Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present to you, the annual 'Best Of Chan' photo collection. This is a collection of my favourite moments from last year which have been curated from my Flickr photo archive. It brings back a lot of memories of all that had come in 2011, both the challenges and victories. I've also put together a sound track to complement your viewing experience, so please hit play on the Grooveshark Music Player below and lets start the slideshow.
Soundtrack:
'Venice Rooftops' From The Assassin's Creed Soundtrack - Jesper Kyd
'Set Fire To The Rain' - Adele
Enjoy!
P.S. I've got other 'Best Of Chan' albums from previous years as well. Here's the 2010 edition, and the 2009 edition.
A year ago, I was lamenting how I had finished reading only two books. I was thinking, that's not good, I'm not reading as much as I used to. Was I get dumber? I had noticed that with my schedule, I rarely had large blocks of time that I could spend reading. Instead, I had these slivers of time available in-between tasks, 5 minutes here, 10 minutes there. This disjointed schedule was much better suited for reading articles and news on the internet.
It was hard to quantify exactly how much I was reading on the internet though. With a traditional book, you had page numbers, and back in my childhood days, we would always record how many pages you had read as a learning metric. Unfortunately with internet articles, it's hard to judge since every site varies in page layout, font, etc.
To help count how much I was reading online, a friend at work introduced me to Delicious, a social bookmarking utility. Basically every page I visited, I could bookmark and tag with metadata. It was also nice that my blog could pull the latest articles I was reading from Delicious (which you see on the left rail here).
Managing bookmarks on Delicious was incredibly useful because I used to use Firefox to manage all my bookmarks, but it was incredibly hard to find old bookmarks. If I was on another computer, I wouldn't have access to those bookmarks stored locally on my other computer (yes, I'm aware latest version of Firefox solves this problem with sync). I've also had Firefox crash on me, and I lost all my bookmarks before. So, it was settled, I would store and share all my bookmarks online with Delicious.
August 31st, 2010, I embarked on my quest to measure how much I read online. In one year, I have amassed 3679 bookmarks.
I just got back from a week in the mountains serving in Royal Family Kids Camp (RFKC). It's a summer camp dedicated to neglected and abused children which is sponsored by my church. This year, we had about 30 kids. Each cabin had two kids, two camp counselor, and one assistant counselor, so the kids get a lot of attention and supervision. The rest of this blog entry will just be a number of mini-stories from camp that comes to mind.
Home of the Underdogs
Before camp started, I was talking to some of the organizers of RFKC, and one of the problems they face was a marketing problem, in that people didn't know what RFKC was. I spent the week thinking about a clever unofficial tagline for the camp. I've come up with "RFKC: Home Of The Underdogs." There's two meanings behind it. First, if you look at the kids that attend the camp, they are the ultimate underdogs of society. The second meaning was by the people who volunteer to help out at camp. I looked through the rosters and thought, this is quite a ragtag band of people, how could this group of people possibly pull off a successful camp; yet, by the grace of God, we're able to pull off a great camp. There are definitely a lot of underdogs on staff.
Everyone loves an underdog story, and I love betting on the underdog.
I Am Chan
Since the kids are in the state foster care system, there are a lot of extra privacy and security concerns for the children. One of the restrictions is that we can't let the kids know our last names because the system doesn't want the kids trying to contact us after camp is over. Unfortunately most people call me 'Chan', 'Chan Can', 'Channy Chan Chan', and other variations. There were a number of times that the other counselors would inadvertently call me 'Chan' and I would give them this shocked stare; they would pause and then realize their folly and try to quickly change the subject before the kids caught on.
Hoarders
One of the things highlighted in our training is that some neglected kids who are not fed properly will develop a habit of hoarding food. Hoarding is a defence mechanism for them because they don't know when the next time they will be fed. This year I actually witnessed this behaviour in some of the kids. During meal time they would grab a plate of food, eat a little bit, hide some food in their clothes, and go up for more food and repeat. They also had a tendency of eating very quickly. We would explain to them that they didn't need to rush or hoard because they could eat as much food as they wanted, and there was plenty of food, but that doesn't work for the first couple days. Once you have a couple days of consistency, where you prove that there is plenty of food, and they won't go hungry, then their defence mechanism goes down and they start trusting you and start eating normally.
A Test Of Wills
Monday is typically the hardest day in my opinion because you get your kids, and the kids and counselors don't know each other very well yet in terms of social/cultural norms, expectations, and boundaries. We had one kid who was 11 years old who was quite challenging because mentally and physically he had developed slower and was more like an 8 year old. The kid was also attention starved, and would constantly talk and make noise to get attention. The constant talking made it quite interesting for bedtime because he would keep everyone up in the cabin. The other two counselors had the night off, so I had to take care of the situation. As a result, I stood next to the kid's bunk and told him that he needed to lay down and not make noise. I also explicitly told him that I could literally stand there all night. The challenge was on, and for the next 30 minutes he kept trying to test this boundary, and I didn't yield. I stood there and shushed him every time he started making loud noise again.
By the 30 minute mark he had given up and started sleeping; however, I had a feeling he wasn't going to get into a deep sleep, so I stood there as a precaution. Fifteen minutes later, he woke up again and tried to misbehave but he saw me standing there and gave up and slept. I assume when he fell asleep the first time, he lost track of time (it helps that the room doesn't have any clocks, and he didn't wear a watch) and when he woke up the second time, he must have thought I was really going to stand there the whole night if if needed.
The irony is that this kid would always complain about being tired and wanting to sleep during the day.
God Moments
All of the counselors arrive at camp a day early (Sunday) in order to setup and prepare. That Sunday night, Pastor Art gave communion and addressed us all about how important this camp was. He noted how we were doing God's work and we would be helping mend, restore, and encourage these neglected and abused children. The verse Psalm 82:3 came to mind, "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed." As of late in my prayer life, the phrase, "if you tell me something worth fighting for, I'll fight that war" was a recurring theme. That Sunday night, I just knew through and through that I was in the right place, at the right time, with the right cause.
One of the exceptional things about this year was that all of the kids in the cabin this year wanted to pray at nights. Normally you have to coerce kids into doing things like pray, but they were all wanting to do it. Even during they day they would ask if they could pray at night. The kids were even fighting over who could pray during meal time. I guess that's a good problem to have.
On the final day of camp, it's easy to just turn your brain on autopilot and just cruise to the finish line because you're tired and the kids will be going home. Everyone stayed diligent and there were some pretty incredible stories from the final hours of camp. For my team, the kids were participating in the Hope Tree activity where they were writing down their hopes and dreams, and we would pray for that. It was kind of heart-wrenching that some of the simple things that we take for granted like seeing your own family is such a distant dream for some of the kids. Some of the kids opened up and talked about why they were in foster care because of what their parents had done, and it was just shocking hearing what people would do to children. What an incredible cost to children and society. In the closing ceremonies, the kids were just so appreciative for everything we had done for them. A lot of them didn't want to go home because for they felt like this was a real family.
The hardest part is coming home, and watching the kids go back to the environments they have to live in. [Read full story]
I'm kicking off a series entitled simply, "Things I Learned In 2010" as a way to reflect on last year. I've been working on my battle plans and strategy for 2011 and I find it's always important to look to the past's lessons to inform the future. So I thought I'd write about my inspirations from last year before unveiling the 2011 theme.
Let me set the stage for the first topic of 'Humble Confidence'. In 2010, I saw a number of leaders (whom I respected greatly) step down from their respective roles and move on to other endeavours. These changes obviously took a while to get used to and adapt to because of the big shoes that had to be filled. People spoke of these leaders with high-regard and almost reverence. Their reputations precede them. I've heard it said that their presence is felt even when they are not physically around. I pondered what made these leaders great? What was the commonality amongst them?
Last year I also had the opportunity to give a talk about managing finances, and I invited some successful businessmen to help out as guest speakers on specific financial topics. These again were people I held with high regard, and I wanted to know what their secret was. This was definitely a change for me because I come from an environment full of negative encounters with genuinely evil people behaving very unethically when it came to business.
After a couple lunch time discussions with peers about what makes these leaders great, we concluded these were common attributes they had all possessed:
Had a humble confidence.
Had their facts straight, and talked straight with you.
Had a genuine interest in you as a person, rather than treating you as a resource.
Had unquestionable integrity.
When I was back in Canada, I was watching a lot of Dragon's Den, and there was this clip from season 3 where they interviewed the Dragon's (venture capitalists) about what made a good business pitch?
Robert Herjavec reinforces the point that successful pitches involves people with a humble confidence. These are folks who are not overly confident and seem arrogant. These folks are also not underwhelming in confidence to a point that they seem weak. The key is humble confidence and having your facts straight. Have you ever watched a presentation crash and burn because the person is spouting shaky incorrect facts, and they get destroyed in the question and answer period? Have you ever seen a leader take all the credit of his success without acknowledging his team, and you see his team members grumble under their breathe? It's an absolute train wreck.
The reason why I introduced good business pitches is because I think leadership implicitly requires you to pitch well. One of the keys to leadership is being able to articulate a vision and convincing people to follow you in that vision. I'm a firm believer in the idea of the marketplace of ideas, where ideas compete with each other, and the best ideas should survive. Being able to convince people that your idea is good is critical to your success in the marketplace of ideas.
In closing, I think one of the secrets to great leadership and success is the ability to maintain a humble confidence, no matter how far you've come, how much you've accomplished, or how big your salary is.
I'll end this quote, "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted." - Matthew 23:12
I've gone through my photo archives in Flickr, and have curated a collection of photos that best highlight the year that was 2010 for me. There were a lot of new experiences and challenges, some epic victories, and some extraordinary failures. Please hit 'play' on the Grooveshark Music player below before starting the slideshow as the music complements the slideshows. The slideshow has a 'full-screen' button for optimal viewing.
This December, I will be executing Operation Snowbird which will be a daring winter migration from California to Victoria. I will be home from December 18th - January 17th this year. Call me up when I get back in town, my calendar is wide open at the moment, and dinner/lunch slots will go on a first-come-first-serve basis. I intend to feast while I'm in Victoria, and I'm going to be making my rounds to all my favourite restaurants.
On the bucket list is also to try curling while in Victoria. Any takers? Also I want to get in as much ice skating as I can while back home. Skating is REALLY expensive in San Jose, California, who would have thought?
Anyways, looking forward to seeing friends and family for Christmas. It has been too long.
It's nearing the year end and I'm in the middle of taking inventory of all my successes and failures of 2010, and beginning battle planning for my goals and aspirations for 2011. I'm anticipating yet another year of turbulent change, so it makes anticipating strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that much funner to plan for.
In such a time, I draw solace in Ecclesiastes 3:1-11:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
What does the worker gain from his toil?
I have seen the burden God has laid on men.
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
