The Journey Within: Presidential Speech 09: Ten Thousand Steps

Hi December! Time flies.

2020 is not an easy year for me. The Lockdown had drained much of my financial and emotional capacity, coupled with unprecedented family and business challenges.

I spoke to my life coach, Mr. Tan Ngyuen. He is a wise businessman whom I never met in person, living in Australia. I shared with him my challenges. I begun to put on weight. Doubts, anger, frustration and sense of lost caught up with me.

He asked me: " How can you take care of yourself first? What is the one thing that you can do to make you feel good?"

"Ten thousand steps each day." I answered.

Two weeks later, I failed miserably. Not even 50% of the target.

"I don't have enough time. There is too much hassle going to gym. This is monsoon season. The road is wet. I need to prepare my kids in the morning." More and more issues flashed out as we discussed.

"What can you do to make it work, so that you can feel better?" He asked.

Something dawned to me. The biggest illusion I have in life is believing I am missing resources. Resources is never the real problem. The real problem is lack of resourcefulness.

He reminded me a quote from Tony Robbins, "It is human emotions that got us resourceful." Whether we are resourceful or not is based on habit of emotions that we used most often. Are the emotions I used most often were negative in nature: Anger, frustration, bored, disappointment, distrust? Or the emotions are more positive e.g. courageous, playfulness, interesting, curious, loving? Where do I spend more of my time? The answer was clear. I was caught in the former negative loop of emotions.

I needed to get results with new actions. It is evident I was not getting results with my old patterns. I get a treadmill at home. I cancelled my gym membership. Ten thousand steps were broken into several sessions. I merged my learning time with my running time. The new routine had made me feel energized, accomplished and rooted emotionally. I shaved off 1.5kg in 2 weeks by not missing ten thousand steps each day.

Two weeks later, I updated my coach with pride. He asked me another question: "What have you learned from ten thousand steps routine?"

"Determination. Break it down into small steps. Get it done regardless how you do it. Be clear on your goals. Break the routine to find new ways."

"So, which aspects of you life you can apply these lessons?"

"Health, family business and pursuing my own dream."

"How would you feel if you were to apply all these lessons into your life?"

"Rooted, purposeful and self-worthiness."

"You now have the foretaste of success. Remember these feelings and continue to apply these lessons. You have all the resources to overcome the challenges you are facing now."

Indeed, Oprah Winfrey once said: "A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself." Through the simple ten thousand steps routine, Mr. Tan Ngyuen allowed me to experience the foretaste of life success. Most important of all, he proved to me that I have the emotional fitness to claim victories in life. While life probability but no guarantee, yet we can increase our chances of victory by changing our emotional state. By knowing and creating options to change your emotional states to an empowering one, that is emotional fitness.

Thereby, with this realization on emotional fitness, I made a self-declaration, adapting the great work of Miranda Marriot:

I choose

To live by choice, not by chance

To be motivated, not manipulated

To be useful, not used

To make changes, not excuses

To excel, not compete

I choose

Self-esteem, not self-pity

I choose

To listen to my inner voice

Not random opinion of others

I choose

To do the things that you won't

So that I can continue to do the things

that you can't.

By the authority of Toastmasters International vested in me, mandate given by club members as President, driven by the desire to build unshakeable emotional fitness in all of us here tonight, I hereby declare our meeting officially starts.

1 December 2020

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