It's good to be good to other people. It's good to be nice, to think the best about people, to check on them and find out about their well-being. But don't forget you are also someone that needs care too.

Check on others, but check on yourself too. You are also part of the wonders of the world that needs to be looked upon.

I heard of a story of a guy who wanted to submit an application, then he remembered that he had some friends who were also qualified, that met the requirements. So he sent the link to all of them. At intervals he would check on them to see whether they had submitted. He kept giving them support and acting as their coach. "If you need any help, let me know; let me know how I can be of assistance, so you won't miss the deadline", he would say. He kept on doing this for weeks until each of the people he sent the link to had submitted. Then the application closed.

The deadline came and the application closed, but he was the only one who had not submitted.

He was so obsessed about helping others that he lost sight that he too needed help.

The thing about perfection is that you hardly know when you get it. There is no master class that defines the endpoint. There is no curriculum that shows the finish line for perfection.

However, progress is measurable. You can tell easily that you've gone a step higher or have produced something better than what used to be.

So what is the lesson here? Start first, then improve, and keep improving.

It is a privilege to end at your own terms. Life does not owe you anything so nothing should be taken for granted.

What has a beginning usually has an end. It is a blessing for the end to be better than the beginning.

If there are tears at the end, may it be for joy, not for regret.

And what better way to end than to see the baton move, willingly, from you to the next.

The show must go on, with or without you. But it is delightful to see that you made it better and would leave it in better hands.

How fast do you rebound? How quickly do you recover?

The same event can happen to two different people, yet one may recover faster, and move on to achieve greater things, while the other may take much longer to gather himself and get back on his feet.

In credit risk management, particularly in Expected Credit Loss (ECL), there is a concept called the recovery rate. It measures the extent to which a lender can recover its exposure after a borrower defaults. The higher the recovery rate, the lower the expected eventual loss.

Life is not so different.

Setbacks happen. Plans get disrupted. Deadlines are missed. Targets sometimes fall short. Sometimes, things simply don't go as planned.

But perhaps what matters even more than the setback itself is what happens afterwards.

Do you stay down? Do you keep mourning what happened? Do you allow the setback to define your next chapter?

Or do you get back up and move forward?

It's okay to cry. It's okay to feel disappointed.

But there comes a time when you have to wipe your face and move on to the next.

If I get what I want

Will I want what I get?

Not everything can be expressed in monetary terms. The danger to this is that people do not think deeply about the real cost of (not) taking an action.

Time is a cost.

Opportunity cost is a cost.

Regret is a cost.

Seeing beyond financial cost when making a decision helps you to capture the other costs that could prove even more costly if ignored.

Is this a logical conversation or an emotional conversation?

Is this based on the heart or the head?

Does it have to make sense to make sense?

Do not give a pep talk to someone who just needs a hug.

Do not give a sensible mouth to someone who just wants a listening ear.

You can have the last word without having the last statement.

Not everything is worth responding to.

Sometimes the wisest saying is at that moment where nothing is said but everything is still understood. The best statements are sometimes made without words.

There is no point with being grammatically correct but contextually ignorant.

Stress testing looks at what could go wrong. It looks at all possibilities and says: what would the outcome be if what could go wrong eventually goes wrong? And we sometimes take that same outlook towards the things we do, towards our dreams, our thoughts, imaginations.

We tend to look at it from the standpoint of how bad things could get. We imagine situations where things go off the rail, where the inputs worsen, where execution is flawed, where the help doesn't come, where the people you trust to show up disappoint. And yes, that's a possibility. However, that is not the only possibility.

We should not train our mind to only see the universe of things that could go wrong. Things can go right too. It's okay to stress test. But we shouldn't stop there. We should enlarge our mind to look beyond what could go wrong. Because things can go right.

We should also think about the best-case scenario. What if everything that could go right goes right? What if everything turns for your favor?

Optimism is not ignoring the possibility that things could go wrong. It is the presence of mind to see that in the midst of uncertainties, it is still fine to be hopeful, that good still happen, and that the best-case scenario can still come to pass.

You can do anything you want, but you can't do all of them now. You can do anything you want but not all at once.

What is worth doing may not be worth doing now. And what you are doing now may just be a stop gap, a tunnel that leads you into what you must do.

When the sun dims its light on a place, it does not stop to exist, it only becomes night there.

Focus says this is what I will keep doing because this is what must be done, irrespective of what other thing exist to be done.

Past memories are good. It shows the bond that existed in the past. Cherish them.

Today is a great opportunity to create new experiences. It is good that you can point out great experiences from the past. Don’t leave it at that…deliberately plant new memories today; it shows you are still taking hold of the moments and it will also form a pool of past experiences you can glean from tomorrow.

Give opportunity to today's imaginations to also become pleasant memories you have achieved.

Why ask this question if you really expect the answer to be no?

Commend that person who isn’t afraid to say what everyone is thinking but are scared to voice out.

"Someone else will say it" is why a lot of things don’t get said. "Someone else will do it" is why a lot of things don’t get done.

Who is the most important person in your life? Here, now, not yesterday or last year, who is most important to you right now?

Are they aware that there are the most important person in your life?

One of the signs of growth is that it looks back at the past and wonders how what used to be great suddenly becomes cringeworthy.

Your best write-ups suddenly become what you laugh at. You cannot imagine having come up with such a piece.

Your best speeches suddenly sound like tales told by a stuttering toddler.

You cringe at what you once thought was the wisest piece of advice.

But that's what growth does: it splits you into pieces, pierces through you to piece up a better version of who you are.

We cannot edit the past. But we sure can finetune the future. Not all at once, but step by step with a growth mindset.

1. Do what you love.

2. Love what you do.

3. Never let anything interrupt your goal to do what needs to be done.

If you had 5 more hours to live, what would you do now?

Why wait till you have 5 more hours to live?

Each company has it, each organisation too. Each country has its version. In fact any system worth calling a system has it.

Any one in the room has a privileged position, not easy to get in.

Any one not in, wishes to be. Each outsider works, aims, and some scheme, to have a toe in the room, to be part of the attendees.

But when you are in, you come to see that many who are already in, have one major goal: to be out.

If you get what you want, will you want what you get?

The faces may change

But the dreamer must not let

Her dream die in the jungle of the uninformed

That people who were once pillars dissolve into shadows

Does not mean the sun should shut out its light

And who says a collage of scars

In the hands of a master artist

Cannot become the greatest art

There is what is said.

There is what is seen to be said.

And there is what is eventually understood from what is said.

Language is not only understood by words. Nuances exists. Culture and context too, as well as the nagging feeling that the same words said to different people can mean different things.

That is why being written is not the only guage that matters. The intent matters as much as the inscription.

Improve your ability to say exactly what you want to be heard and understood.

Improve on how you read the room too. But even more importantly, know that what matters most could be the events that happened before the room.

Value content, and context.