Saturday, March 19, 2011

A Coach in His Community

I attended a training last weekend called Passion In Life (Basic). We had formed a Kick-Ass Group that was to have our first meeting on Fri 18 Feb at 5.30pm.

I received this SMS from S on Fri 18 Mar 2011 350pm:
Hi James tis is S. Please accept my apology for not coming for today's meeting. After knowing that most of them are in MLM and with you the leader and after much thought I think its better not to attend. My passion for real estate is too strong. Pls read my email. Tks.

My SMS reply:
I saw yr email buddy. I told you we will NOT talk about mlm or prospect you. Its ok, I accept your choice. I hope you don't mind I meet you on our own because I respect you very much -at 62yrs old still coming for training!! That is something I admire. I am sure I can learn from your attitude. We catch up next month as I am going to Paris next week. Thanks buddy, James

SMS from S:
Thank you. You are humble and a good leader. I am what I am is all due to my 20 yrs in real estate industry. Believe me - Its an aggressive and hard tactics field. I will love to meet-up after ur return. Cheer's. S

At 5.40pm, I was pleasantly surprised to see S turn up for our meeting and we were blessed by his eager sharing.

When S wrote that first SMS, I had a choice to be curt in my response or be kind and gracious. He was not my coachee. I celebrate that I chose to practise being kind and gracious. I practiced how I want my community to be.

ABOUT YOU

I am blessed when a Coachee returns the favour of being a MIRROR for me.
This is what Hwee Suan wrote on 18 Mar 2011 - (I know, it's been a long time since I posted some of the miracles that have been happening in my life).


Dear Coach

I reflected on your 'habit' of giving hard-hitting comments to people. Like the ones you gave Y tonite.

I was kinda trying to get under the skin of James Chia. And this is what I thought.

Conventionally, we have been taught to “think before we speak, look before we leap”. presumably so we won’t say the wrong thing and hv to retract. so for me, before i give anyone any feedback, i think through a lot. so i won’t unwittingly say something hurtful to that person or make baseless statements or accusations. also so i won’t hv to eat my words. so i won’t look bad. it's all very reasonable.

but you, you choose to blurt out what u think. you trust yourself to speak the right things and u do not question your thots and feedback until they become diluted and 'reasonable'. (opposite of what u were doing with S). ok, i dont know if you trust yourself to speak the right thing. but you also do not go and phrase your feedback in PR acceptable language. (tat's why you risked and kena H saying things like “i don’t like that thing u said about .... its not true what u said about ... etc etc.” usually those things are not the point lah).

thing is, you'd rather be wrong than to say nothing or say something watered down. you are ok to kinda hantam or risk having the other party be upset or angry with u ... than to say nothing.

so you swim against the conventional wisdom or tide... you speak before you think away your sincere feedback ... u risk sounding and appearing arrogant, unreasonable, not nice ...

i get u. you are salt of this earth, you really are.

goodnite.

hs