My Life’s Lessons 我的人生经验教训

Today is Sunday again. Sunday, the fifth of July. It is appropriate that today is the day for me to reinforce my trust in God. Today is the day I choose to give Him yet another testimony of His kindness and His greatness in my life. Today is the day I choose to remind myself of work He has done by His unseen hands over the last seventy-nine years. The ten most valuable lessons that He has taught me are listed below and I would like to share these with you. But, first, let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we give thanks to You for the many blessings that You have given us. You have led us safely through many valleys of death. You have guarded and protected us through many crises. You are still looking after us and guiding us to lead balanced lives on all fronts. You are overseeing us such that we can continue to lead healthy lives. You are telling us to spread Your kindness to the rest of those amongst us who still have yet to recognize Your presence. Thank You, Lord, for reminding us to re-read Luke 12:13-21 once more. In Jesus’s name, we give Thanks. Amen.

Lesson # 1: Expect the Unexpected.

My life on earth is full of the unexpected. (1) I lost my father when he was taken away from me by the Japanese who occupied Singapore under the Sook Ching saga when I was eighteen months old. https://youtu.be/62OrWZuhJUU

(2) I was run over by a car when I was five and survived. (3) I was rescued from the drain I had fallen into during a stormy rainy day when I was crossing over New Bridge Road, Singapore, after school at Pearls Hill. (4) I left school after my ‘O’ level but somehow, God had guided me into tertiary education, qualified in Property Valuation, and in Quantity Surveying, and then in my later years, into my MBA and Ph.D. qualifications, through scholarships awarded by the Singapore Government;

(5) I was involved in Chinatown gangs and became the Mathematics tutor to many of the gangsters’ children when I was eleven years old; (6) I had opportunities beyond belief as I took part in the development of modern Singapore, both as a public servant, and later in private practice as a consultant. (7) God guided me and my family to migrate to Auckland in May 1979.

(8) I was involved in educating the younger generations in Property and Construction in New Zealand, Singapore, and even in Thailand. (9) God opened up an opportunity for me to develop property valuation standards in Thailand in the 1990s; and (10) Now nearing my eightieth birthday, I am able to provide free online tuition to the less privileged.

In life, therefore, while we are following a plan of our own, we need to constantly remind ourselves to expect the unexpected that can occur. We need to prepare ourselves for the worse to come.

Lesson # 2: Everyone has a lesson for us to learn from. Every mistake we make has a lesson too. https://ymaa.com/articles/stories-proverbs/blessing-in-disguise

Everyone on earth has something positive that one can contribute to society. It is easy to dismiss a person’s ideas as foolish but if we recollect on our life experiences, we find that there can be lessons we can learn from the most foolish of ideas.

Take an example of the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, for instance. Most people consider him ‘odd’ but the lessons he has shown to us are (1) he is firm on one very important aspects of political life, and this is to create diversions; (2) he cannot be so successful in his real estate career without at least one successful formula - that of making full use of the social media to his advantage; and (3) in regards his decisions o how COVID19 is to be treated, his formula is simply “Let the virus run its natural course” and keep USA industries and businesses running. And, we know that many citizens of the United States of America believe that he is doing the right thing for them.

Perhaps a lesson from the ancient Chinese can assist our thinking better in this regard. Read this story “A Blessing in Disguise” at https://ymaa.com/articles/stories-proverbs/blessing-in-disguise

Lesson # 3: Hunt for those useful topics not taught in Schools and acquire these life lessons.

One of these topics is the understanding of money. I taught myself how to save money at a young age because I found that the pocket money given to me had to be controlled as it could run out very fast. So I kept a record of my spendings - a sort of income and expenditure chart - in an exercise book.

Then there are other topics like “Social Skills”; “Public Speaking, like Toastmastering; “How to write creatively”; or “Understanding and Appreciating Art and Music”; or even “Exercises to keep fit”.

Check out this topic at mindtreasures.com http://mind treasures.com

Lesson # 4: Listening is Important - at least twice as important as Talking.

We have two ears and only one mouth. Therefore we need to listen more, talk less.

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.”

I did not know the above Bible verse when I was taught by a friend to keep calm, to talk less, to listen more, and to smile more. It was funny. I had an argument with him in school one day. I was then taller than him. I looked stronger than him. But when we fought, he placed me under his fist faster than I thought. Yes, he had Kung-fu lessons and I was beaten. Then we became the dearest of friends and he told me not to show my anger. “When you are angry,” he said, “count to a hundred before you react.” I have stick to this principle. every since.

Lesson # 5: Apply the famous success track - the R D R C track - Relax the prospect; Disturb the prospect; Recommend a solution to the prospect; and Close the prospect.

Some salespersons, especially those in Insurance and in Real Estate, call this sale’s track as “The Funnel to Success”. Their main motivational maxim here is that of prospecting - Treat everyone as a prospect (Always be prospecting) and treating every “No” as a “Yes, but,” and there is always one YES out of nine Nos or one YES out of ninety-nine Nos and so on.

My RDRC steps work like this: (1) Once you have a prospect, relax this prospect by a conversation on topics that your prospect likes, maybe gardening, maybe Netflix, perhaps food. (2) Listen carefully to the words of the prospect, and every time we hear a topic or a phrase that concerns our desired objective, we ask for a pause with words like “Did you say … ?” and proceed on to the third step - that of disturbing the prospect. (3) ‘Disturbing’ the prospect involves stimulation of the prospect’s mindset. (4) And, when appropriate, close the discussion by emphasizing the point of agreement with the prospect towards our ideal conclusion.

Six small questions to interrupt a prospect at an appropriate time: “Why?” “Where was that?” “What?” “When was this?” “How did you do that?” “Who was that?”

Lesson # 6: Balancing Life’s Successful wheel with six spokes - Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Financial, Social, and Family.

There are seven spokes in the diagram above but we only need six to represent the six conditions in life.

In the videos https://youtu.be/nx6ejldUHUw, there are eight spokes but the concept here is what we need to know. We have each spoke graduated with 1 to 10, 1 being the nearest to the center, and 10 the furthest.

In order for our wheel to move successfully, we need to have the same number for all the six spokes. Of course, the smaller the number the less distance we travel per revolution of our wheel. Our aim then is to balance the spokes such that the number is the same. Otherwise, our wheel will refuse to move smoothly.

今天又是星期天。 7月5日，星期日。今天是我加强对上帝的信任的日子是适当的。今天是我选择再次向祂证明我一生中祂的仁慈和伟大的一天。今天是我选择让自己想起过去七十九年来祂用看不见的手完成的工作的日子。下面列出了祂教给我的十个最有价值的课程，我想与您们分享。但是，首先，让我们祈祷吧。
天父，我们感谢祢给我们带来的许多祝福。祢已经带领我们安全地穿越了死亡之谷。祢通过许多危机来保护我们。祢仍在照顾我们，并指导我们在各个方面过着平衡的生活。祢正在监督我们，以便我们能够继续过上健康的生活。祢是在告诉我们将祢的好意传播给我们中尚未认识到祢的其他人。谢谢主，提醒我们再次阅读路加福音12：13-21。我们奉耶稣的名表示感谢。阿们。
第1课：期待意外。

我在地球上的生活充满了意想不到的事情。 （1）当我十八个月大的时候，父亲在苏庆传奇的统治下被占领新加坡的日本人带走了. https://youtu.be/62OrWZuhJUU

（2）我五岁时被汽车撞倒，幸存下来。 （3）我在珍珠山放学后越过新加坡新桥路时，在一个暴风雨的雨天里，我从掉进的排水沟中获救。 （4）我达到“ O”等级后离开了学校，但不知何故，上帝引导我进入了高等教育，通过新加坡政府颁发的奖学金获得了财产评估和数量测量的资格，后来又进入了MBA和博士学位的资格。
（5）我11岁时曾参与唐人街帮派，并成为许多帮派孩子的数学导师； （6）我作为公务员参加了现代新加坡的发展，后来又作为顾问参加了私人执业，这给了我无与伦比的机会。 （7）上帝在1979年5月引导我和我的家人移民到奥克兰。（8）我曾在新西兰，新加坡，甚至在泰国从事房地产和建筑业的年轻一代的教育。 （9）上帝为我打开了一个机会，让我在1990年代开发泰国的房地产评估标准； （10）快到我八十岁生日了，我就能为特权较弱的人免费提供在线教导。

因此，在生活中，当我们遵循自己的计划时，我们需要不断提醒自己，以期会发生意料之外的事情。我们需要为未来的恶化做好准备。

第2课：每个人都有一堂课可供我们学习。我们犯的每个错误也都有一个教训。
地球上的每个人都有积极的一面，可以为社会做出贡献。轻易地将一个人的想法愚蠢地驳回，但是如果我们回想一下自己的生活经历，就会发现我们可以从最愚蠢的想法中吸取教训。
以美国现任总统唐纳德·特朗普为例。大多数人认为他的“行为不合逻辑”，但他向我们展示的经验教训是：（1）他在政治生活的一个非常重要的方面坚定不移; （2）如果没有至少一个成功的公式 - 他充分利用社交媒体以谋取利益，他就不可能在房地产事业上如此成功； （3）关于如何治疗COVID19的决定，他的公式只是“让病毒顺其自然地前进”，并不惜一切代价让美国的工商业继续运转。而且，我们知道，许多美国公民都相信他为美国人们做正确的事。
也许从古代中国人那里得到的教训可以在这方面更好地帮助我们思考。在https://ymaa.com/articles/stories-proverbs/blessing-in-disguise中阅读此故事“变相中的祝福”
第3课：寻找学校未教授的有用话题，并学习这些人生课程。
这些主题之一是对金钱的理解。我自学了如何省钱，因为我发现给我的零用钱必须加以控制，因为它很快就会用光。因此，我在练习簿中记录了我的支出记录-一种收支图表。

然后还有其他主题，例如“社交技能”； “公开演讲，如Toastmastering；“如何创造性地写作”；或“理解和欣赏艺术和音乐”；甚至“锻炼身体”。

第4课：聆听很重要-至少比谈话重要两倍。
我们有两只耳朵，只有一只嘴。因此，我们需要多听，少说话。
“亲爱的兄弟们，请知道这一点：让每个人都快听，慢说话，慢生气；因为人的愤怒不会产生上帝的公义。”
当我的一个朋友教我保持镇静，少说话，多听，多微笑时，我不知道上述圣经经文。真好笑。有一天我在学校和他吵架。那时候我比他高。我看上去比他强。但是当我们战斗时，他把我放在拳头下的速度比我想象的要快。是的，他上过功夫课，我被打败了。然后我们成为最亲爱的朋友，他告诉我不要表现出我的愤怒。他说：“当你生气时，在做出反应之前，数到一百。” 从那天以后我坚持这个原则。
第5课：运用著名的成功轨迹-R D R C轨迹-放宽前景；干扰前景；向潜在客户推荐解决方案；并与潜在客户签订合同。

一些销售人员，特别是保险和房地产领域的销售人员，将此销售轨迹称为“成功的渠道”。他们在这里的主要动机是探勘-将每个人都视为一个探视者（总是在探寻），并将每个“否”都视为“是，但是”，并且总是有九个中有一个人是要你卖的东西或九十个中有一个人要卖，等等。

我的 RDRC 步骤如下：（1）一旦有了潜在客户，就可以通过潜在客户喜欢的主题（例如园艺，Netflix，食物）的对话来放松这个潜在客户。 （2）认真聆听潜在客户的话语，每当我们听到与我们期望的目标相关的主题或短语时，我们都要求他暂停一下，例如“您是否说过……？”。并继续进行第三步 - 干扰潜在客户。（3）“干扰”潜在客户会刺激潜在客户的思维方式。 （4）并且在适当的时候，通过强调与前景达成我们理想结论的共识来结束讨论。

在适当的时候打断潜在客户, 用以下的六个小问题：“为什么你那么做？” “那是在哪里的事？” “什么，情再说一次？” “这是什么时候的事？” “你是怎样做到的？” “那是谁？”

第6课：用六种方式平衡人生的成功方向-身体，心理，精神，财务，社会和家庭。

在视频https://youtu.be/nx6ejldUHUw 中，有八根辐条，但是这里的概念是我们需要知道的。我们每个演讲者的等级都是1到10，最接近中心的是1，最远的是10。
为了使车轮成功移动，六个辐条的编号必须相同。当然，数字越小，车轮每转一圈我们行驶的距离越短。然后，我们的目标是使辐条平衡，以使数量相同。否则，我们的车轮将无法平稳移动。