say yes to a lot of these things, ultimately you will get deviated very far from your main goal.

During this whole period where I just kept saying “Yes” and “Why not?” to all of the little things that were mildly relevant or that I thought I could offer a bit of my time to, this resulted in me neglecting my overall Quadrant 2 goals for PE, be it content creation, article writing, and so on. That just made me feel miserable because in trying to say yes to every single little thing that was mildly irrelevant, in the end, I ended up saying no to this huge thing which is so crucial to me and impacts so many people on a large scale.

This links back to tip number one about knowing what you want to say yes to. Because when you’re just saying although yeses to all of the little things, ultimately you’re just saying no to that big thing you wish to accomplish.

The question to you is: Is this what you want? Would you rather be spending your time doing little things that are mildly relevant to your dreams, your goals, your life? Or do you want to devote your energy focused on doing those one, two, three big things that would give you that maximum fulfillment when you realize them?

Well, the question is to you. I know I want to choose the latter. That’s because when I do the latter well, I will impact a lot more people on a much bigger scale. That gives me a lot more meaning, fulfillment, and happiness in life.

4) Be honest about it

My tip number four is to be honest about it.

I know we can be really tough to say no and communicate it to someone. Of course, we feel like we would be hated and we would seem like we are nasty folks when we are saying no. Some people may not take that well.

But that is not a reason not to say no. If anything, it helps to just communicate that reason directly now, so that the other person can know how you truly feel. As opposed to living in the charade and living behind pretenses.

Actually, most of the times, you wouldn’t even need to give a reason if you’re not exactly close to the person. But if there is some strong preexisting relationship, and if you just want to be honest, then you can just give the reason if it makes you’ll feel better.

Example: When I said no to a request

So a couple months ago, I received a request from someone and he was inviting me to join his company on his board of advisors. This was a high honor. And this is someone who is very important and of high status. And I did consider that.

But when I thought about what I truly want to say yes to… As what I mentioned just now, what I want to say yes to, like my big yes, would be to develop PE further, to create all this great content for you guys to help you in your growth. And to be there for the community. I’ve known from my past experiences that PE takes up a fair level of my time. If I were to allocate my time elsewhere, it would just be diverting my time from what truly matters to me. It would be the kind of nice-to-be-involved project — like things that I kept getting a lot of over the years and that I’ve said yes to countless times, but in the end it took up so much of my time and energy and left me drained at the end of the day with no time for my health, relationships, and my most important goals.

So I realized that I needed to say no, and it was about communicating that no. So then I replied to the email and I drafted it out. I thought about how to best present my stance without offending this person. I didn’t offend him. I certainly didn’t want want to burn bridges.

And then I just typed my e-mail and then deleted some stuff, and then typed some more. Left it there for a couple of hours. Came back later to look at it with fresh eyes to see [if there was] anything that needed amending. In the process of typing that e-mail, I decided to be honest as opposed to coming out with random excuses.

So yeah. I just wrote honestly about how I feel that as an honor, but I don’t feel like I can be involved in this because to do so would take away time from the most important goals and projects in my life. If I want to be involved in something, I want to be involved in it 100%. But I don’t feel I’m able to commit 100% to this thing, and because of that, I need to say no. And then I clicked send.

After that, I was a little bit anxious because I was worried that I might offend him.

Well, in less than a day, I received an e-mail reply from him. He said he read the e-mail with a smile on his face and not even to worry about it because he wasn’t offended in any way at all. And he just wished me all the best. That was that! So in my mind, I was worried about whether I would be offending him, and I was spending a few days thinking about how to articulate my reply. He just replied in less than a day and just said, don’t sweat it!

A lot of times our worries with regards to saying no, it may well just be in our mind, you know? We may be worried about how people may feel, may think, and so on. And that’s with good reason obviously. Because we don’t want to be nasty people. We don’t want to be rude to people. We don’t want to make people feel bad if we can. I totally understand that.

But sometimes, maybe certain people are really just articulating a request or suggestion. Maybe they are doing the same thing to other people as well. Maybe they’re not even thinking too much about that.

So as opposed to putting the weight of the world on your shoulders, maybe what really helps is just being honest in your communications and not to worry or think too much about something until it has happened. Because as the saying goes, over 90-95% of the worries that we have, tend to be just in our minds.

5) Give alternatives

My fifth tip is to give alternatives.

If it makes you feel better, you can suggest alternatives. This is an optional tip. You don’t have to do that because you can’t possibly be suggesting alternatives to every single thing that you say no to, especially if you often need to say no.

But, as and when you feel appropriate, you can give some alternative suggestions that the person can consider. Let’s say someone wants you to get involved in the particular project and you can’t. Then you can suggest someone else if you can think of someone who would be suitable.

You don’t necessarily have to do that but if you feel like it’s something that can make you feel better, and you can offer it without significant cost on your end, then you can give alternatives.

6) Do a life audit

My sixth and last tip is to do a life audit if you’re getting a high noise signal.

What do I mean by that? I have found that for every request, there’s always an evaluation process where you are thinking, Should I engage in this? Should I not? What are the trade-offs? What will it cost? What do I need to put in? What could potentially be the outcome from this?  

This is known as cognitive load. Cognitive load is that load on your mind when you’re processing a decision. When you’re dealing with just one request or two requests, that cognitive load isn’t apparent. But when you’re dealing with a high volume of requests for an extended period of time, you probably will feel drained after some time — yet you can’t really understand why.

So you could be not doing much, but you still feel a load on your mind. That would be cognitive load at work.

Let’s say you’re getting so many requests that require your mental energy to process, to think through, and to weigh the pros and cons. That would be very draining. Ideally, you want to cut down the number of requests that you have to process and to increase the hit rate. Hit rate is the chance of a request being compatible with what you wish to do.

If you are getting a lot of requests that aren’t a fit and that you need to continually think about how to reject, then this is what I call a high noise signal. High noise signal meaning that there is a high ratio of requests that are incompatible and hence the term “noise.”

So over the years, I’ve been receiving a lot of requests. Initially, in the first few years, it was manageable. After a while, it started to weigh down on me. It wasn’t something that was immediately apparent. This was something that just started building up over the months and years. 

Just a few months ago, I started thinking, What am I doing? In that, I was feeling so weighed down by this high noise signal. Unfortunately, there’s just so much noise on the Internetthese days. Just by the corollary of having an Internet presence, that also means that you get a very high volume of spam and random requests from people not reading the instructions on the contact page. So I dealt with that problem for quite a while, and then I hired my assistant last year who started to be involved in helping me manage my email and that helped me tons.

But ultimately, whether it is email processing done by me or my assistant, the whole situation just didn’t feel right. In that, a very very small minority of the e-mails that were coming in were a fit for what I wish to pursue. Especially as I got more clarity on the important projects that I wish to be involved in, which would be scale-based activities like creating content, working on online courses at PE, just building the community at large. It was so little like I think last year out of the thousands of e-mails that came in, less than five were a fit for what I wish to pursue.

With this revelation, I realized that I needed to review the communication channels on my site.

• I needed to say no to 1-1 coaching because this was not a fit with the scale-based direction that I wanted to go into. Like I really enjoy 1-1 coaching. But it was no longer feasible to keep taking on 1-1 coaching clients because it was taking my time away from other scale-based projects.
• It also meant saying no meet-up requests which I would get a lot off because those were just taking up a lot of my time and energy as well.
• It also meant removing my email from the PE contact page because a lot of people were abusing it and sending things that were not relevant to whatever I mentioned on that page.

Doing that helped clear out a lot of the noise.

So as opposed to taking up all this time to think about which e-mails were worth pursuing, which e-mails to archive and so on, all this energy can then be spent and invested into a more constructive use. Like improving the overall platform. Creating new material for all of you guys and so on.

That is just one example. When there’s a high level of noise signal in your life, that suggests that something is misaligned and it’s something to look into.

A totally different example: Let’s say you are single and you’re dating. You’re looking for your ideal relationship. But perhaps you’ve been getting so many different date requests. A lot of them tend to be low-quality dates. Low-quality dates in the sense of dates that are not compatible with you, your values, and the kind of person you’re looking for.

If that’s the case, it helps to do some audit. Maybe you are just going to the wrong places to meet people. Maybe the dates that you’ve been getting, maybe they’re coming from a particular channel, like a particular dating app or dating website, and maybe the audience profile on these sites or apps are just not a good fit for the kind of person you are and the kind of person you’re looking for.

This is assuming that your dating picture, your dating profile, that everything is already optimized and true to who you are and how you want to present yourself. Then perhaps there’s something to be reviewed. Maybe it’s about going to a different place to meet new people. Maybe is about exploring different channels, different apps, different dating websites. Basically changing your approach as opposed to perpetuating that cycle.

So the end goal is to continually improve the processes in your life: the way that you’re doing things, how you’re communicating with people. The ideal scenario is to get a healthy volume of requests that are a great fit for what you wish to pursue that you can readily say yes to. And there would be a high hit ratio.

End Note

I hope you’ve found today’s podcast helpful. For more on how to say no, check out my article on how to say no, at personalexcellence.com/blog/say-no/.

Every podcast takes a lot of work to create. If you’ve found The Personal Excellence Podcast helpful in any way, I would truly, truly appreciate it if you could take a few seconds of the time to leave a positive rating on iTunes. You’ll help spread the show to more people out there, and to help others in their journey of growth.

So thank you so much for listening. And I look forward to speaking to you guys in the next episode. Bye guys!

End Note: Thanks for listening to The Personal Excellence Podcast. For more tips on how to live your best life, visit www.personalexcellence.co

Related Resources:

• How to Say No To Others: Your Ultimate Guide
• [Manifesto] How to Say No

https://personalexcellence.co/podcast/say-no/

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