I have a stammer.
When in primary school, it's not so fun when I got teased by my classmates.
Ever noticed we were at our "cruelest" when we were young?
Luckily, I was able to notice I stammered whenever I get too excited (out goes my Playboy collections).
So begins a lifetime journey of monitoring my breaths and being conscious of the way I speak. I've suppressed my stammer. Can't say it's cured fully as it sometimes comes back to say hello. When it does, I just take a deep breath and wink to this old friend of mine.
It's amazing now looking back that I ended up making a living by talking!? Be it in sales, in supply chain selling cost saving proposals to management, evangelising change in change management, and facilitating in workshops and courses...
I never learned my times-tables.
Funny how no one cared. I don't recall being tested on it. Then calculators came and we can even bring it to exams! Even less urgency for me to correct this gap in my learning.
There was a time when I was terrified to be found out. And if anyone of you have something to hide like me (dyslexia for eg), you would understand it's not a nice feeling to have.
It finally dawned on me that I can turn this lemon of mine into a lemonade.
When I am facilitating a class, and numbers or calculations came out, I will cheerfully shout: "People, help me out here. What's 8 times 7?"
"56!" someone will bound to shout back.
"Sure?"
"Confirm lah!" Now the whole class thunders!
I've stumbled onto one of the techniques to build 2 way interactions in a class.
And yes, we don't have to know everything as facilitators.
Hello weakness my old friend
Of course it's good to make our strengths stronger! That's given.
But its also good not to totally ignore our weaknesses.
If we don't despise, hate, or get angry with our weaknesses, our weaknesses can be good friends that make us lemonades when we are thirsty.
Even without lemonades, by embracing our weaknesses, we can develop empathy.
Scientists when determining whether an organism is "intelligent" will include this empathy test.
Singapore Man of Leisure (welcome to my blog; just google it!)
