2-3-4 Friday 

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

In Singapore, despite its riches, you still see some signs of poverty from time to time.

One of the most stark examples is when you sit at the hawker centre, where people buy food to eat.

Cheap, cooked food at $3-5 per meal.

You might have some elderly person approach you, usually limping, and carrying a big red plastic bag.

They have a haggard look on their face, and they look at you, holding out a bunch of 3 tissue paper packets.

They usually ask if you’d buy 3 packets for $1.

Let’s pause here.

What would you do?

If your answer was to buy the tissue from them, where would you stop?

You can call me heartless, but I’ve never bought a single packet before. 

Nor have I handed them any money.

You might yell,

John, where’s your social worker spirit?

Maybe the deeper question is,

does giving money help?

Where can you really help?

Yes, maybe some of the poverty problem can be solved with money.

But poverty, as with most things, doesn’t have one direct cause. There are many routes into poverty, and many routes out of it.

But one vital thing is to realise you can’t help everyone.

This often leaves us feeling helpless.

And it leaves us feeling guilty that we walk away from people where we can do something to help.

So what can we do?

One option is to have guardrails for your heart. Where you tell yourself,

I am human.

These are the things I can’t help with.

Because each time we go out, and we see painful scenes, as caring people, we feel that twinge of guilt when we walk and turn away.

But when we realise

1. We can’t solve every problem in the world.
2. There will always be more problems to solve,

and we thus focus on the things that we can really solve, then we translate our helplessness to hopefulness.

The concept from the likes of Stephen Covey, is to focus on your locus of control, or what you can truly control.

But that’s not everything. I think it’s vital, more important that you take time to

If you can’t, then the question would be, how can you help?

1 talk

“(Thomas J. Watson Sr. of IBM followed the same rule: “I’m no genius,” he said. “I’m smart in spots—but I stay around those spots.”)”

• Warren Buffett, The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America

1 tip

Each time you feel that twinge of guilt when you don’t help, or you vacillate between helping or not helping, it weighs on your future ability to help, where you truly can make a difference.

That’s why this idea of knowing your sweet spot, as Warren Buffet calls it, is so important.

”The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You don’t have to swing at everything – you can wait for your pitch."

• Warren Buffett

In making change, any kind of change, you need to know where your best strengths lie.

Ask yourself,

What am I great at?

Where do I have more insights and more impetus to action than most others?

For example,

1. I know that I’m great at writing.

That’s where I choose to focus most of my energies of, in trying to make positive change in the world.

You can’t change the world.

But you can change some spots.

Focus on those spots.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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