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Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust

I love Disney movies. Whether it's the classic Disney fairy tales of Princess and adventure or the more modern ones about a car learning to appreciate the beauty of the desert (Luigi only supports Ferrari!), I love them. Whether its the non-animated movies about a coach inspiring a team of hopeless youths to win the ice-hockey championship or a cute romantic movie about a basketball jock and a science braniac discovering their shared love for singing and each other, I still love them.

The Disney movie has been thought of  in recent times as childish, overly idealistic and to a certain extent annoyingly cute. I mean come on! This is real life here. People are born evil. True stories don't have a happy ending. Real life never ends with happily ever after. The Prince charming will have adulterous affairs with half of the girls in the kingdom which would lead Cinderella to an alcoholic frenzy after which she would have an affair with the son of a rich sheik who sells flying carpets. This will cause some serious interest in the medievial tabloids who will dispatch their paparazi reporters to hunt down the couple on horseback. During a wild chase the tragic couple's carriage is thrown off the road and rammed into a tree killing them instantly. Welcome to the real world. A world that such rubbish has no place being part of.

Yet doesn't it make the presence of such a positive outlook even more essential to survive? I would think so. There is an essential theme in all Disney movies that underscores the very purpose of existing - Hope. There is a point in every Disney movie where the situation seems so impossibly dire. The heroine gets locked up forever in a dank dark dungeon by a hideous monster, the little clownfish gets taken by a deepsea diver on a boat back to a dental office as a decoration, 101 cute puppies are stolen with the intention of making them into fur coats. Yet it is at this time where a person's character is tested. How many of us would just give up the chase and spend the rest of our lives moping about in despair? The true heros are the ones who feel the resistance and push back. And when they encounter more resistance they keep pushing. This is the point which proves the value of all Disney movies. It shows that when you push hard enough and perservere long enough towards the goal, you will get the prize. It's a concept that's biblical even.

Disney movies are an inspiration. It shows you the value of your will power and of human kindness. The most powerful ability we have as a human is to change a beast into a prince. And for that, we need patience and love. And in the end, we get our happy ending. That's the ultimate point that they try to make. Fairy tales happen. But you have to work at it and work hard. The princes and princesses were not given their victories on a silver platter. They got there through sweat and tears. But just as importantly with faith, trust, and a little pixie dust.

About a month ago, I've found the beginning of my own fairy tale. She just returned from Australia and goes by the name of Millicent. On our first date, she taught me how to drift. As in race car drifting. We spent the next few minutes trying to get my jaw back into my mouth. Milli's absolutely brilliant, beautiful and pretty affectionate too. Hers is a story of perserverance and determination. She's my new greatest inspiration and there isn't a day that goes by now that I don't feel like the luckiest man on Earth. For now we are on the verge of a great new adventure and I'm as excited as any prince could be.

Leadership

I was watching the Two Towers again today. For some reason I wanted to see the great scene of Gandalf the Grey plunging into the abyss after the Balrog. What do I find so inspiring about this scene? Well picture this. Gandalf just fell down from the Bridge of Khazad-Dum and is falling fast after one of the most powerful creatures in all of Mordor. Now a normal person would be thinking, "great I'm dead. Might as well just prepare for the end." Not Gandalf. This wizard squares his jaw and plunges down fast. Along the way, he recovers his sword Glamdring and proceeds to latch hold of the Balrog attacking him viciously. The Balrog strikes hard at Gandalf but he keeps going at it despite the Balrog's attacks.

How many times have we faced trouble and simply become paralysed by it. It feels like we're falling deep into an endless chasm and we need help. This is when your leadership qualities are truly tested. What do you do when the Bridge of Khazad-Dum falls apart beneath your feet? Do hang on tight and desperately wait for someone to rescue you? Or do you square your jaw and plunge after your obstacle. When you are falling down an endless pit do you give it up and wait for the end? Or does your mind race to find an alternative solution tackling whatever problem you can find on your way down? Afterall why waste time? Might as well go hunt a Balrog as painful as it may be.

And in the end after overcoming his foe through the lowest dungeons to the highest peaks, Gandalf is given a major promotion. You see a new mantle of leadership and authority on him. He seems more confident and daring then in the first movie. Leadership is a muscle. It needs to be exercised before it can grow. But when it grows, the most amazing things can happen.

When I was a kid, I remember a very common essay question they used to give us to argue in school. Is leadership born or developed? Of course everyone would say that leadership is developed. The truth is that no one wanted be excluded from leadership. Everyone wanted to have a cushy high paying job in the future rather than to be a road sweeper or a garbage collector. What honestly is the truth though? Can we really say that everyone is born with the same abilities? And it is only the different levels of development that brings the different skill levels of these abilities?

Here's the thing that makes it a little complicated. Leadership is not simply a skill that one can pick up like the piano or a new language. Leadership requires a vision. The complication comes because visions are not something that you suddenly get when you are developing a skill. Visions are passed on to you. They are revealed to you through inspiration. All the big companies have a vision and a mission. They are different. The vision gives the company the goal that they are looking to eventually achieve. The mission is a blueprint on how to get there. In the same way, a vision is absolutely essential to the leader because without it, he does not know which direction to steer the ship. The clarity of the vision is just as important because the clearer something the more real it can seem and hence the more achievable. If the vision is vague, the reality of achieving it becomes vague and it is easy to lose hope in it and give up.

But who can give you a vision? It could be someone close to you. It could be from books that you read. It could be a friend. It could be a teacher. It could even be a stranger you speak to on the bus while you are on your way to a destination. A vision is a dream. It is not completely based on reality yet. You need to refine it a little to make it more attainable. But do not make it easily attainable or it would not be a worth while goal. When the vision seems only just impossible, that's when you make your plans, your blueprints to achieve it. These plans are basically the platforms that slowly build a bridge across the chasm of impossibility between you and your dreams. Let's take the example of reaching the moon. Imagine all the naysayers when the plan was first unveiled. It would've been such an impossibility. But that was the vision. Now slowly little by little, they make a road map to get to that destination. Firstly, we need to find a way to store enough oxygen to make the trip. We need to make a powerful enough engine to break through the gravitational force of the Earth. We need to find a way to navigate from here to the moon and back. There were so many obstacles. But one by one as the teams began to tackle these problems and managed to solve them, they were building a bridge between themselves and the goal of reaching the moon until finally, they found their way. The leader is the person who saw the vision and didn't care about the impossibility but who saw these problems and assigned a team to solve each of these problems. Then who brought all the teams together to reach the final victory.

Everyone is born with leadership potential inside him/her. But many go through life not realizing them. They had parents who told them that they would never amount to anything. People who told them, "Don't reach to high, you'll only be disappointed when you don't achieve it." "Play safe. Study hard. Get a job. Don't try to set up your own business. The risk is too great." "Just be a middle manager. That way, you are paid decently but you are not blamed for too much. That's ideal. Straddle the middle ground." Theses are words that many of us have heard. Words that many well-intentioned people are telling everyone these days.

Well the truth is that we need leaders. The world has not had such a great need for leaders as it had in recent years. The world community seems resigned to stand still and take the middleground for fear of offending people. How long did the United Nations spend coming up with resolution after resolution to force Saddam to disarm fully knowing that firstly he had no intention of doing so and secondly that he was murdering towns in his own nation? How long did the United Nations take arguing over the definition of genocide while Hutus slaughtered almost a million Tutsis in Rwanda over a period of 4 months? How long did the Federal Emergency Management Agency take to mobilize and send aid to New Orleans? How long will it take for the North Koreans to finally realize that their country is not heaven and they are starving to death for no reason?

The world needs leaders. It's crying out for leaders. Leaders in every single area. The Biomedical field, businesses, religion, public policy, foreign policy, non-profit organizations, human rights, every single area of the world. All of us are born with a gift, a purpose and a burden. It is this that makes us unique in the world and it is also this that makes us best suited to tackle on that problem in the world right now that we were born to solve. Make no mistake about it. You are not insignificant. You were designed for impact. And in the words of Elron, "Put aside the ranger. Become who you were born to be." And make no mistake. You were destined to walk with giants, and to eat with kings.

Arise world-changer. Your time has come.

Waking up on a Saturday Night

Alright, I openly admit, I love this song. It's almost embarrasing to admit liking any Hillary Duff song at the age of 26 but what can I say? I've always been a kid. Besides, Hillary Duff began in my favourite company of all time. Good ol' Walt Disneyworld. And if enjoying Lizzie Mcguire and Kim Possible and the House of Mouse while I was cleaning rooms in the All Star Resorts makes me a mega or ubergeek, then sign me up right now!!!

So what is it about Hillary? Well, she still hasn't adopted a slut image yet. And I most certainly hope that she doesn't! The world can use less of talented sluts (Christina Aguilera) and untalented sluts (Britney Spears). Today's seem actually to cater to depressed bitches (Avril Lavigne) and got bitches (Evanescence). Oh yeah, I forgot, incredibly cute bitches (Lindsay Lohan). I love the last three. Avril and Evanescence cut a couple of excellent albums not just singles. As for Hillary? Well, she's not really that talented unfortunately. I don't think any of her songs are really all that memoriable. And I think it's quite annoying that she lifted the black shirt with red strips look directly from Avril Lavigne's latest album cover. Aside from that though, I like how the video experiments with some new looks for her. The impish mischievious short black hair look and the classy gorgeous red lipstick matching red french baret look that reminds me so much of Debbie Gibson.

As for the song itself, Wake Up certainly gives a kind of feeling that suits my mood. It's the "Forget the pressures of the daily life, lets go out and have some fun with some good friends" feeling. It brings me back to my college internship days when I could work in the front desk or housekeeping and feel tired after a really rough day. I drag myself back to my apartment and collapse into bed to sleep and I'm woken up by a sound in the living room. So I step outside and see a bunch of my roommates and the rest of the crew from building 39 level one all dressed up. Ludwig and Kaisa turn to me and say, "Wayne what are you doing? Get out of bed! It's Jellyrolls night!" So I think, why not? and head for the shower. In 15 minutes, we're out in Ludwig's Jeep heading over to our favourite piano bar to meet Mindy and the rest of the gang.

See Saturday night isn't just Saturday night. Saturday night is anyday that you get out of your daily life to take a breather and head out for some fun time with your friends. Saturday night was PI nights on Monday or Thursday, Jellyrolls on Tuesday, or waking up on my offday to the sound of the phone ringing and Mindy's voice on the other line asking if I wanted to join the gang for a day at MGM Studios. Saturday night is time out with your friends because there is always time for work.

So wake up everybody! Time to have a blast!

Well maybe humans aren't so bad afterall.

So I was attached to the concierge desk today. Unfortunately, our concierge, Edmund, was swamped with work so he attached me to the luggage captain, Izat, which was necessary anyway so I don't mind. Let me tell you, standing outside in the sweltering Singapore heat in a full business suit : NOT COOL!!! (Pardon the pun. I didn't think about it until I typed it and have just stopped typing for the last half a minute just to laugh at it. Okay it's more cheesy than funny. Sue me! I shall stop kicking this dead horse now)

So I started off thinking only about the heat and trying to sneak closer to the door. I loved when the guests came since the doorman would open the door and let in a nice gush of air-conditioned air and that was ...(I promise this is the last time tonight) cool. And of course, when you're near the door and the guests are coming in and out, you have to smile big and greet the guests. So I did a lot of that. And then the guests started asking me questions and I started to interact and that was fun. And finally by the end of the first half, I was approaching guests and interacting on my own will. And this is when I suddenly remembered why I used to love working at the Wyndham.

I felt energized once again from the interactions with guests. I spoke to guests from Brussels, Australia, Germany, met Mr Stalker (scary name) one of our more frequent guests and introduced myself to him. Basically being the friendly chatterbox that I naturally am. And suddenly I thought to myself for the first time in a long while, "Wasn't my entire purpose in this industry to create the greatest vacation experience for people? To give honeymooners a magical start to their ever after story? To help corporate guests impress their clients? To give kids of all ages a vacation to remember? To spread the magic that I learnt in Disney and give people a respite from a hard days work." So work finally began to feel very enjoyable again. I really can't wait to get back to the front desk though. That's when things begin to be really exciting.

After work, some church friends decided to have an impromptu R &R night in the form of a movie. Amy, Tony, Garry, Eric Tee and I were there. Amy brought her entire DVD collection which, I must say, was vast. The final result really amused Amy. She told me that she never in her wildest dreams would've imagined when she brought a collection that included war movies, sports movies, sci fi movies and other action movies, that four men would end up picking the Princess Diaries. To add to that, we loved it so much that right after the movie, Tony went straight for the Princess Diaries 2. So basically she spent the night watching chich flicks with four men. It was like a slumber party. Anyway I've finally gotten home. It's 1:30am right now. And come to think of it, tonight was one of the best nights I've had for a really long time. I once again found meaning in my job, and then I spent some quality time with some close buddies. Life is finally beginning to make sense again.

This doesn't mean that I'll stop looking for opportunities to be posted overseas, mind you. I'm not done with travelling yet. Believe you me that this bento box isn't going to hold Shang-Wayne Tee for too long. A wife probably would but I think that if my life moves fast enough, I might be able to outrun her. So to you out there, my future wife, the queen of my life, whoever you are, wherever you are, I love you more than anything in the world, but you're gonna have to catch me first. See ya!!!!

The Simple Things in Life

I had an ice-cream today. It was an Anderson of Denmark's ice cream double scoop (one forest fruits and one banana nut crunch) on a cone. It was an explosion of flavours in my mouth. Then I walked over to the river side and ate while watching the waves hit the shore in front of the backdrop of the spectacular city skyline. It was 7:15 pm and the lights of the skyscrapers were on while the sky was dimming to a deep blue. The lovers were out craddling each other while enjoying the scene. It was a perfect end to a long day's work. And it was then that I thought, "Even though I'm still missing Boston, even though I currently hate my job, even though my heart is fighting an uphill battle against my desire to travel more, even though I wonder when I will be able to start my own business and see my career take of, for now, at least for this very minute, life is good. Life is perfect. And it is soooo good to be home."

And it is the simple things in life that make life good. The caring and loving parents who are always there for you.  The brother who welcomes you home with a nice swift kick and a punch, who watches movies with you and makes fun of the characters with you. The smiling colleagues at the front desk who share your aspirations in reaching for the skies in the industry. The fellow yokebrothers and sisters at church who encourage you whenever you need to and celebrate every development you make in your faith. Most importantly, the knowledge that no matter how you feel like you are not where you want to be, your God who died so that you may live has you exactly where he wants you to be and soon you will see the full intention for your life.

Recently I have realized that while I want to be a hotelier and eventually own my own luxury property, that is not where I want to stop. I want to be a success and a philantropher. I want to be rich enough to retire young and take care of my children. And I want to be a motivator, inspiring young men to reach for the stars in their dreams. The last parts of these dreams I find are the most important part of it. But I need to be successful in the first part before I can be successful in the second. Who in the world would be inspired by a middle manager telling you that you can do anything you set your mind to? That's like William Hung telling us that we can sing. Wait a minute! He does!!! What a weird world we live in.

Well thinking about these dreams makes one realize that one has a really long way to go to reach them. That's why it's always important to stop by an Anderson of Denmark once in a while and get a nice double scoop on a cone. It helps keeps things in perspective. Because one lesson the ice-cream teaches you is that some of the best things in life melt away in your hand while you are enjoying it. But if you worry about it melting away in your hand, your mind will be too distracted to fully enjoy it. Don't worry! There are other ice-creams out there to enjoy. Other dreams to chase. For the moment as long as you have that delicious cone in your hand, let the flavour explode in your mouth. Life can wait. Once in a while, it is the simple things in life that matter.