Dean Hua's Notes - The Amazing Project.
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Dean Hua's Notes - The Amazing Project.
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Mon 7:32
I was thinking of last night’s Amazing Dinner initiative. I didn’t expect everyone to be so charged up and excited about the event afterwards. People were genuinely excited to be in attendance, meet a lot of cool entrepreneurs and make productive business connections all at the same time. My job was done.
When I came up with the concept, I wondered as to what I should call it. Do I call it something generic like The Entrepreneur’s Dinner? Or do I just call it a get together and keep it low-key with the hype? But no, I had to get creative, create a logo, and start branding it already. So I picked, The Amazing Dinner.
But then, nervousness and trepidation started to creep in. This always happens to me whenever I organize something new that I hadn’t done before. I’ve been hosting and organizing social and professional events for years now. Nervousness and concern always starts to creep in till this very day.
I start to worry. I start to have thoughts such as; “What if it sucks?” What if no one comes? What if something happens to derail the event? What if one freaking moron decides to ruin it for everyone else?” Funny enough, they rarely ever do and it’s a rarity for me to ever have a bad event.
These thoughts are amplified when I do it for my professional network. I don’t want to lose face to them. I don’t want to waste their time when they can be at home with their family or at some other meeting. It’s my reputation that is on the line. I built it with every word I spoke, every action I made, and every deal that I brokered. It’s what is so precious to me.
These were some of the thoughts that occurred in my head every now and then leading up to the event. You know how I combated those thoughts? With the following below. And this is what I wanted to share with you.
Life is nothing without expectations. We could go through life and never expect anything from anyone and be perfectly content. Try doing that and see how little you will accomplish.
I decided to raise the bar high for this concept. To me, there is nothing more, well, amazing, then putting a group of risk-takers and deal-makers that I personally know and vouch for in one room. We sit down, break some bread, and create conversations around the one commonality that unites all of us. It is something that most of our friends will never understand about us. But as soon as we sit down, we already know how hard some of us had to toil to get to get to where we are today. There’s implied commonality.
Words such as nice and good are used in our daily language. We don’t know what it’s like to experience amazing on a daily basis. We just know that we’re “doing good.” Or we “feel fine.” Or that we think “that’s nice.”
But amazing? Forget about it.
We need to learn to set the bar high.
Some months ago, I recall seeing someone who was pretty amazing in her own right. She had all the qualities that I wanted in someone. I remember one phone conversation where she was on fire. She was dreaming of a better tomorrow for herself. I could hear that excitement in her voice and her vision. I couldn’t remember the last time I dated someone who was that excited and had amazing expectations of herself and her future. That unto itself excited me. She set the bar high for everything that she did in her life. Mediocrity was not in her vocabulary.
We’re so preoccupied with the daily rigors of life that we forget that there is something more spectacular just over the hill. We hang with a crowd that tries to bring us down. We follow a herd that lacks direction. We have to lead ourselves into a direction full of possibilities. We must become possibility thinkers again.
We have to expect amazing even if we get disappointed or heartbroken.
Life is one big project comprised of many smaller projects and milestones. Make a decision to take on a project and make it amazing. Develop an amazing relationship with your significant other. Have amazing friends. Find an amazing job. Make amazing money. Have an amazing night. Engage in an amazing conversation. Have an amazing kiss.
One definition of amazing is; “So remarkable as to elicit disbelief.”
It’s unexpected. It came out of nowhere. We are all capable of eliciting such a reaction from others if we really wanted to.
Make a decision that everything that you take on will have not just have a stamp of approval but leave people with an imprint of amazement. Leave people talking the next morning.
We don’t use the word, amazing, enough in our vocabulary. We don’t live up to amazing expectations or surround ourselves with amazing people or try to accomplish amazing things ourselves. Most of it is just mediocre. We settle.
So this was what went through my mind when I created the concept and title of The Amazing Dinner. I set the bar high with the name itself.
I had to bring in high caliber people. It had to be in a great restaurant. The conversation had to be fun and nonstop. Perhaps I set the bar too high. Afterall, how amazing can a simple dinner be? Well, judging from the feedback, it can be pretty darn amazing.
Wake up today with the decision that you’ll take on a project and make it amazing. Afterall, life itself is one big amazing project.
Live with purpose. Love with passion.
~Dean
posted by nige @ 7:54 AM
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