Journey To Personal Excellence

My students have asked me – other than as an educator – how and why I have several other roles. My reasons include being curious to learn, discovering my aptitude and attitude for a new field, and wanting to excel in more than one field of expertise. Being excellent in a field of interest can raise your confidence, self-esteem and direct you towards being a better person. When you raise your bar of performance, you begin to attain a higher level of competency. The results can be positively repercussive, toppling upwards to a staircase of more possibilities, abilities and motivations. 

I enjoy practising sleight of hand magic, due to my curiosity about the four-century-old craft of deception-as-entertainment. Once I passed the initial stage of learning about the secrets of magic, I was intrigued with the thinking process behind the tricks. I became fascinated by the cleverness and creativity behind some of the illusions. In the last 20 years of this private and public hobby, I have met many amazing magicians, illusion-designers, magical authors and thinkers. I had the privilege to be friends with magical consultants (for David Copperfield and David Blaine) – all very nice people with a common, fiendish mind to astonish and amaze audiences. I also had the privilege to hold leadership positions in my magic club, and appear on television to share my magic performances.

Desmond Peh, Entrepreneur of the Year, 2010 who excels in magic, mathematics, and managing his chain of tuition agencies

With triathlons and marathons, I learnt to pursue excellence in another way. You can progress in your fitness in many dimensions. You can become faster and stronger with consistent training, the occasional racing, and strengthening of your core muscles. I also met many inspiring athletes who encouraged and helped me step up on my game, so that I may realize my dream of being the best runner and long-course triathlete I can be. Earning elite qualifying times, and participating in world championships has help me orientate my goals, aspirations and dreams.

Leadership Lessons: How do you attain personal excellence? When have you exceeded your interests and develop those into something you can take great pride in? Create a sense of purpose, and aim to change, develop and grow. It is better to be great at a few things, than be mediocre in many.


Running Photo-credit: Le Giang

Fractals On Friday

‘I find the ideas in the fractals, both as a body of knowledge and as a metaphor, an incredibly important way of looking at the world.’ Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore, New York Times, Wednesday, June 21, 2000.

I am fascinated by fractals. I was first smitten by fractals through world-champion magician, Lennart Green who applied it in a few of his amazing card tricks. Fractals are nature’s mathematical anomalies and phenomenon and as such, we can explore them as an additional set of lenses for which to view the world – with a sense of awe, wonder and respect.

A fractal is "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-familiarity. Fractals in nature comprise coastlines, mountain ridges, clouds, snowflakes, certain vegetables and lightning bolts.

Fractal geometry is a new way of looking at the world; we have been surrounded by natural patterns, unsuspected but easily recognized with some training and mind shifting. Think of a mosaic picture, except this time, it is made up of multiple, smaller, copies of itself – that’s the starting point of fractal geometry; a giant Lego ‘brick’ composed of numerous, smaller bricks. The image through the eye of a kaleidoscope is another variation (radiation of the same basic shape/image).

Fold a piece of paper currency in half, then in half again. How many times can you fold that bill until it is impossible to continue? It is a physical law that explains why we cannot go beyond an exact number. Each fold divides the original bill into fractions, which is a synthetic fractal. Lateral thinking exercises involve fractal geometry. For example, cut out an L-shape piece of paper. Now divide it equally into four equal parts. I am sure you will figure this out, and your solution will surprise you!

Having spent the last two months traveling extensively for work and vacation, I was triggered to read Guy Kawasaki’s (we interviewed him in March and did a book review of his latest book, Enchantment) recommended blog about air passengers. You could take this as a tongue-in-cheek approach, or wallow in your next airline experience and edit your observations.

Peggy Goldman writes about the stereotypes on Friendly Planet.

Syndicated cartoonist (of Loose Parts comic fame) and author, Dave Plazek followed up with his graphic interpretation of these airborne, quasi-archetypes – very funny.

Leadership Lessons: How have you utilized fractals at your workplace? How familiar are you with patterns of behavior of people you work with? How symmetrical are we when we comply with rules and conventions at the workplace? How much does symmetry matter when you enforce and live with discipline? How do your little actions add up to the gestalt of your entire being as a professional and a person?