Your Turning Points - when enough is enough...

Jia Jiang is a US-based entrepreneur who came from Beijing, China. Jia Jiang's greatest fear is being rejected. This fear had prevented him from realising his truest potential.  One day, he decided to eradicate his inhibiting fear and today he has become a champion against the fear of rejection. If you have not heard of his story yet, now is the time. 

Jon Jandai grew up in the rural village in the Northeastern part of Thailand. He was told that poor village kids should go get a 'proper' education and work in a 'good job' in Bangkok. So, he went to Bangkok. Years later, he realised that Bangkok did not give him the life he had been promised. So, he decided to follow his heart and relocated back to his home village and felt that life could have not been better. Listen to Jon's story here as told by the man himself. Jon Jandai and wife  When I shared this with my students, one of them said this man is not facing up to his reality. My student said he should not try to escape the harshness of city life by going back to his village. My student's 24 years old. Do we really have to wait till we're in our 40s to realise that reality is what we make of it? Here's another insightful talk by Jon Jandai.

John Nels Hatleberg.  Anyone who is into diamonds might know him. Of course, I have not heard of him before this. He is the world famous diamond design expert. An artist with stone and gem, a designer, a world leading authority in his field. He works with South African government, British Musuem, consults De Beers..in all things diamond!. John says by age ten, it was clear he did not enjoy his piano lessons. His true passion even then was stone. He was fascinated with stones and gem. He said that he had incredible parents who not only allowed him to quit his piano BUT also enrolled him in a gem-cutting course at age 10 ! It was an adult education program held in a basement of suburban Maryland recreation center. He studied gem-cutting with a bunch of retirees as his class mates. He learnt so much from the course and from his class mates who are more experienced than him. Age is no barrier. Their common love for gem easily overcame that. In college, he stopped his gem-cutting cours

Grant Hackett is one of the world's greatest long distance swimmers. According to Wikipedia... Grant George Hackett   OAM   (born 9 May 1980) is an Australian swimmer, most famous for winning the men's 1500 metres   freestyle   race at both the   2000 Summer Olympics   in Sydney and the   2004 Summer Olympics   in Athens. This achievement has led him to be regarded as one of the greatest distance swimmers in history. He also collected a gold medal in Sydney for swimming in the heats of the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. He is well regarded for his versatility, and has held the long course world record in the 200 m, 800 m, and 1500 m freestyle. He has dominated the 1500 m event for a decade, being undefeated in the event in finals from 1996 until the   2007 World Aquatics Championships . In total, he has won 10 long-course world championship gold medals. Hackett was the captain of the Australian swimming team from the time the role was reintroduced in 2005 until his retirement

   Neil Chetan Saligrama created his TURNING POINT in the most unlikeliest of all places.  From India, he came to Australia to do his Masters of Mechanical Engineering at RMIT University and had to work part time to pay his bills. All he could get was a part-time job doing telesales.  To most people, this kind of job is not to be taken too seriously. You do enough just to not get fired. How many would treat it like a long term career? Not that Neil thought this would be his career but it was (and still is) just in his nature to do anything with his utmost commitment. As the saying goes, "How you do anything is how you do everything." In a matter of a few months, he went from being a full-time student/part-time employee to being a full-time employee/part-time student. He was given the responsibility to train new employees and lead teams across different offices of the organisation. After a few years, he started his own marketing and customer relationship manage

This 12-minute short film tells the story of young Arnold in Austria. Since young, Arnold loved bodybuilding because it gave him self-confidence. But his father did not approve of his passion (as Austrians love skiing and soccer but not bodybuilding).  So h e had a different plan.  H e sent 18 year-old Arnold  to the Austrian Army to become a tank driver.  His father thought that by sending him to the army, he will quit his bodybuilding. Instead of quitting, he continued to train in the military base every night after a long day physically challenging training.  And when Arnold received an invitation to compete in a junior contest in Stuttgart, he had to make the most difficult decision in his life. To compete or not compete? If he was to compete, he must sneak out of the base as he could not get the authority to grant him leave. He sneaked out, took part in the contest and won first place. The authority punished him severely for sneaking out AWOL (absent without leave) but w