Switching Time with Soft Side of IT

I have decided switch my focus & restart previous blog: Soft Side of IT.

As much as I love this topic, in general & google there are less interest in this topic than information technology. So I am going take a hiatus from this blog.

Also I have been working in IT all these years & I’m currently in a large implementation project. I want to document some lessons learned & usage of technologies.

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This is a careering move as well, as I see this blog somehow go down in google ranking every week, my old blog remain in the first page. I just want to make sure people will be able to see my post, when anyone google me.

I still know in my heart that teaching and leading are intertwined & the importance of improving teaching skills. That’s why I know eventually I will come back to this blog.

Thank you all for reading & support,
Ian

Daily Habits → Moving Forward Bit by Bit

   Exercising 2 times a week for 90 minutes, to some people, this seems just impossible …

Just like new year resolution, I fail to keep on task. After setting goal in my last post, I can honestly say I do almost nothing to move forward any of this.

   What if you take a 5 minute bike ride everyday?
           That is not overwhelming anymore!

This gave an inspiring moment from listening to an old podcast while working out. It talked about setting daily habit & the exercising example on this post. (Unfortunately, I could’t find the anymore anymore)

A small daily habit just makes goals more do-able!

This is surprised me; Kids do homework everyday to learn better … while somewhere along the way … we have lost the concept of daily habits. This idea seem so simple, but so powerful.

Setting daily habit is much more different than monthly or even weekly habits. Even with weekly or bi-daily goals, I find myself reasoning excuses to do it the next day; While daily just forces you to do what needs to be done.

These two habits to my challenge to myself that I will do:
– I am going take 1/2 hour everyday to work on some part of the blog (such as making notes)
– At least 1/2 hour per day to working PMP or GMAT

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Can you imagine setting a small daily habit on something you always wanted to do or learn? Let test drive this idea.

To Succeed: Try, Try, Try Again!

Do you remember how many resume did you send before getting your first jobs after college?
To succeed in anything, you got to try, try, try again!

Perseverance is need before success arrives, just look at these examples:

• Edison & his associates had around 10000 light bulb prototype before success
• Henry Ford founded 2 car company before Ford Motors
• The iPod had 4 revision before getting the click wheel right & gain mainstream attention for the device (This includes thousands of prototypes)

As for me, this is my third attempt at blogging, I learn something in every attempt:

1st Blog: Take-Talk
My first one was a podcast notes & recommendation blog. I loved listening to & learning from podcasts; it seems logical to follow my passion to share what I gain from them. I found passion sometimes is not enough to keep me going, because there are spikes & valley in passion.

2nd Blog: Soft Side of IT
With my experience in IT in 10+ roles, it would be a great career move to write about lesson learn in Information Technology jobs. Again it fell off since I had interest in IT, but passion was another story. This also lead to peaks & valley in writing for the topics, plus it was too broad.

3rd Blog: Teach … Lead … Careering
This time, learning from my last few attempts; I regroup & started this new blog (After a few months of break). By learning from failures … this time I made sure I had passion, interest, experience, career motivation & a future before I start. if one part falls off, I can rely on one the 5 things to keep pushing me forward. I don’t know if it will succeed or not, I just know this fits what I want to do.

To gain experience at any new knowledge, skills, industry or anything else; you need to try, try , try again to succeed.

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Did you know:

• It takes roughly 7 contacts to make a sale (Many give-up before 7)
• Many entrepreneurship take five or more failure before succeeding
• In current times, it takes people 6 months to find a job

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Inspiring: Leading to Action

An inspiration of this blog was the post
How Teaching Can Make You Unforgettable
from Anita Bruzzese‘s blog On the Job.

I have been teaching kids for years & I have been applying those skills in the wokplace; But not until when I was replying on Anita’s post that I found myself constantly thinking of more & more points; that’s when I find myself thinking … “I might be able to write a full blog on this topic alone” … So I did, 3 months later (After planning, researching & pushing myself to do it).

Most of the time when students ask for help, they already know what to do. Usually what I do is to just ask leading questions to inspire them to figure out what they to should do … and their face lights up when they figure it out themselves.

Here is one simple way to inspire others through a situation:
1. Use leading questions to point people to a direction
2. Give them confidence/permission to take action
Note:
 Please don’t make them feel wrong if they took a different direction than you expected

3. Make sure to watch their reaction when they see their results unfold in front of them

Let’s Begin

This blog is about teach, lead, careering & the links between them.

While teaching others is an important part of becoming a leader & a successful career. I rarely see teaching linked with careers & leading,

That’s why I started this blog to discuss about teach … lead … careering.