New Eyes

I guess you would have heard by now about my new gadget, the Canon EOS 7D. The main thing is, it is now hopefully much easier to come up with content, because time taken to render and compress aside, it is actually easier to do bite sized video clips than with my usual equipment.

Anyway, looking at these moments make me reflect on how fast Harkman’s growing up. He’s ability to pick up new skills is amazing. He’s just started taking cereal for two weeks and he wants to have a go at holding his own spoon already!

new eyes from Why Keen Tham on Vimeo.

Wealth Retreat 2009 – Looking Back

It is that time of year again, when we re-assess our lives and ask ourselves where we’ve been and where we are going. In , Robert Kiyosaki described his life changing skiing trip in December 1984 with his wife Kim and his best friend Larry. Robert and Kim were down to their last few dollars, and Larry was on his way to building another business.

Highly inspired by this story, Hwei Min and I decided to have our own annual retreat, where we set goals and set to achieving them. Looking back, it had been four years now.

Looking Back

I still remember our first retreat in 2005. It was a huge paradigm shift for both of us, as we actually planned a long holiday trip that wasn’t a holiday trip. We planned to go to Genting because that was one of the cheapest option then. We needed a place that was different enough from home, yet cheap enough that it wouldn’t burn a hole in our pockets. Of our four day three night itinerary, three and a half days were jammed packed with discussions and visioning exercises, and only half a day for shopping. (By the way, the fact that Hwei Min was totally aligned to this plan was a hundred per cent why I am so blessed that she is my partner in business and life. How many ladies would be open to such an idea?!)

Looking Back at the boy

It was a huge leap of faith because no one seemed to understand the importance of what we planned to do. Everyone asked us, “Genting, for four days? What are you going to do up there??” I remember everyone’s reaction when I told them we were going up the mountains to talk. 🙂

It's all in the family

Anyway, this year had to be different because of our little boy, we can’t travel too far. Here we are now, at Orchid Country Club for two nights, he’s here, by the way, oblivious to the fact that we would be dreaming, and planning for all our future, and making it a reality. And in fact, that HE was a a dream turned reality, our little bundle of joy.

Poo never smelled so good

Uh … pardon me for the very graphic description. Well, poo does not actually smell good, but being able to smell poo is a good thing… does that even make sense?

Anyway, it’s because Harkman is having a little bit of a constipation issue, so having any sign that he is passing motion normally is a good sign. Hey, but the title of this post isn’t that far from the truth, it’s the context that affects the outcome.

Be thankful I don’t have any pictures to illustrate as I usually do, haha.

Here’s a warm welcome…

Here’s a warm welcome to my partner, Hwei Min to this blog. (Partner sounds very gay doesn’t it? But wife sounds so passé though.)

I had intended the very first incarnation of this blog, tweak-me, to be about both of us, that must have been 2-3 years ago now, but never actually got her to contribute even a single line to this blog, I am glad she is finally going to contribute!

We’ve just watched an excellent Pixar movie, UP, and I guess we were both pretty inspired by the film. I had to use our dear boy Harkman as a leverage to finally get her to take action by telling her that this blog would serve as a journal about him growing up.

Do catch the movie, watch it with or without 3D, but please do watch! As usual, Pixar is unrivalled when it comes to solid storytelling with a universal message, this is another gem that would last for many years to come.

Words do count!

You know how most of us are thought that 93% of communication is body language, and only 7% is verbal? Well, it’s time to let go of that myth. It’s a classic case of oversimplification and making use of statistics out of context. Here’s a short video to illustrate, watch it, it’s an interesting 5 minutes:-

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dboA8cag1M[/youtube]

And here’s more about Albert Mehrabian on Wikipedia, the psychologist whose work is still being misquoted at communications seminar.

One thing I’ve noticed, though, body language does count a lot when it comes to holding the audience’s attention, so the lesson is still accurate as far as I am concerned.