Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

I think one of the greatest blessings in life is the love for your job; Love is a great virtue because it propels you to your dream, exceed your own limitations and fulfill your true potential.

"you've got to find what you love", so said Steve Job in his commencement address to Standford in 2005. This is one of my fav articles - whenever i feel down & out, i would pick it out and read to get inspiration. One part that i like about the article is connecting the dots - it talked about Steve Job and how things that happened in the past connected up to make him who he is today. For myself, i had 4 portfolia in my 10-year career in SingTel; in Operation, i learnt how to organize myself and in Planning, i learnt about resource planning and biz cases. In Bid, which i learnt the most thus far, the many checkpoints mtgs helped me managed stakeholders' expectation, negotiating on OLLC with partners helped me on partners engagement, escalations helped me managed bosses better and Bid as a whole helped me on stress management. During those times when i was on those jobs, i didnt forsee how the learnings would help me, but then they come in very handy when i was doing i.luminate, they just connected up. In the same way, i also couldnt really decipher what i.luminate would bring to me, but i believe the learning from it would connect up in the future also. So the key for loving your job is about maximizing your learning (that's for me) because the lessons stay with you, enrich you and have bearing on what you will ultimately want to do in your life, i believe it will just connect up. Steve Job ended his speech with "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish", i could not agree more, we must keep learning, learning and learning. If you are interested, you can find the article here: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

Though the meaning behind the double-boiled soup is good, i do not like to think of myself as the chicken :) i prefer another illustration - we all know that stars are always there, whether in the day or in the night. But you can only see them in the nights, especially in the darkest night. i like this illustration because i believe the treasures of life (just like stars) are seen during difficult times (the dark night) of life. i.luminate is not exactly the dark hours of my life, but it was made difficult because i just become a father and my team was very new. But the treasures i found through i.luminate are rewarding - i got love from my family, know myself better (in both good & bad sense) and friendship & trust from the colleagues. So i am thankful and humbled through the experience itself.

Amos