Superman

Summary – 6 most efficient anger management tips

If I ask you “Who is the strongest man on the planet?” I’m quite sure that the name Superman will come up. For those still not sure, Superman is a fictional character from comic books. He was described to be able to lift even a mountain. I’m not sure what good that may do to us. However, there are more than one way to define strength.

There’s a saying that the strongest man is not the person who can lift the heaviest stone, but the person who can control his temper.

Let’s face it, a man with temper is no fun. Most of the time they are plain dangerous to be around with. When asked, almost all of them will say that they just didn’t realize how such emotion build up. It just burst like an active volcano.

Imagine if you can stop an active volcano from erupting. Don’t you think that’s superstrong? Here’s a few tips that may help control one’s temper.

1) Acknowledge that you are angry
As easy as this sound, this is the hardest step of all. However this is also the most efficient way to control your temper. I repeat, it is the MOST EFFICIENT way to control your temper. Once you know that you are angry, you will be more conscious about your reaction and that itself cools you down drastically.

2) Set OK limits
OK limits are actual limits that you set beforehand on when exactly it’s ok to lose your temper. Now you may ask “aren’t we supposed to be controlling the temper, not letting it go?”. Believe me that when you have establish this limits, it will be so much easier to control it.

For example, Let us assume you set the limit as such – “it is ok to lose your temper if somebody is hurting your loved ones”. When you know your limits, you will know that all other incident will not be worth it. Why? because they are not in the OK limit list. Imagine how many time you can avoid losing your temper this way.

It is important to have these limits. Just as it is important to be angry in the right situation. For example, a wife / husband cheating on you. You have every right to be angry. In fact that anger will make it easier for you to take action and move on.

3) Create a mantra
This is my favorite method. Personally, the mantra I always use to control my temper is “Once I spit, I will never lick the spit back”. Roughly translated that whenever I lose my temper I will be responsible to anything that may happen. No regrets or apology.

What’s your mantra?

4) Change position
In Islam, it is proposed that to control one’s temper you should change position. If for example you are standing, consider sitting down. I’m assuming there’s a theory behind it. That whenever we are angry at something, it would be best if we just walk away from being near to the things / person we are angry at.

If you are angry at losing football team, consider walking away to maybe a park or a lake. The farther you are from the match, the more relaxed you will become. How can you cool down when you are still at the match watching your team play horribly.

5) Find a safer way to let it out
In some cases, even after we cool down, the temper is still there inside. It may lessen with time but it’s still there and anything can spark it back to life. You need to get it out of your chest. Talk to your loved ones about it.

How about setting up an email account specifically for you to pour in all your emotion. Write an email of anger to that account and tell yourself he/she is reading it. That should help. I wonder if be.angry.at.me@gmail.com has been taken.

6) Breathe
If all else fail, you can try this – Breathe in and out slowlly. Just focus on your breathing. Close your eyes and feel the air going in and out. There.. you are now meditating 🙂

Conclusion – There are a lot of technique out there for anger management. They even set up classes just for this. But I truly believe that these five are the most efficient method of all.

Controlling temper is never easy. Do not expect anything less. That is why when you can control it, you can proudly declare that you are the strongest man / woman in the world 🙂

– I wonder –
How do you control your temper?

————- Personal Note ————
I’m sorry for the long absence. Work caught up with me. The thing about my line of work is that, I’m on standby 24/7 minus the overtime pay. Sometime I can get very upset thinking about it. But I have made my peace with it.

How have you guys been? 🙂

Photo credit – hypertypos


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interview

Summary – 5 uncommon interview tips
If you google the keywords “interview skills”, you will be presented with all the basic, which generally includes –

  • Dress sharp
  • Speak confidently
  • Research the company
  • Be polite
  • Etc

Can I suggest another few tips that may also help? 🙂

1) Talk to stranger.
Try this, get on a bus. It can be any bus. And immediately say hi to the stranger besides you. Please don’t just pick seats to flirt. The idea is not for you to flirt. It’s for you to practise your interview skill.

Expected results:

  • You are no longer afraid to speak.
  • You can generate question on the spot.

2) Redo a sketch of your favorite sitcom.
You will need the help of another fan for this. For example, you love “Friends” the sitcom. Pick one scene about 1 -2 minutes long and memorize the dialogue.

Now redo the whole scene without looking at the script. I’m very sure you will forget most of the line, so improvise. Make up your own line. It can become another story.

Expected results:

  • You should be more confident in improvising your interview script whenever necessary.
  • You will learn how to be witty with your words and make you memorable to the interviewer.

3) Go for a “mock” real interview.
Spend some time to go to a shopping mall and apply for a job there. Any job. Practise everything you have learn to get the job. You can try being very funny, or very aggresive. It shouldn’t matter if you were accepted or not, this is just for you to practise. So go crazy 🙂

Expected results:

  • You will get used to the whole interview scenario, it no longer terrifies you.
  • You can actually ask the interviewer how you can actually improve yourself.

4) Help a friend to haggle.
You have a friend, and this friend wants to buy a laptop. You should follow him and do the haggling part for him. Haggle the price until you can get what you want. After all, you have the buying power. Why not get the most out of it.

Expected results:

  • You will have more confident in discussing your salary or benefit.
  • You will learn a few tips on how to haggle.

5) Monitor people being interviewed.
Assuming you have a friend of a friend who interview people. Why not ask him to let you in in one of the interview session. You are not interviewing people, you are just going to watch how people are interviewed. Take note on what works and what’s not.

Expected results:

  • You will have an updated and real version of interview skills.
  • You will see that the interviewer is actually not that scary.

/end list

Conclusion – Being interviewed is actually not that difficult. They are not going to ask you why you fail English, or make fun of the weird society you joined. They already have all the details in your resume. What they want to see is how you behave, what’s your attitude and motivation, and most importantly how you potray yourself.

The best part is they can only see all these via the way you express yourself (listening and speaking). Concentrate on those as suggested by the 5 items above. You will do fine

– I wonder –
Any other interview tips you would like to add?

——— Personal Note ———–
I still remember my first successful interview. To tell you the truth, I was not that prepared. I didn’t research the company, I have no idea what my job scope is, and I think I was very hungry at the time. 🙂 It’s a difficult time then. I needed a job ASAP.

However I believe they accepted me to the company simply because of the following conversation that happened in the interview (written from memory)

Interviewer – So banji, do you have a girlfriend?
Banji – Yes, I do

Interviewer – I must inform you that this job will require you to be sent to Sabah and maybe Indonesia. Most girlfriends will not understand this. What would you do if you were sent there and your girlfriend doesn’t approve?

Banji – Hm I can always find a new girlfriend there 🙂
Interviewer – (Laughing out loud.. both of them)

Photo Credit – Nathan Callahan


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Positive Thinking

Summary – You can read, talk, learn but nothing beats experiencing it yourself
It’s been very tiring these few days. I am in charged of commissioning a new boiler for the mill. And as always, commissioning is where you will find more problem than solution.

I’m sure you know how negative we can be after solving one problem, only to find a few hundreds more revealed to you. You may become very negative and words like this start to come to mind.

  • This is all not worth it.
  • The project is cursed.
  • Why is this happening to me?

Do you really know why negativity is bad?
Now, we have been told repeatedly that “negativity is bad”. “Positive thinking is the way”. But do we really know what negative thinking will do to us?

Just like being sleepy behind the wheel is a dangerous thing. We know it’s dangerous and we should avoid it by taking regular rest. But we will never actually know how dangerous it is unless we have been involved in such accident and live to tell the story.

The same goes to negativity. We can read 100 books on avoiding negativity but we will never know the harm it cause unless we have experience it.

The experiment
I propose an experiment to experience how positive thinking helps. Set one hour every day for positive thinking. In this one hour, you must brush aside any negative thinking in your mind. Which means, you must be focus and aware of what you’re thinking at all time (within the one hour frame of course)

All you need to do is rejecting every negative thinking and replace it with positive ones. Reject and replace. For example –

  • Reject “This is just not worth it”. Replace it with “The joy of success after all this will be worth every second spent :)” (don’t forget to smile)
  • Reject “The project is cursed”. Replace it with “Now this is what I call challenging :)”
  • Reject “Why is this happening to me”. Replace it with “I was chosen which means I am the only one they actually believe to make this happen :)”

Again, for just one hour.. all you need to do is reject and replace. It will be very hard at first. You may not actually believe the words that you replaced, and you will be bombarded with a machine-gun shot of negativity. Expect and survive this.

After you have done the experiment for a week. Please tell me how it goes? I would love to hear it. More importantly, you write your own conclusion to the experiment. It can be positive wins, or negativity wins. Which ever side wins, you will now understand positive and negative thinking so much more than any other person 🙂

– I wonder –
How many of us like to experiment with our mind?

——— Personal Note ———-
I am still doing the experiment. One hour every day with no negative thinking. It’s a very hard work. That much I can assure you. With every negative thought rejected, comes another two. And sometimes it goes the other way around, rejecting positive thought and replacing it with negative ones.

So guys, expect some resistance and hard work in this experiment 🙂 I’m going to publish the result of my experiment when I can see some actual result.

To be continued

Photo credit – JasonRogers


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