Being an employee doesn’t make you less capable, driven or courageous. It could simply mean your personality traits aren't fitting for entrepreneurship, at least at this time.

If you’re at a crossroads and are contemplating starting your own business, maybe my list of traits will help you determine, or at the very least, give you a starting point to research the right areas or develop certain traits you need to become an entrepreneur.

If everything in life seems to work against you, or you are experiencing a difficult loss in your life and nothing is going right at the moment, taking a big breath and a big step back to regain your stability might be just what you need.

Throughout history, different religions, philosophers, and governments refined and rewrote a list of fundamental virtues to fit their constitutions and purpose at the time. Yet, in 1726, young Benjamin Franklin, at the age of 20, created a list of virtues for himself, to help him develop into the person he wanted to become.

Cutting off bad ties signifies that we are no longer willing to stay in relationships or situations that make us unhappy, no matter what challenges we may face in the future. It is a testament to the determination of wanting more for ourselves.

Meditation isn’t meant to shield us from our thoughts nor be used as a weapon against our mind. It is a passive tool with fluid and compassionate energy. In meditation, we cultivate the space of allowing.

Knowing we are whole and complete takes us out of the mentality of not being good enough when pursuing self-improvement, and puts us in the mindset of empowerment instead. This way, we are on a journey of discovery rather than a search for something we don’t have.

Experiencing triggered emotions is simply human. We each have our own specific pain points that others may not be aware of or understand. The speed and intensity of those reactions vary from person to person.

Perfection also instills fear in us—fear of failure and fear of our personal imperfections. This fear leads us down a dark path where we tend to avoid challenging situations or competitions because failure seems unbearable.

In order to allow love to enter, our heart will have to be open to it. The wider it is open to receive, the greater the love will enter. The chance of heartbreak and disappointment will always be there… Our mind cannot separate us from love, it can only create fear.

As I went about everyday life cool, calm, and collected, my mind was the complete opposite. It was hyper-alert and restless. Like TikTok, it played, replayed, and commented on every scenario and conversation that happened in the past hours, months, and years.

The world we live in seldom encourages authenticity, at least not genuinely, I often feel. We may hear words of empowerment to be authentic, but when we do we are often reprimanded for being too real.

Unless you want your life to end exactly the way it is now, a healthy dose of fear of not changing is just as valuable as your fear of changing. And the better you can imagine your life becoming, the more uncomfortable you will be about it not changing.

For three months, I spent most days at home in solitude. I turned off sound notifications on my phone. I prioritized self-care through rest, whole food, exercise, and meditation. I chose to spend time with people and on activities that energized me.

While everyone’s rock bottom may look differently, the feeling of being at rock bottom is probably very similar. It’s that feeling of utter incompetence and unworthiness, that you are as low and insignificant as a pile of rubble and you have no idea how to come back up.

I stretch out my hands, my arms,
the full length of my body
and plunge into the pools of gratitude.

While it’s a healthy stepping stone toward deeper self-discovery, many of those labels can make us feel like there’s something wrong with ourselves and others, when there isn’t. As we read trending definitions and discussions on each of those labels, we can feel as though we either enable one of them or we are one of them.

As we expand our consciousness, it’s not unusual to ask why we do certain things and whether or not it supports the inner freedom we seek. Or, is it just another set of conditions we were subjected to live by?

As someone who grew up in Hong Kong during the 80’s and 90’s and has been living in Australia for nearly three decades, I often ponder questions regarding my identity: Who am I? Chinese, British overseas citizen, or Australian?

We live in a society that often typecasts us in a certain role based on our outward appearance and demeanor. Expectations start to form about who we are based on those impressions that reinforce and motivate us to be that person.