One of the things you’d notice is that my blog updates are getting less frequent. That’s due really to a couple of reasons. The first one is that with Colony’s launch just about all my spare time is taken away.
The second thing is that I’ve made it a point to spend less time online, on social media, or on anything that sucks time (even games) to things that really matter. Like spending time with my wife, my kids, doing things for them and hey spending time on myself on where it matters. I’ve been making it a point to exercise more and read more too.
Right now I’m reading a book about the founder of the Four Seasons Hotel chain. I find that the more I read, the more perspective it gives me and the more inspiration I have for it in my life and in business. Since I’ve started reading very regularly a year ago, I feel like I have changed. The way I see things have changed, the way I behave, the one I handle stress, the way I run a company… even the way I talk to my wife and kids have changed.
I think of all things that is my strength. I have this ability to look at myself and see all my weaknesses as they are without my pride or ego blinding me. Then I am able to make adjustments to it and really change my behaviour., They say people never change but I can’t say that I don’t neither can I say that there are things in me that I will never be able to change.
One of the things I’ve really changed is the way I talk to people. The way I communicate with people. I’ve learned to make people the focus of all my attention. To really listen when people talk to me as opposed to listening to respond which we often find ourselves doing because silent pauses in a conversation seem to scare us.
From that alone I have gotten so much. I’ve gotten to understand people better, to win people over and heck I’ve learned a lot more myself than I would have learned otherwise, In fact the more people I talk to the more I realise I don’t know shit. I heard some saying once that the first step of enlightenment is admitting you know nothing. Well heck I don’t know if I’m supposed to be enlightened yet but the more I read the more I realise I don’t know.
Reading has become such an addiction to me that I lost my Kindle the other day and in the couple of hours I couldn’t find it, I was driven crazy. I started looking online for how to buy a Kindle in Malaysia, cursing at Amazon for still not shipping one over. I did finally find my Kindle though. Things got better then and I fall asleep a little better at night when I have something to read. Stories to read.
I also make it a point to spend less time on feeds on my phone and more time on my kids. Properly listening to them and sometimes when I do that, they tell me the most profound things or things that I never thought of before. Just yesterday my son was looking at my old phone and asking me why it didn’t have a camera. I tried explaining that old phones didn’t have cameras on them and he kept asking why why why.
Until it became obvious that it wasn’t obvious to human beings to put cameras on phones until… well it was obvious. And now that my son had seen every phone with a camera, it’s hard to imagine one without. Or why anyone would have one without.
Well yeah this is why I haven’t really had much time to update my social platforms. I know you guys are still out there checking in on this site every day and I am really appreciative of that. I will also continue to update this blog for as long as I can see the future… although the updates may not be as frequent as one every few days.
I thought that maybe instead quantity, I should focus on quality. Writing less frequent, but better blog entries. Ones that I get inspiration to write every now and then when something thought-provoking hits me, or when I read something in a book…
Until then… I’m off to a family holiday tomorrow. A short getaway! So see you soon.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space