Category: Blog in English

You’re More Successful than You Realize

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Last night, I had a quite long chat with an old friend and I told him how I felt like I hadn’t had enough in my career path. I said, “I’m not yet satisfied with my career achievement. It’s not that I’m not grateful, it’s just that I haven’t reached a point where I think; this is it.”

I do really feel that way about myself. It feels like I haven’t done much enough for the companies I’ve worked for. As much as I’m proud of being a part of my current Company, I still feel like I haven’t found that one thing I really want to do for the rest of my life. I also don’t feel like I’ve learned much enough in my life, I’m not yet as good as I want me to be, and I still have a so long way to go before defining my career as a success.

And then a few hours later, I found this video. I watched it, and it gave me chills! And yeah… a little bit of tears came out, just a little bit 😉

I don’t know how much score will be given by my families or best friends about my success, but it got me thinking… maybe, I’ve been too tough to myself. It’s good to be the hardest critic to myself, but maybe, it’s been over the top. And again, it reminded me once again to be thankful for all I have.

Yes, it’s still true that it takes a really long time for me just to figure out the next best thing in life. But hey, good things take time, don’t they?

And yes, it’s also true that I haven’t been somewhere I really want me to be… but I’ll get there! I know I’ll get there.

So maybe, I just need to be a little bit more kind to myself. Just one rejection doesn’t necessarily mean the whole years I’ve been working on is a failure. Other mediocre gets the same job with mine doesn’t make me out of the blue on the same average level with them. Been struggling in pursuing my big dreams doesn’t necessarily mean that I have failed either. I only fail once I give it up, right?

Life is still a long way to go. I haven’t failed, I just haven’t arrived in my final destination because I’m a little bit lost along the way. But that’s okay! As long as I keep on going, then I’m already on a right direction. For now, all I need to do is taking a deep breath, smile, give applause for myself, and continue running toward my finish line. I still don’t think that I have been as successful as I wish I were, but perhaps it’s true, I’m actually more successful than I realize.

And well, maybe, it’s a sign that it’s okay to reward myself a fancy trip, a little bit over budget, in my Greece trip this month, no? 😉

P.s.: Tomorrow is another Monday, let’s continue the race!

Love Yourself Enough to Walk Away

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Have you ever stopped loving someone just because loving them makes you feel like you don’t love yourself? That kind of feeling that makes you feel bad about everything. You know that they are not the right person, it’s not going to happen, you’ve got to move on, and so on.

Lately I realize… The love to ourselves can be so powerful. We should know that we deserve better. We deserve something real. We deserve a happy ending. And it’s not going to happen unless we let go. The courage to leave all those hopes behind and the belief that someday we’ll get there is an enormous power for us to move forward.

Believe me when I say that it’s not a non sense at all. It’s just so true! You should believe that you will be just fine. Staying where you are is the one torturing you. It’s not even him or her that tortures you, it’s your decision to hang on that eventually kills you. Don’t do it to yourself! Give yourself some credits and live with dignity.

I know that moving on is never an easy thing. No matter how hard we try to keep ourselves busy, we will still think of it everytime we pause. We barely sleep at night and once we do, it even haunts us in our sleep! But again, believe me, the love to ourselves is a power. It will keep us strong, it will keep us going, it will give us a faith that we’ve done the right thing for ourselves.

Finally, someone who loves themselves will always believe that the right person will come along. If you love yourself enough, you won’t insist changing the wrong one to end up as the only one. You will believe that good things take time, and you will take your time. Someday you’ll get there, and you know what… you will when you believe!

Love yourself enough to walk away. You’ve got to know that when it’s over, it’s over.

Have a nice weekend!

Our Mr. Right was Once a Mr. Wrong

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A few days ago, my friends and I met up with one old friend just to catch up after a while not seeing each other. That one old friend who is known as the most wanted guy. Young, smart, good looking, and extremely excellent at his job, but you know, he was that kind of guy whom we thought only dated girls for fun.

That night, this old friend had to disagree about a common statement saying that all the guys on earth always love collecting trophies. By trophy we meant chasing girls and getting them as their new trophy. The excitement to flirt and the satisfaction when she said yes was just addicting. However according to this one guy, that statement was not always true.

More or less, he told us, “Not all guys. Real man doesn’t need trophy. Real man knows what he wants and he will go for it, whatever it takes. Being afraid of the commitment is just bullshit.”

His statement surprised me for a reason. I knew that he was just in love with someone, but I never thought that one new mystery girl could change his point of view until that much. I never thought of him as a committed guy, never at all, until the dinner that night.

Our long chat that night reminded me of one other guy from my past. He had everything I need from a guy, except his willingness to fight for me. I tried to console myself saying that it was just who he was. He wouldn’t bother fighting for a girl because being with someone was never a part of his long term plan anyway. Just like that, I labelled him as another Mr. Wrong to me.

More than three years later, I found my way to move on and ‘restart’ my friendship with him. It’s never as close as it used to be, but it’s still close enough to let me know that he’s a changed man. When I told him I was not really concerned about being single, he replied, “You just haven’t met the right person yet. I also didn’t picture myself being married, until I met my fiance.”

The chat continued, until at the end, I just knew… My Mr. Wrong has turned to be a Mr. Right for someone else.

I have one other friend who also has changed to be a Mr. Right for his soon-to-be wife. He was uncertain about his feeling to his fiance, he was once wondering if he should get back with his ex instead, but then he realized that he always repeated the same mistake: looking back to the past and pushing away the present. And then later, he would miss the girl that he used to push away! Learning from his past, he tried to be committed to his girlfriend, seeing her as who she is, until he finally knew, “She is the girl that I’m going to marry.”

See? A guy needs to be a Mr. Wrong once or a few times before finding himself a the right one. That’s the reason why I’m not too worried for being single at this age. I simply believe that he is out there, still learning how to be a Mr. Right for me. When he’s ready, I’m ready, we will find our way.

That One Painful E-mail, a Few Years Ago

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A few days ago, my boss told me that he admired how knowledgeable I was. I joined Lazada just one year ago yet according to him, I knew so many details that I looked like an e-commerce expert already. I only smiled, not so much flattered since I already heard similar compliments from many other else a few times before. And everytime people ask me the secret behind it, all that I can think of is that one night a few years ago.

That day, I was almost one year working for my previous employer. I had an assignment from headquarter office that I needed to complete right away. It was just a simple sales report per product category, yet somehow, I kept making mistakes over and over again. The Group CFO was waiting for that report and I seemed to piss her off.

A few hours later, after so many reworks from my end, that report was finally done. And then before I went home, I received a new e-mail from my direct boss; the local CFO. That one e-mail that I never thought I would ever have in my inbox.

So apparently, that Group CFO sent another e-mail to my boss without putting me in the CC. She told my boss that I was technically good but I clearly needed to learn more about our Company. She advised my boss to guide me more about the industry, the product, the way it worked in another division… In short, that e-mail really made me feel like I was not good enough.

Knowing that my boss let me read that painful e-mail gave me the idea that he approved the Group CFO’s statement about my performance. And no kidding, it was just like a slap on my face! I had worked so hard to fix so many things but turned out I was not good enough just because I couldn’t identify the difference between one products with another. Seriously… was it for real?

Yes, at the beginning, I was angry. I did apologize to my boss, but deep in my heart, I was so upset. But then I asked myself… How could I fail such simple task? What was the root cause? It took me quite some times to get there, but I finally admitted that my bosses were right. It was not about me being stupid, it was just that I didn’t put so much effort to learn about the business my company engaged.

That one short e-mail has finally changed the way I work. It’s not only me and my division, it’s about me and the whole company. Even though I’m not a salesperson, I still need to understand the products we sell. How can I analyze the product profitability without knowing the specifications? I also don’t work in Ops team, but how can I make a business process improvement if I have no clue on their daily procedures? At the end of the day, that shocking e-mail has contributed one new key strength on my performance.

Apart from learning the importance of in-depth business understanding, what happened that day has made me learn one other most important rule to live by: good critics is not comforting, but it’s certainly building a better us inside. That’s simply a process on being a grown-up: you make mistake and you learn from it. Cursing and telling the world that you did nothing wrong while clearly you’ve just made a terrible mistake will bring you nowhere. You will only repeat the same mistake over and over again.

Finally, all that I can say that there’s no top achiever on earth that was as good as they are today in their very first day working a few years back. They all started on the same line with their colleagues, but their efforts to always make an improvement and their willingness to learn from their mistakes were simply the things that brought their careers up to the next levels. You don’t need to be born genius, you only need to have that one big heart to tell yourself that you can be wrong.

Let’s make mistake, learn from it, and have an awesome Monday!

Read a Book, Start from Now!

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Believe it or not, there is a different quality between people who read and the one who rarely read a book.

Have you ever met a person who looks like a walking Wikipedia? Or someone who tends to know the answer to every question. The one that’s so damn good at their job with lots of knowledge in their brain. And maybe, the one whose attitude only keeps them going further with their accomplishments in life. Well, I can tell, they are the ones who read a lot of books along their life.

And who says reading does necessarily mean you’ve got to have a lot of books on your shelves at home?

When you’ve just joined a Company, find the SOP or any other guideline that you can read.

When you’ve just used a new software for your job, read the FAQ, browse online to learn more about the feature, or why don’t you buy an e-book to help you learn some more?

When you’ve got to handle a project that you used to learn back in the college, find your old book and reread until you recall all of the information needed.

When you have a leisure time, it’s a good time to read the newspaper to keep yourself updated. And it’s always important to read an article about leadership, self-motivation, or any kind of article that can help you to become a better person.

Or maybe, let’s just start with this little thing at work: read your e-mails! And don’t forget to read the attachment as well.

Too busy to read a book? I believe that’s just a myth. If you have plenty of times to scroll down your social media, to browse online, to chat over Skype, to watch your favorite TV show, then you do have a time to read a book.

The people who looks smart with their knowledge is not becoming that good just by an overnight. They’ve read and they’ve learned their entire life.

So guys, there’s no doubt, start reading a book! Start from now! Read more and gain some more.

Happy reading!

How Can’t We Love the Company We Work for?

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Lots of people says recently to never love your company. Don’t love it because it may not love you back and bla bla bla. That kind of sense that I fail to understand. I just can’t get the point why shouldn’t we love the Company where we work?

I have so many reasons why we MUST love our company.

For starter, we spend at least 8 hours a day in that place, at least 5 days a week. How does it feel to spend that much amount of time in a place that you hate? It must feel like hell!

Second, we earn a living from the job provided by our company. Don’t you feel like dating or marrying a guy just for his money with no love included?

And the most important thing is that we learn and we grow during our tenures in our companies. I don’t know if it’s you, but to me, the companies I’ve worked has really made me who I am today. The ups and downs has made me wiser, the experiences has made me skillful, and the chances I’ve got has discovered the competence that I never thought I had in me. How can’t I love something that has given all of that good things into my life?

Say no more, I know how it feels when the pressures killing us inside. The politics, the drama, the crazy deadlines, and so on; you mention it, I know it. But again, all of those office disasters are just the things that make us learn. It’s a precious lesson that we didn’t get in schools. Not only it has helped us to become a better employee, but also it has made us a better person inside. Trust me, it will come in handy in our personal lives too.

Loving our company doesn’t necessarily mean we spend 24 hours with it and make it our priority on top of all other important things in life. That’s NOT my point at all.

Love your company by being proud for being a part of it. Love it by ALWAYS doing your very best at work. And always remember… your company is your identity; if you spit on it, you spit on yourselves. Love it by keeping its name clean. Watch your behavior as a professional, because whatever you do may represent the entire Company as well. That’s how you love your company.

Believe it or not, loving our company will actually do good to us instead of to the Company itself. It will make us eager to learn every detail about our job; the business, the environment, and so on. Such business acumen will really help us to become an achiever at work. And of course, someone who loves their company will naturally make them look loyal to the Company and wherever we work, loyalty point is always a big plus.

What if your company is a bloodsucker that makes you suffer? Well, before I’m suggesting you to move on, I would rather asking this to yourself again, “Is it really the problem with the Company, or maybe… it’s just you?” If you keep jumping from one company to another over and over again, then maybe, the problem is yourself.

Loving a company is just like loving our families and friends. None of them is perfect. They will annoy us, upset us, piss us off, stress us out… Yet at the end of the day, we’ve got to live with it. No matter where we work, it will be just the same.

I’m not saying that we’ve got to stay with that current employer for forever though. If our best effort to fit in just never works, then it’s okay to move on. I believe finding a dream job in a dream company is like finding a Mr. Right. They won’t be perfect but they’re out there!

Life is too short to be spent with the things that we hate. Either love it or leave it! Have a great Monday, folks!

Are You Really in Love? Maybe, You Only Love the Idea of Falling in Love

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A few weeks back, a friend of mine once asked me, “Do you really fall in love with him or you’re just being in love with the idea of falling in love?”

To be frank, I didn’t really get her point back then. I didn’t even know if such a thing does exist in a real life. It’s not like I’m living in an imaginary world, a TV show or some random chic lit, right? I wasn’t sure I understood her statement, until one day, I saw something that lead me to understand her point of view.

So I happened to know a couple who kept saying to everyone how they were in love with each other. That kind of couple who made people envy or wonder themselves for being single. I thought all of those romances were real, until someday, I accidentally found out the true things happened behind their closed door.

I won’t share with you the details in this blog, it was simply the moment where I knew that everything was not as perfect as it seemed. It was not even close to the perfection as I thought beforehand. And then, I just couldn’t help thinking if everything I saw was fake.

The more I think about it, the more I understand why people says that sometimes, we’re just in love with the idea of falling in love. It’s not that they’re faking it, they’re just wanting to feel good about their own relationship. They want to prove themselves and everyone else that they are indeed falling for the right person. And then when I looked around, I suddenly could see that it might have happened to anyone of us.

Sometimes, we don’t really like that guy that we just met. We’re just glad to have someone to date at Saturday night.

There’s also a chance that we don’t really want to be with that particular person. Deep in our heart, we only want to have someone who wants us badly.

Or maybe, we say that we’re in love because we only want to tell the world that we’re finally taken. We simply miss the euphoria of telling everyone how we’re falling for someone new.

The other chances are that we love to have someone who looks after us. The one who calls us every night until we fall asleep. Who knows that we only need to admit that we love to be seen together with someone on our Path, Facebook, or Twitter account. We love the idea that after such a long search, we have finally found the one.

And when the reality is not as perfect as we have in mind, when the romance never turns as beautiful as we saw in a TV show, we tend to tell our families and friends the other way around just to heal a little bit of disappointment that we feel inside. Maybe we don’t lie, we ‘only’ exaggerate every little detail to make it look good and therefore, it will also make us feel a little bit better.

We keep playing the drama until finally, we can’t tell ourselves if we truly love the person, or maybe, we’re already lost in a thought that we fall for that one person.

Well if that’s the case, maybe some of you will start asking yourself, “How do I know if my love is real?”

It’s a tough question for me as I don’t really think that I have the right answer to that question. However I believe, if we’re all being honest to ourselves, we will eventually find our respective answer. Maybe, we either need to give it some times, do something to fix all the things that have gone wrong, or simply to stop lying to ourselves and go find something real.

Finally, everytime you find yourself in doubt, always do remember this basic rule to live by: life is too short to be spent with the wrong one! Let’s find ‘the one’ and live our life to the fullest!

Happy weekend!

My New Personal Goals

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In the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about the person that I want to become. About the way I talk, the way I react, the way I express everything I feel inside my heart… I can’t help but wondering… have I done the right things? The best things for myself? Have I tried hard enough to pursue my personal goals?

The more achievements you’ve won, the more pressures you’ve got to deal in life. And the more pressures you have, the more difficult for you to handle yourself. It’s so human and it can happen to anyone of us. Yet again, I just can’t help questioning myself… have I done my very best to be the very best version of me?

Most of the time I think, it will be very elegant if I’m capable to stay clam even when all things around me are going crazy. People may annoy me, deadlines may be just around the corner, but I wish I could just stay calm. I want to be able to focus with the problem solving rather than yelling at the people for the things that they did wrong. Fix the problems first and talk later.

I also want to find a way to say, “You’re stupid” without being sarcastic. It’s always important to stop people doing the stupid things that will put everyone in trouble, but I really need to find a better way to deliver the words. It’s not cool if preventing stupid things to happen made me end up as a jerk myself. You know… people may forget the things that we say and do, but they will never forget the way that we make them feel.

And finally, I really need to find a way to quit from the dramas. Most of the time, it’s not me creating those dramas in the first place. It’s other people looking for small trouble, annoys me behind everyone’s back, and then when I’m pissed, they will tell the world with their innocent faces, “She’s such a drama queen.”

Being in tough situation is of course nothing new to me, but somehow, it feels like I’ve got to find a new way to deal with it. What lead me to that thought?

  1. Society can be so unfair. The bad guy is always the one who punches first, and the victim is always the one who cries the loudest. If I want to win the game, then I need to be the expert on it; and
  2. Being out of control brings me regret afterward. The sarcasm, the yells, the uncontrolled anger, and the decisions I made when I was angry… those are the things that I wish I never did.

I know that people won’t believe that I’m capable of achieving these new personal goals. Anger problems are indeed on my blood already. However, even if it takes months, years, or maybe forever, but as long as I try to do my best, then I believe there will be no such a thing like wasted effort.

Best of luck to me!

Is There Any Easy Way to Deal with Broken Hearted?

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broken heartAn old friend once asked me, “What should I do to get him out of my mind?” Or, to move on and leave him behind. To start fresh. To get back the days before our heart was broken into pieces.

I wish I had a good answer to this question. I wish I knew how to make this moving on thing easier for us. But no… It’s sad but no, there is no such a thing like an easy way to deal with broken hearted. We only need to get used to it until finally, someday we will just know that we’ve moved on already.

We need to get used to his absence in our lives. There’s no more him to listen to our stupid stories. There’s no more him to enlighten our days. There’s no more him to look forward to, ever. We need to live with the fact that things will never be the same again.

Or if we fall for someone that we can’t have, all that we need to do is giving up our hopes. Let it go. He may be there for us, he may make us laugh, he may be everything we want from a guy we love, but he may never be ours. Be strong enough to accept the fact that he doesn’t belong with us.

I know that there’s a lot things we can do to get rid of him. We can hang out and have some fun, we can also try to find someone new, yet at the end of the day, everything is nothing if we’re still hoping that he will find his way back to us.

Moving on will never be easy. There is no magic that is capable to make us forget him in a blink of eyes. This is one of the times we learn that we can’t always have what we want to get. This is how we learn to live with a big heart as a wise grown-up.

Just hang on, be strong, and we’ll get there. Someday, we will wake up in the morning, look back, and smile ourselves knowing that we have gracefully left that past behind us.

My Appreciation to Lazada

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IMG_4569Today is exactly one year since the very first day I started working at Lazada Indonesia. One year working with Lazada, one year I met with so many new colleagues along the journey. The colleagues who shared these crazy workloads together, the ones who have my back everytime this ‘world’ seems to turn against me, and also the ones who keep me laugh even in the worst possible times.

My highest gratitude goes to my team who have sincerely accepted me as their leader. This one team who understands how I can be so cranky early in the morning, how I can be so annoying when something goes very wrong; it’s simply a team who supports me to fight the barriers and run toward the finish lines. I am nothing without their hard works, their contributions, their long hours at work, and their patience to constantly deal with this ‘tough life’, all together as a team.

Despite all of my grumpy attitudes, I’m so thankful for having these bosses as my boss. They trust my capability more than I trust myself, they give me chances to grow and prove myself, and they do everything in their powers to help me out everytime I’m in a big trouble. We’re not always aligned, not always being nice to each other, but at the end of the day, I know that once again in my career path, I am blessed to have them as my bosses.

I’m also thankful for other teammates in my department, especially the ones who end up as my good friends along the way. The chit chat, the encouragement, the jokes and laugh that we share together are just priceless! Having a helpful colleague is one thing, but having a good friend is one other extraordinary thing in life. I rarely find a place where many people sincerely support each other with no envy.

I’m also lucky enough to have a few friends from other departments who helped me a lot during my early times working for Lazada. I knew nothing about e-commerce and all systems involved in it back then, but they were all glad to let me know how it worked, as detailed as possible. They were all busy, but they always had times to answer my questions, to solve my problems, and of course, to share that not-so-important ‘news’ in between.

The last one, I’m also glad to have a few colleagues in regional team that have helped me so many times in the past few months. Sometimes I bother them with stupid questions that apparently I can answer by myself, yet they are still willing to find me the answers to my questions. I’m also glad that we still manage to have a good laugh apart from our crazy pressures at work.

I know that the tittle to this post is my appreciation to Lazada, yet all that I wrote is the people who work with me. But the thing is, what does define a company anyway? Company is only a name written on a piece of paper, and why should I say thank you to a piece of paper? It’s the people who work with me that has made Lazada a company that matters to me.

So guys, even though it looks like I’m angry all the time, the truth is I’m so happy to work with you. And yes, if you think that I wrote about YOU in this post, then this post is indeed all about you 😉

Let’s keep on rocking!