We were so excited to have another workshop with Inkmason this year, and with this group of architects and designers, we started the workshop by this introduction --
“Yes, I'm a designer too. I help others achieve their goals and life plans. Why do I need someone else to help me achieving my own life goal? Well, have you experienced the worst time ever in your life? I have! In fact, I have failed so many times. Life is full of challenges, surprises, full of obstacles that we have to overcome, one step at a time. The question is if you already have the most important skill in your life: how you train your body (health) and how you train your brain (attitude). Biking and swimming are survival skills, we need to learn them to protect our lives. Then how do we train our brains? We need to learn to be positive in difficult situations - to be resilient. This requires a life time practice. Once you have the skill, you can manage any situation with courage. This is what we are going to share in today’s workshop. It is not a training course today, it is more like a real-life experience activity, in which we will learn how emotions and actions determine our future, our success and failure. I appreciate that I have been given the opportunity to design this program because during the design process, it… actually saved me. I want to thank Kin for giving me this opportunity. You may not realise this yet, but you are very lucky to have this leader.” – Deane Lam
“對，我也是一個設計師。我為別人設計人生的計劃，幫助他們達到人生的目標。自己的人生為什麼要別人幫助呢？你有沒有試過在人生的谷底呢？我有，我還失敗了很多次呢！人生是充滿着挑戰的、充滿着不同的驚喜、有着不同的難關要我們一步一步的跨過去。問題在於你有沒有掌握生命中最重要的技巧：就是你怎樣去訓練自己的體能(健康)和怎樣訓練你自己的腦袋(心態)。踩自行車和游水都是生存技巧，我們必須要學懂去保護自己的生命。腦袋又怎樣訓練呢？我們要學懂怎樣運用自己的正面心態去面對不同的困難處境。這是需要不斷的訓練的。但當你掌握到這技巧時，在任何的情況下你都可以勇敢地面對。這就是我們今天要和大家一起分享的技巧。這天不是一個一般的培訓課程，這天是一個體驗活動，令我們學識情緒和行動怎樣決定我們的將來、成功和失敗。我很感謝在這段時間我遇到這個課程，因為在設計這個課程的過程當中，它... 救了我。很感謝Kin給我這個機會。你們現正未必知道，有這樣的一個領導是多麼的幸運。” – Deane Lam
This was an interesting and very important workshop for me. As you may see that from my workshop introduction - this design process actually saved my life. Designing something for others made me learn a lot, and at the same time when I talked about it and explained it to others, I understood what I need to do next in my life.
The objective of this workshop was to equip the team with the life skill and mindset to get through tough times, and to prepare themselves as a “Ready for Anything Team”. We began the workshop with a Oak Tree Story:
The strongest oak tree of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It's the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun. (Napoleon - Author)
We believe that with the right skills, the team will build their confidence, and their stronger self-confidence will make successes even easier.
We talked about basic moods of life, self-talk and awareness of mood and consequent behaviour, and using "Past-Present-Future" worksheet to help us practice "I need to live in Present" and an opportunity to grow in life. We set up the Inkmason Got Talent activity to let the team experience constructive criticism - experience their feelings and how to manage their emotions to move to the next step. Finally a Feedback Tool to practice how to provide and accept feedbacks constructively. This was not an ordinary workshop, it was challenging and the team did a fantastic job! Thank you Kin for this learning experience and thanks to my partner Cara for another wonderful workshop delivery.
