Have you ever tried using your left hand to write if you’re right-handed? Or maybe tried driving on the right side of the road? Recall the first time you’ve tried riding a bicycle or learned how to skate (I have to admit that I still don’t know how.) How did that feel? Here’s what’s worse. You’re trying a totally different approach related to your area of expertise. Like the accountant learning how to use TurboTax for the first time.  He knows the spreadsheet in-and-out but just couldn’t get the software’s user interface. This reminded me of how users reacted to Microsoft Office 2007 when it first came out. And because change is constant and inevitable, we’ll always feel like a noob. ALWAYS. And it feels awkward. ALWAYS.

But just like learning how to ride a bicycle, we get used to it. The awkward feeling starts to go away and we start feeling confident. When you’re riding your bicycle without holding the handle bars, you never think about how many times you’ve fallen off or the number of scratches you got. You probably couldn’t even remember. You went from being a noob to being an expert and riding the bicycle no longer feels awkward. You now feel great about it. But it definitely took a lot of trying it out and getting used to it. The path from being a noob to becoming an expert is never an easy one. That, in fact, was the thesis of Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers and the idea behind the 10,000 hours road to expertise. With the right investment of time and effort, anyone can move past the feeling of awkwardness fairly quickly.

But I think it’s more than the awkward feeling of being a noob. Behind all of that is the feeling of PRIDE. Admitting that you have to throw away all of your efforts and investments does feel a bit awkward. And that feeling where you suddenly have to slide down the ranks from up top all the way back to the bottom. When experts feel that they’re back to being a noob. And because they’ve gotten used to the feeling of being an expert, they no longer want to go back and re-experience how it all started – the fear, anxiety, and frustration that comes with it.

Didn’t I say that change is constant and inevitable? This means we have to get used to being a noob because we will always have to learn something new. But we need to put our pride aside or we’ll never get past this awkward feeling.

Now, go ahead and ride that bicycle.

– Dr. Bill Gould –

I had the opportunity to spent the last Christmas and New Year in my home country, the Philippines. And every time I do get the chance to go home, I try to create memorable events for both me and my family. I blogged about my community activity with my son before the turn of the new year and it was quite an experience. However, there was one experience that really moved me, one that I didn’t have to create.

I was on my way home after delivering a presentation on SQL Server Failover Clustering to a healthcare company in Manila. As always, I try to take the public transport as much as I can when I’m in Manila.  As I got off the light rail transit, waiting for the next jeepney ride that would take me home, something caught the corner of my eye. There it was, a signage very familiar to me and my wife almost 12 years ago. It was that of a pawnshop. Within a few seconds, it was as if I was taken back in time and my past being replayed right before me.  I couldn’t help but get teary-eyed within that short span of time.

Now, you might be wondering why.

You see, that pawnshop has seen us more times than we could remember. I remember having to pawn several of my and my wife’s jewelries just so we have something to eat for the next couple of days, not knowing if we will ever see them again.  I remember arguing with my wife to not take her valuable possessions to the pawnshop. She, on the other hand, would always reassure me that everything’s going to be alright and that our marriage was more important than those valuables. A few blocks away from the pawnshop was where we started our family, the place that I was talking about in a previous blog post – the place where we slept in a small-sized bed with barely enough cushion to soften our backs and the buzzing sound of mosquitoes that kept us awake when we didn’t have electricity. I remember feeling a sense of self-pity about not even having any means to support my family despite having a degree from a prestigious university.  And, as supportive as she can be, my wife would always tell me that the time will come when all of our experiences will simply be stories worth telling others.

And in a span of a few minutes, I was brought back into my new reality as a jeepney stopped right before me, waiting for me to hop in.

Every time I have an opportunity to do so, I tell people about our stories and our journey as a family. It’s my way of encouraging others that no matter what situation they are in, there will always be a brighter future if we simply look forward to it. More important than telling the story, I take time to revisit my past to remind myself of where I came from. The reminder keeps me grounded that even though my wife and I can now afford to have dinner at a fancy restaurant or travel anywhere we want, we must never forget our humble beginnings. It is those tough experiences that led us to where we are right now. The Holy Book talks about persevering under challenging circumstances and those who do so will receive the promises of God. In our experiences, that proved to be something very real and tangible. We’ve not only received what we believed God has promised us, we’ve also had the wonderful opportunity to share out stories with others.

Having gone into the first few days of 2013, let’s take stock of our past year (or even years) and revisit our experiences. Are we using those experiences to help us shape a better future?

Earlier in August, I had the privilege of speaking at a SQLSaturday event in NYC. Like most events that I get invited to speak at, I spend a lot of time preparing for and rehearsing my presentations. But unlike most events, this one was special. Having spent quite a bit of time in the Big Apple, I have considered the Microsoft technical communities there like family. This happens to be the second SQLSaturday event that they ran, having done one in the previous year. They already have the experience of transforming this event into a success – and I wanted to be a part of it. While preparing for my scheduled presentation, I thought about the possibilities of doing an additional one, something that I don’t usually do. I was just thinking that, just in case one of the speakers won’t be available, I can easily volunteer to fill in (I’ve learned how to do this when I was still working in Singapore where my desk was almost a stone’s throw away from Microsoft Singapore’s office and had to fill in for a speaker when they urgently needed one.)  So, I picked a topic that I was really excited about and prepared for it as well. Not only did I prepare for the additional presentation, I created an email template with a response to the event organizers about the topic that I was ready to speak on. The only thing that I didn’t do was to hit the Send button.

The day before the event came and, as I was having my first cup of coffee, I felt the urge to immediately open my email client. I felt as if I needed to send that email template that I have written a few days ago.  A few seconds into my inbox and I saw an email that required a response similar to what I had in the template. Unfortunately, one of the speakers could not make it for the event. In just a matter of seconds after reading the email, I hit the Send button with a response that I had already prepared for. And that was the reason for the Twitter update I posted on the day of the event.

Most of us have always wanted to be successful but don’t even bother preparing for it. It’s as if we expect success to be handed to us on a silver platter. Unfortunately, even food served on a silver platter need to be taken in and chewed to be enjoyed. And that’s what it takes to be successful. Successful people know that they can’t just leave it off to chance. From my experience and from learning from others, here are three key steps to prepare for success:

1. Envision what success looks like to you. We all have different definitions of success. If you’re embarking on a project or planning for your future, paint a picture of what success would look like when you achieve your goal. Mine was to be able to fill in for an additional speaking slot should one of the speakers bailed out unexpectedly. In a previous blog post, I’ve envisioned receiving the prize award that I’ve won. Make sure that you have a clear picture of what your end goal looks like.
2. Create a plan that will help you achieve your goal. Envisioning what success looks like is just the first part. We need to create a plan that will help us achieve our goal. Lay out the things that we need to do and schedule the activities. As Michael Hyatt pointed out: “what gets scheduled gets done.” Your plan will also serve as your guideposts in measuring your progress. My plan for the event was to spend an extra half an hour a day preparing for the other presentation.
3. Pay the price. I didn’t say success was easy. In a previous blog post, I talked about how to become an expert. And that included practicing consistently. Practicing consistently requires paying the price – the time, effort and resources you have to put in. Those extra hours I put in for preparation was one of the price that I have to pay. I bet you wouldn’t find any successful person who said success was cheap.

Success requires preparation. By remembering these three things, you can work your way to becoming successful. Are you preparing for your success or just waiting for it to happen? You can leave your comments below.

I’ve been waiting to blog about this for a while now. I posted this on Twitter a few weeks back and wanted it to serve as a personal reminder.

I’ve been an advocate of continuous self-improvement and have constantly advised professionals to read books, attend trainings, listen to podcasts and watch video tutorials. However, it’s not always easy to follow that advise because continuous self-improvement comes at a price. Last year, I have decided to attend a SQL Server training offered by SQLSkills in Bellevue, WA. But in order to do so, I will have to raise a certain amount of budget for training cost, hotel accommodation, airfare and food expenses.  It took me more than a year to raise that amount and have decided to go to one of their training sessions scheduled this year.

While preparing to attend the training, I learned about SQLSentry’s contest and decided to submit an entry. Now, I’ve known about this contest from the previous years and have read the submissions from those who have attempted to join. In fact, as early as last year, I’ve already started to plan about what my submission would look like should I get the opportunity to do so. I knew that it would take a certain level of creativity and thinking outside of the box to be chosen as a winner. In my mind’s eye, I’ve started to walk myself thru the experience of submitting my entry and receiving an email from SQLSentry telling me that I was chosen as the winner of the contest. And, so when the contest was announced, I was ready. To remind myself, I posted a status update on Twitter before I started working on my entry (I did say $3,000 in my Twitter post but you get the point.) I’ve framed my mind on what I was doing, changed my perspective and decided to create a $3,500 slide deck.

It wasn’t easy. I was in New York City in a small, cramped apartment, sitting in a chair that hurt my back badly and felt like giving up. It took me a week to finish the slide deck since I was working on it after office hours. But every time I wanted to give up, I reviewed my Twitter post. I reminded myself that I was building a $3,500-worth slide deck. And, then, I would replay all of the images I’ve stored in my mind a few months back about getting an email from SQLSentry announcing me as the winner of the contest. That kept me going. I sure would not want to throw away a $3,500-worth slide deck, would you? The slide deck I was working on was so valuable to me that the thought of giving up slowly disappeared.

A week after submitting my entry, I got the email that I have been waiting for.

And it all started with having the right perspective.

Are you facing difficult challenges in your life? Maybe you need a new perspective. I told a woman I sat beside the train last year that giving up her lucrative career as a corporate lawyer to be a stay-at-home mom meant she is raising up the next generation of leaders. When I felt like giving up on a high profile project I was working on early this year, I changed my perspective and searched for a higher purpose in what I was doing. And, when I felt like giving up on the slide deck I was working on, I reminded myself to focus on my perspective. That made a whole lot of difference. I guess by now you know why this slide deck is worth $3,500.

In case you’re wondering about the winning entry, check out the slide deck I did on SlideShare.