Soft skills

How to Help Your Teenager Choose a Career – 7 Tips

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This is a guest post with heavy edits by Lei Han

Probably one of the most awkward and challenging phases in our lives was our teenage years. As adults, we probably remember how it was. We went through a lot of mental, physical and emotional changes and life during that period was often confusing and scary. Now that we are adults and have growing kids, it is important to understand how to help our teenagers think about what they want to do when they grow up. Discussions with your teenager will not only help them but will also forge a closer bond between the two of you.  ...  read more

Working From Home – How to Build Your Reputation with Your Manager Remotely

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There are so many perks when working from home including saving commute time and the ability to work in sweat pants. However working remotely makes it a lot more challenging to build relationships, including the one you need to build with your manager. Whether you always worked remotely or just started due to COVID 19 crisis, you should know how to best build your reputation with your manager remotely.  ...  read more

What is the Easiest Soft Skill to Develop

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I got this question on Quora – What is the easiest soft skills to develop?. This question stomped me at first as soft skills by natural are a bit more difficult to develop. With that said, I think listening skills is perhaps the easiest to learn.

You have to be intentional and understand what active listening skills really mean. It’s the easiest to develop for four reasons. ...  read more

April Coaching Call – Examples of How We are Coping with the “New Reality”

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I feel blessed to be able to talk to some members through our monthly coaching calls. Last months, we touched on two subjects

  • How to Build Your Reputation Remotely with Your Manager
  • How to Build Mental Toughness during this “new reality.”

I am thankful for members who shared their personal experiences with all of us. Here is the 15 min discussion on the second topic above. I will be sharing the recording for the first topic next week.  ...  read more

I Have Been Crying a Lot and It’s Okay

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I have probably cried at least once a week since March 13, the first day of our voluntary “Shelter in Place.” It always happens unexpectedly. The first time was when my 8 year old showed me her first eLearning homework. She wrote about the “3 good things” from the weekend. It was simple and lovely. As soon as she left the room, I cried uncontrollably. I didn’t even know why. I think it was because  ...  read more

7 Unexpected Blessings from “Sheltering in Place”

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How are you doing with “Sheltering in Place”?  It’s day 48 for our family. Believe or not, I am starting to like it. We have developed a mentality to be thankful for what we have and a routine that maximizes our social distancing and cleanliness

  • We still go out but not everyday – My kids have been unusually happy just to hang at home; My husband do most of the grocery shopping and I look forward to my run outside by the water as well as our weekly farmer’s market on Saturaday. Once in awhile, we bring our kids out to play soccer or frisbee at the park.
  • We don’t bring outside clothes indoors – We put everything we wear outside on our balcony includes dipping our shoe soles in bleach water. We clean everything we bring back from shopping with either bleach or food wash and put it all in our own containers
  • We meet all family and friends virtually or outside at a distance – We contemplated visiting our neighbors whose routines are even more stringent than ours. They politely refused, which is very understandable. We also decided for now, visiting others who have less stringent routines is just not worth the risk.

While I still worry about the threat of coronavirus and absolute chaos created by our own government leaders, I know the best I can do in Nov is to make sure everyone we know votes and for now just live a simple and content day to day life. I practice gratefulness everyday both in my mind as well as when I speak to my family and friends. I discovered 7 unexpected blessings from “sheltering in place” ...  read more