Update: I’ve revised the launch date such that it’s exactly 1 week after the pre-sale date, which is 18 July (this coming Sunday). Read this post for details for the pre-sale – you don’t want to miss it! It’ll be for newsletter subscribers only and will have a special discount for 1st 25 buyers.

Those of you who follow my Twitter and Facebook updates would know I’ve been busy working on my upcoming book in the past week. This book, titled The Personal Excellence Book, is a compilation of 120 premium, personal development articles written by me, which includes 110 articles from the blog as well as 10 new, never seen before bonus articles.

The contents in this book are the result of 2 years and thousand hours of real hard work writing, tireless labor, late nights, distilling of my best life learnings for you and passion to live our best life. If you’re serious about your personal growth (which I assume you are if you’re reading this blog), you really cannot miss this book, and I’m not just saying this. At over 700 pages and 120 in-depth articles, it’s your essential handbook to pursue personal growth and live your best life.

By the way, this will be an ebook and not a hard copy book. There are 3 reasons:

1. It’s the most efficient way to release a book to all of you especially since TPEB has a large international reader base (over 70% are from outside Singapore)
2. At over 700 pages (A4 size, no less), the printing costs would be insane. The price of the book would barely be sufficient to cover the printing. Not to mention it’s also going to be thicker than any reference book out there . Also, it’ll be environmental friendly (imagine all the trees we’ll be killing just to print 1 book!!).
3. Ebook / PDF is a perfectly great format to release this book. You can read it anywhere on the computer and with your ebook reader if you have one.

This is my first product ever since starting the blog and I’m really excited about it. I’ve been working on it day after day, putting the articles together, writing the new articles, sourcing for appropriate, high quality images to improve the reading experience, working on the layout, cover design, benchmarking against others’ ebooks to make sure you get the best quality, among others. I’ve taken special care to ensure the look of the book is consistent with the look of the blog too. It has been really, really enjoyable and I can’t wait till it’s finally out.

Right now, it’s almost ready for release. I’d say it’s about 95% done. Remaining 5% includes finishing up the remaining articles, writing the product launch page, setting up the affiliate program and payment system, final sourcing for images and tidying up the nitty gritty details.

Sneak Preview

Last week I promised to give some update on the blog and today I’m here to give you a sneak preview of what’s been going on behind the scenes:

Working on the book cover design in Photoshop. This is pretty much the final design. All the book design and layout of TPEBook is done by me.
(The lovely book image is © Horia Varlan)

The Personal Excellence Book – Your handbook to live your best life

Table of contents. Since there are 120 articles, the contents page ended up being 5 pages long!!
I’ve categorized the articles into 9 key categories for easy browsing. The categories are: Purpose & Meaning, Awareness & Growth, Passion & Dreams, Goals & Success, Cultivating Life Transforming Habits, Emotional Mastery, People Skills/Relationships, Maximizing Productivity and Inspirational Quotes.

A sneak peek at the insides of the book… This article is “Discover Your Values” and guides you through the topic of life values and how to discover your values. It’s one of the new bonus articles written specially for the book, with 3,000+ words and 9 pages long.

A few shots of other pages in the book.

The above is just a sneak peak. Expect a whole lot more information on TPEBook come launch day.

TPEBook Launch Date: 25 July (Sunday)

I’ve set to launch the book officially on 25 July, Sunday. That’s next week so be sure to mark your calendars! That’s when the (e)book will go live on the blog and other sites (I plan to have it on sales on Kindle and iTunes store too) and everyone can start purchasing. On 25 July, you’ll see an official announcement blog update with all the details and link to purchase the book.

By the way, Singapore time is ahead of US and Western World, so if you live in US or WW, keep a lookout for the announcement on the book come 24 July your time.

Special Pre-sales Offer on 18 July (Sunday) – For Newsletter Subscribers Only

I’ll be having a special pre-sales exclusive to newsletter subscribers exactly 1 week before the launch. Pre-sales meaning you’ll be given the chance to get your hands on the book before anyone else. There’ll also be a discount off the original price for the early birds. This pre-sales offer will be only valid to ONLY the 1st 25 buyers and is on a 1st come 1st serve basis.

Be sure you’re on the TPEB newsletter so you don’t miss out on this offer. If you haven’t signed up already, quickly sign-up here, check your mail and confirm the subscription right away. The pre-sales announcement will be sent to all subscribers on 18 July 2010, which is this coming Sunday.

Please Support Me

This is my 1st ever product and I hope it’s the first to many more. If you found the articles on the blog helpful to your personal growth and journey in life, this book will be really be invaluable to you. I hope all of you can support me and buy a copy when it’s out. I have no idea how it’s going to do or anyone is even going to buy it, but I’m surely excited to see what happens next. Till then, wait for the pre-sales newsletter from me on 18 July .

Update 27 Jul: The Personal Excellence Book is now officially available for purchase! You can get your copy here: The Personal Excellence Book.

Related Posts:

• The Personal Excellence Book is Officially Up For Purchase!
• Important: Pre-Order Starts in Less Than 22 Hours
• When Goals Stop Working
• The Howling Dog Story
• More Free Ebooks For You: The Best Series of TPEB
• Get Your Big Rocks In First
• 101 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time
• Update: More Free Ebooks, Simply Her July Feature, 26th Birthday and Other News

2 More Free Ebooks For You

Following the huge popularity of the free ebooks (over 10,000 downloads to date!), I just released 2 more free ebooks: How To Be A Dean’s Lister and 1o1 Things To Do Before You Die.

You can download the first book directly off the free ebooks section. The 2nd book requires you to be a TPEB newsletter subscriber first. (I’ve replaced the previous TPEB compilation guide with 101 Things To Do Before You Die as the free ebook guide when you sign up.) If you are already a subscriber, simply scroll to the bottom of the latest email newsletter and you’ll find the download link.

Enjoy, and feel free to share the love with others. If you haven’t already, be sure to grab the other 6 free ebooks in the ebooks section. Please retweet and share the link on facebook if you found them useful

Successful Workshop: How To Write Winning Resumes (19 June)

Last Saturday (19 June), I conducted the 2nd run of How To Write Winning Resumes with JobsCentral. The workshop was a complete blast – participants said they had many takeaways and we received near perfect ratings on all metrics- beneficial level, application, speaker, value for money, workshop style, among others!

Participants all felt this was very high value for money and those who attended similar resume/employment workshops before said our workshop is a lot better than the others. 100% of them voted they will recommend this to their friends. Thanks to everyone for coming.

Here are some photos:

Early in the morning – The JobsCentral team getting ready for registrations. Love the bunny mascot!

A quiet classroom – 30 minutes before the workshop commencement

Here we go! Me kicking off and introducing myself to everyone

Participants hard at work There were plenty of hands-on activities and exercises for participants to take away the maximum learnings from what was taught.

Discussions galore within the groups That’s Sushant (closest to the picture with the green number 3), Danny (striped polo tee), Leow (orange), Justin (black) and Devin (white).

One of our participants, Devin, boldly presenting and sharing to the class

Many more pictures at: How To Write Winning Resumes and Achieve Employment Success (TSOPE Facebook Gallery). If you haven’t, be sure to join the Facebook fanpages: The School of Personal Excellence | The Personal Excellence Blog.

Simply Her Feature (July Feature)

My July feature with Simply Her is now out in the news stands . For the benefit of non-Singapore readers, I’ve scanned it and you can read it below. Here’s the behind-the-scenes photoshoot. We had single shots and group shots, and I guess they went ahead with the group shot in the end.

Click each thumbnail to see the full size page. Surf over to the media section for past media features.

Thanks to all your kind comments in my Facebook album

My 26th Birthday

This Friday, 25 June, marks my 26th birthday . Time really flies – it feels like just a few months ago when I was writing about my 25th birthday.

I won’t be doing anything special for this year’s birthday – just the same old, celebrating with my best friends – watching movies, playing board games, catching up, dining together . And I wouldn’t want it any other way too

Coming Next at TPEB

For the past 1.5 years, I’ve been giving away some of my best content for free at the blog. I wanted to single-mindedly focus on gaining traction and building awareness, and hence did not concern myself with the monetization aspect of business. It is also to level-up myself quickly. This has worked out great – TPEB is now an established name in the personal development blogosphere (thanks to you guys) and readers come here because they recognize the high value of the content.

Now that things are moving along, I’ll be focusing more on the business aspect of my work. Nothing’s going to change on the blog-front – I’ll still continue to write as per normal, with free articles on how to live in excellence and answering questions via Ask Celes. If anything, there will be new, exciting additions – be prepared to see new products packed with extremely high value (books, online courses) and a series of targeted services (1-1 coaching and seminars) designed to meet your needs. It’ll be an exciting period up ahead .

The Personal Excellence Book – Your Handbook To Live Your Best Life

The first product coming up will be The Personal Excellence Book – a compilation of the best articles at The Personal Excellence Blog in the past 2 years. This will be bigger and better than the previous TPEB compilation I offered to newsletter subscribers. I’m considering compiling all the best articles to date in this new series, but that might be an overkill so I’ll evaluate accordingly.

Many readers have suggested that I release a compilation book of the blog, and this is the answer to your requests. On one hand, you have the best of TPEB put together in 1 book conveniently  for your perusal. You’ll be able to read TPEB on the go (on your phone, Kindle, iPador laptop), even without being connected to the internet. You’ll be able to print it out easily and use it as a book. On the other hand, it’s a form of value return for me – the money I earn through this book will support myself, allow me to continue the work I’m doing and enable me to embark more projects to help more people.

Expect to read more on this in a week’s time.

Secrets of Excellence: How To Be The Best In Everything You Do – Unreleased Content

This will be the upcoming book which I’ve been talking about. I’m still writing this as I speak (about 25% done at the moment) and it’s not going to be due for another few months at least. In a way, this is a very early announcement, but I’m just really excited about it and I can’t wait to share it with you

Secrets of Excellence will contain my best content ever yet. I’ll be sharing my best, timeless principles on achieving excellence in life, alongside with my concepts, strategies, personal stories and examples which bring the principles to life. You absolutely cannot miss this .

I’ve not decided whether I’ll be launching this as an ebook, self-publish or go with a publishing house. Each has its own set of pros and cons. I’m still in the evaluation stage – if you have any experience with book publishing and/or you know of any publishing contacts, please feel free to share with me in the comments area or via contact form.

Related Posts:

• Upcoming Workshop: How To Write Winning Resumes (19 June, Sat)
• Sneak Preview: The Personal Excellence Book (Pre-Order Starts 18 July, Sunday)
• How To Excel In Your Career Workshop Results (22 May)
• Have You Gotten Your Free TPEB Ebook Yet?
• My 25th Birthday! :)
• More Free Ebooks For You: The Best Series of TPEB
• Free Ebook: The Very Best Of TPEB, Celebrating 1 Year of Excellence
• The Book of Inspiring Quotes (Free Ebook With Over 300 Quotes!)

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by Simply Her Magazine to give coaching advice on workplace persona and how one should carry oneself at work. Simply Her magazine is a consumer lifestyle guide in Singapore, with a readership of 110,000. It offers practical solutions on everything that interests the modern, working women, such as home, career, family, consumer, health, fashion, beauty, travel and self-empowerment.

As a case study, I was asked to offer my career coaching to a brand manager in a local company. The task entailed (1) shadowing her at work for 2 days – from being in meetings, interacting with colleagues, liaising with customers, talking on the phone, giving presentations, etc -, (2) observing how she carried herself in these situations, and (3) coaching on those areas – what were the positive areas, what could be improved, and in the process helping readers learn how to project their best workplace persona.

After the coaching wrapped up, we had a photoshoot as part of the article feature. My past media photoshoots were done in my home, and this was my first media photoshoot in a studio. It was a very fun experience, and the stylists and designers were very fun loving people too .

Here’s some pictures of the photoshoot to share with you guys:

The SPH lobby

Entrance to Simply Her and Her World Office. These are some of the past covers!

Collage of past features in the magazine

Trying on my clothes and having the designer decide on the outfits for the shoot

Having my hair done. Jacqueline is the hairstylist, while Rachel (the lady with the stripped shirt) is the make-up artist. Check out her make-up kit!

Getting my make-up done

Preparing for the shoot! The lady in green is the designer Sherry, while the photographer is behind setting up the camera.

Lights, camera and smile!!

Closer shot

Changing outfits for the 2nd shoot, which is the group shot

That’s me with Lorraine, who is the brand manager I worked with in the case study . The metal bar-like things are more as placeholders. They will be removed in the final photos.

Me and Lorraine again

Me with Jacqueline, the hairstylist

A sneak peak of one of the shots

Want to see the actual feature article and the outcome of the photoshoot? The feature will be out in the upcoming July issue of Simply Her (which will be out by third week of June, which is next week!). Singapore-based readers – You can grab a copy at local newstands, supermarkets and convenience stores

Thanks Madeline and Lorraine – It has been wonderful working with both of you on this!

Related Posts:

• My Latest Media Coverage in Simply Her Magazine
• Media Coverage in My Paper
• EmbraceLiving.Net in Media!
• Update: More Free Ebooks, Simply Her July Feature, 26th Birthday and Other News
• Media Coverage in ZB Comma
• My Letter To All Of You
• Media Coverage in Lianhe Wanbao (2nd Feature)

Welcome to Free Hugs Central, where you get hugs whenever you want – totally free

Get hugs from me

To claim your free hug, simply post a comment and I promise you I will reply and hug you back. There’s no limit to the number of free hugs you can claim. Free hugs available every day, 7 days a week and all through the year . You can post today for a hug, and you can come back tomorrow for another hug. And so on and so forth.

Bookmark this page – Whenever you need a hug, simply drop by this page and post a comment. I’ll greet you with a big smile and a big hug . Unlike other posts where comments close after 45 days, I intend to keep comments for this open forever so there’s no time limit.

Hug other readers

Feel free to reply to other readers and hug them too!

Hugs for your friends

If you know anybody who can use a hug, direct them to this page and I’ll hug them as well. Spread the love around!

Related Posts:

• Comments Are Now Open!
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• The Personal Excellence Book is Officially Up For Purchase!
• How To Deal With Rude People – Part 2
• Reader Survey: What Does the Site Logo Mean to You?
• More Free Ebooks For You: The Best Series of TPEB
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• How I Moved On From A Heartbreak – Part 3: Forgiveness, Closure and Moving On

• Part 1: What is Dean’s List and 6 Key Benefits of Being A Dean’s Lister
• Part 2: How To Be A Dean’s Lister: Tips #1 – #6
• Part 3: How To Be A Dean’s Lister: Tips #7 – #13

Image ©

Recently I noticed there’s a good number of students (mainly university) who read TPEB. So I figure it’ll be useful for me to write a post on getting on the dean’s list. This post will be beneficial for any student, not just university students, as it’s about achieving academic excellence. Even if you aren’t a student, it’s still a good read. I reckon some of the tips shared here can be cross-applied to other areas in life.

Coincidentally it’s the exam periods of the local universities right now (all the best to those sitting for exams now!), so these might come a little late for this semester. Use it as the prep guide from next semester onwards, and you’ll be set to graduate with flying colors

What is a Dean’s List?

Dean’s List should be a familiar term to university students / graduates. Here’s what Wiki has to say:

A Dean’s List is a category of students in a college or university who achieve high grades during their stay in an academic term or academic year. .. Its meaning varies from institution to institution, and other terms are sometimes used instead in place of dean (e.g. provost’s list, chancellor’s list, president’s list).

Dean’s List, as the Wiki describes, is an honorary roll assigned to the top students. The GPA cut-off to get into the Dean’s List varies across faculties and academic terms. If I were to give a ballpark estimate, your GPA has to be at least 3.6/4.0 or 4.5/5.0 (i.e. average of A- and A for all subjects) and above to be considered on the Dean’s List. If students were more competitive in a particular term, the cut-off will be higher.

When I was studying in NUS (National University of Singapore), I was on the Dean’s List for all 3 academic years I studied there. NUS Business School was a competitive faculty (it’s a leading business school in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region), with a good number of students from top junior colleges and scholars from the neighbouring countries, so it was an accomplishment to be on the list. I later graduated in 2006 as the top student in my specialization (Marketing). In my graduation year, I was also awarded gold medals for being the most outstanding student, which I was honored to receive.

Looking back, university years were easily my best years in my entire 2 decades of education, and I’m not saying that because I did well. The graduation from every academic phase from primary school -> secondary school -> junior college -> university would grant us students with increased freedom and liberty. It was something I really appreciated, especially being free-spirited at heart. (IMO, bureaucracies and disciplinarian approaches hardly bring out the best in us – while there’s merit behind the approaches, it’s only short-term. In the long-term, they tend to stifle and suffocate.)

Why get on the Dean’s List?

There are definite benefits from being a Dean’s Lister, some of which are deterministic and a couple I consider more as fringe benefits.

I’d like to highlight that these are benefits I experienced as a business student during my time (2003-2006). They might not apply to other universities/faculties/time periods, though I reckon they shouldn’t differ much. The baseline upsides should be the same no matter where you are from.

6 Key Benefits of Being a Dean’s Lister

1. A sense of personal achievement. The most important reason, IMO. Getting on the Dean’s List is clearly a great personal achievement to be proud of. Dean’s List is not awarded on absolute GPA score; rather it’s on comparative basis with your peers. Meaning if all your peers happen to be top academic whizzes, you have to be a super whiz to top them. Being on the Dean’s List means you are pretty much in the top 1-5% of the faculty in terms of academic results.
2. Increasing your employability factor. Ultimately we study in university to get a good job – our best possible job. While results is not the sole determinant behind getting a good job (there are your leadership activities, attitude, personality fit, etc), it is highly important, especially for top jobs with Fortune 100 companies. In fact, I’d go as far to say that the 1st preliminary cut off top employers use in recruitment is academic results, especially for campus recruitments.
3. Invitation to special events. Since you’re among the top in your cohort, you’ll be invited for special events. Most common being networking events with executives from other companies, usually top ones – the ones you might want to join. To be honest, of all the ones I’ve been to, I only found some of practical use – but it’s always good to just be there and meet new people. There are also international case competitions, where participation is generally on invitation basis. Again, invitees are usually selected from the Dean’s List first.
4. Exclusive access to top employers. Top companies often hold recruitment events on campus. There are the recruitment seminars to masses, and then there are the exclusive networking sessions with smaller groups – whereby the students are selected on invitation basis. Not surprisingly, the HR in the top companies commonly request the Dean’s Office to invite students of a certain cut-off GPA. Examples are Procter & Gamble (my ex-company as most of you already know), McKinsey, investment banks and consulting firms.
5. Being on the Dean Office’s radar. When you are on the dean’s list, people in the dean’s office and university career office tend to know you. After all, there are several hundreds of students in the faculty, and only a small handful are selected to be on the dean’s list. Ego-boosting reasons aside, this can be useful for random situations, say when you want to get the inside scope on what’s going on, an inside favor of sorts, or just generally having a new friend to talk to about university matters.
6. Prestige and recognition. If all the special invitations and inclusions in exclusive events aren’t already enough recognition, being on the dean’s list is pretty much synonymous with intellectual smarts and success in university. As the board would put up the list of people on the dean’s list online and also on school campus, students who read it generally know who you are, at least by name. People usually speak of dean’s listers with a certain awe and respect.

While it was exciting being on the Dean’s List back in university, I don’t associate it as part of my identity today. (such thoughts, if any, crumbled away right about the same time I discovered my purpose) It takes me by surprise nowadays when someone refers to this aspect of my past. The conversation will go like: “I think it’s really amazing you were on the Dean’s List before”, and I’ll be like: “Dean’s List? Wha….. oh, back in university. It’s nothing, really.”

The one thing I identify with myself the most today is my mission to help others achieve excellence and live their best life (my purpose). Anything else is just an external identity, a representation of certain values and beliefs. I don’t connect much with labels and instead look at the message behind the labels, because ultimately labels are impermanent and will be shed away one day anyway.

Continue to: How To Be A Dean’s Lister – Part 2

Related Posts:

• How To Be A Dean’s Lister – Part 3
• How To Be A Dean’s Lister – Part 2
• Sneak Preview: The Personal Excellence Book (Pre-Order Starts 18 July, Sunday)
• The Howling Dog Story
• When Goals Stop Working
• Update: More Free Ebooks, Simply Her July Feature, 26th Birthday and Other News
• More Free Ebooks For You: The Best Series of TPEB

To all of you, whether you are a new or long-time reader, there’s something I want to share with all of you. It’s a feeling that’s been brimming inside me for the past few days, and I know I can’t get on to other posts until I write about this. At this point of writing, I don’t know exactly what I’m going to write, so I’m going to just let the words flow by themselves.

The Start of My Journey

I still remember it was 2 years ago, in Oct 2008, when I left my ex-company to pursue my passion to help others grow. At that time, I had no idea what was going to happen. I had no idea what were the obstacles up next, what I was going to do, my specific plans, nor how things were going to turn out. In front of me was a huge, misty fog and I didn’t know what was before me.

Was there uncertainty? Yes there was, lots of it. There was uncertainty of what was going to happen. There was uncertainty of how long it was going to take for things to take off. There was uncertainty of what it would take to succeed in this new path.

There were two things I was certain though. Firstly, I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. There was nothing else I would rather do. Secondly, I knew that no matter what was up before me, no matter what obstacles I would face, I would succeed in it. I knew that as long as I pursued this with my heart and all my might, I would achieve what I set out to do. I would do whatever it takes to get there.

I brainstormed on the different mediums to live out my passion. Blogging was one. 1-1 coaching was another one, and then there was training. The latter 2 were areas I didn’t have experience in then, so I decided to start off with blogging, which had low barriers to entry. At the same time, I would hone my skills in the coaching and speaking through self-learning and direct experience.

Starting Out

So I started off with my blog in Dec 2008. Dec 14 2008, to be exact. You can read the very first entry of the blog here. To the readers who started reading way back, you’d know the blog first started as EmbraceLiving.Net. I wanted to drive home the message of “living to our fullest potential and living our best life”, and brainstormed on a list of domain names that fit that theme. Many domains turned out to be registered, and since EmbraceLiving.net was one of the few that wasn’t registered, I took that. I set the blog slogan as “To achieve our highest potential and to live our best life“, in line with my purpose. Looking back, that was a little mouthful for a slogan.

From there, I focused on writing my best articles every day. My earliest articles in Dec ‘08 were How To Discover Your Purpose (7-part series), The Myth of Perfectionism (3-part series), Become the Master of Your Time , Put First Things First, You are the CEO of Your Life and Self Discipline is Overrated. Every day, I would spend hours and hours writing content-rich articles. Articles I didn’t feel were good enough were trashed. Articles that made the cut, were revised over and over again to ensure this was the best content I could offer to readers. I ensured everything written here was value-laden, universal (applicable to anyone from anywhere) and timeless (applicable whether you read this 10 years ago, now, or 10 years later). I set a very high bar for my articles, because I knew people would be reading these for advice on their own life situations.

I worked really hard at promoting the blog at social media sites, with Digg.com and Reddit.com as the key ones. I told all my friends about my blog and sought their help to share it with others who are interested in personal growth. I commented at related personal development blogs and local forums, so people who liked my comments would surf over to my blog to take a look. I also emailed other bloggers to establish friendships with them, friendships which continue to last till today. Even as I’m typing this, a wave of nostalgia is washing over me.

Challenges Faced

During the early period, my friends or ex-colleagues who met me would ask me a flurry of questions. “Why did you quit such a great job?” “Are you going to get another job?” “How are you going to earn money?” “What are you going to do?” “How long are you going to do this?” “When are you getting back to work again?” and a barrage of other questions. Sometimes I would openly address these questions, other times I wished they would just stop asking. I appreciated their care and concern, but after a while I got a little weary of explaining the same things over and over. I was tired of explaining what was going to happen. I would rather spend that energy creating the results.

Truth be told, a part of me was frustrated I didn’t already have those results. If I did, I wouldn’t need to do any explaining. Money emerged as an issue, and I was frustrated that it was an issue, especially when I never had to worry much about money back when I was working previously. In the past, I was well paid compared to my peers; I would spend on whatever I wanted and needed without worrying about the price. But then after I quit, I had to be conscious of my expenditures. I cut away all my insurance plans. I simplified my lifestyle, cutting away many expenditures. I used to shop a whole lot, but then I stopped doing that. I tried to eat at home where possible. When I was buying stuff, whether food or otherwise, I would go for lower cost alternatives. I felt constrained. I was disappointed.

I didn’t want to worry about money as I was starting out, because I felt value creation and awareness generation were more important in the early stages of my work, rather than earning money. At the same time, I couldn’t ignore the reality. It was a petty yet real issue. I needed to support myself  and I needed to give money to my parents. It wasn’t fair for them to be implicated by my personal decision. So I started giving private tuition to students to earn some side money. It wasn’t a lot (I was just earning a few hundred bucks a month), but at least there was some money coming in to offset the expenditures. That helped me to focus on pursuing my passion.

Results

Meanwhile, I continued writing and promoting the blog, day after day. Even during the days when it seemed like no one was reading my articles, or the traffic was dwindling, I kept at it. I remember in the 1st week of my blog, there was an average of less than 100 visitors a day. It was about the same for the next 2 weeks. Often times I would get spikes from social media sites, but it never sustained – traffic would quickly plateau the next day. Nonetheless, I kept researching and learning from others, improvising my actions along the way. I knew it was a matter of time before the results would come in.

And they did too. On 6 Jan 2009, my article on sleepwalkers hit the front page of Digg.com, and later on Delicious. For those not familiar with social media, Digg.com is one of the largest social media sites in the US. It brought in over tens of thousands of new visitors in just a couple of days. That was the first milestone for the blog. Later on, my articles on 101 Inspiring Quotes and 5 Reasons To Quit Drinking Soda Drinks (And How To Do It) would hit the FP of StumbleUpon and Digg.com respectively, bringing in other new visitors.

Then on 27 March, My Paper, a widely circulated newspaper in Singapore (with 300,000 circulation), covered me in their feature story. I was beyond ecstatic. This was my first time appearing on the newspapers (other than one other time in secondary school) and I didn’t know what to expect at all. The interview took place over the phone, while photoshoot was done inside my room.

A day before the release, I excitedly texted just about everyone on my mobile about the upcoming feature and told them to check the papers the next day. I still remember waking up at 6:45am that morning just so I would be one of the first to get a copy. Considering I would wake up late during those days, that was very early. I remember feeling groggy and blurry eyed as I was queuing up for the papers.

Immediately after the feature, I received an overwhelming number of requests for my coaching, so much so that I had to start charging a nominal fee to control the demand, as well as put in place a waiting list. The waiting list would continue to be filled out for the rest of the year.

Realigning With My Vision

In June 2009, I realized the name Embrace Living was attracting self-help junkies (people who indulge in self-help but don’t take action), and this wasn’t in line with the message I was trying to drive. I wanted to advocate the message that life is about living it to the fullest and being the best we can, and there’s nothing we cannot achieve as long as we set our heart to it. After much thought, I settled on The Personal Excellence Blog (TPEB) as the new name, and the slogan “Be your best self, Live your best life“. (which interestingly, was already ringing in my head back in Dec ‘08) Looking back, I couldn’t have come up with a better option.

Continual Hard Work and Growth

Throughout the year, I continued to give my best learnings and insights away in my articles at my blog. Offline, I coached different individuals from different walks of life, and did several workshops and speeches. I eventually set up The School of Personal Excellence at the end of 2009. In the meantime, I continued to promote the blog – on social media sites, optimized the SEO (search engine optimization), wrote guest posts, posted on article directories, advertised on other sites, among others. I continued to be interviewed and featured by different media channels.

The efforts paid off. As the months went by, more and more people got to know about TPEB. I received more feedback day by day, many of which are positive and others being constructive criticism. More people began to link back to TPEB on their blogs. Others would share the articles with their friends and family, or spread the word through word of mouth.

The readership base grew over the year, from an average of 500 visitors/day, to 600, 800, 1,100, 1,400, 1,600, 1,800… to an average of 3,000 unique readers today. Subscriber count grew from 0, to a few hundreds, to the 1st thousand, then 1,200, and 1,600… and most recently nearly 2,000.

Somewhere, somehow during this phase, you got to know about TPEB in someway of another. Maybe it was some random web surfing one day. Maybe it was a friend’s recommendation. Or maybe it was from search engines, social media, blogs or forums.

Today

It’s been 1 year and 4 months since this blog started. It’s been hundreds of hours of hard work and late nights, writing the articles, running the site and promoting the blog. It’s been hundreds of emails (to/from readers/clients), about 150 articles written and about half a million words typed. It has been a lot of passion, a lot of love and a lot of warmth.

Whether you started reading TPEB from when I first started out, or halfway last year, or just recently, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for living in this world. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for your feedback and support. Thank you for giving me the chance to live my purpose. Thank you for sharing this blog with your friends/family. Thank you for linking to this blog. Thank you for being a part of my life. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a catalyst in your journey of conscious growth. It’s really my honor and privilege.

This blog wouldn’t be where it is today without you. Understand that all that I’m doing today is possible because of you. So, thank you.

This is my journey thus far and I can’t wait to see what’s next. I can’t wait to share it with all of you. I’m not going anywhere – as far as I’m aware of, I’m going to continue writing at this blog forever till the day I die. I want to share with you many more stories of myself, my past, my present and my future – all the upsides, the downsides, the glamorous sides, the ugly sides – as I continue on to grow and help others grow. I’m not afraid to share with you my vulnerabilities and my shames if it will help even just one person in his/her journey of growth.

There are endless areas for me to learn from, endless number of things for me to improve on and endless number of things for me to experience. I don’t claim to have all the answers. I don’t have all the answers and I may not always be right. There are times when I may very well be wrong. To be honest, I don’t know what exactly to expect next. But one thing that I can be sure of is this – I’ll surely continue to live true to my mission. I will continue to grow fervently and be the best I can be. I will continue to do my best in helping others out there to grow and live their best lives. I’m very grateful that you are here with me on this journey. There will be more obstacles, more challenges and more difficulties, and I look forward to overcoming them with you as I journey down this path.

Related Posts:

• Sneak Preview: The Personal Excellence Book (Pre-Order Starts 18 July, Sunday)
• Why I Openly Share My Life With You, The Media And The World
• The Personal Excellence Book is Officially Up For Purchase!
• Update: More Free Ebooks, Simply Her July Feature, 26th Birthday and Other News
• Are You Sleepwalking Your Life Away? (Part 2)
• Two Important Things that Led to My Discovery of My Real Purpose
• My Experience with Disappointment and How I Overcame It
• Embracing My Passion

1. How I Moved On From A Heartbreak – Part-1: My Journey With Love
2. How I Moved On From A Heartbreak – Part-2: Heartbreak and Sadness
3. How I Moved On From A Heartbreak – Part-3: Forgiveness, Closure and Moving On
4. Top 12 Signs It’s Time To Move On From A Relationship
5. 10 Useful Ways To Move On From A Relationship

Note from Celes: Hey guys! Thanks so much for your beautiful comments, emails and private messages the past few days regarding parts 1 and 2 of the series. Every single one of your messages has brought a warm smile to my face. Due to requests from some readers, I’ve opened up the comments section for this post. Feel free to drop a comment after you’ve finished reading part-3. I’d love to know your thoughts on this new series.

My Journey in Moving On

© Muffet

Thinking About Him

After we parted ways, I focused on living my life. Staying away from G made it easier to move on. No more confusing signals to throw me off track. No more mind games. No more ambiguity. While I was hurt on the inside, at least now I could focus on the path of recovery rather than be left hanging in the middle of no man’s land. I was sad and disappointed that G was not the one, but I remained hopeful that my special someone was out there and I would meet him someday.

Yet, a part of me still thought about G. This tended to arise in certain moments, such as when I was by myself, when my friends talked about guys/relationships, when I saw couples together, or when I was down. I would think back about the past, and the times we were together. Thinking about him would trigger different emotions. Sweetness and nostalgia from the happy times. Confusion over why exactly he acted that way. Frustration, sadness and disappointment from how things turned out. Regret over what could have been. Anger and hatred for how he dealt with the situation and breaking me on the inside. Over time, these emotions had dried out into numbness.

When I was down or out of sorts though, I would feel an urge to contact him. I remember there was a time in 2006 when my mom was in the ICU after a surgery. It was the worst period of my life – I thought she was going to die and I was going to lose my mom forever. While I was crying my eyes out at the hospital, I wished he was there with me. However, I held myself back from contacting him because I didn’t want him to see me in this state, especially not after what happened between us. Thankfully, my mom recovered a few weeks later.

There was other times when I felt troubled and wished I could seek solace in him. Each time, I stopped myself, reminding that staying away was for the better.

Occasionally he would sms me, to wish me happy birthday, share a festive greeting or on something random. Sometimes I didn’t reply, other times I just responded with a courteous message. I figured talking too much was pointless, since I wanted to draw a clear line from him. I tried to keep communication with him minimal to protect myself.

Living In A Loop

I wasn’t exactly able to maintain the distance with him though. Over the next 3 years between 2006-2008, there were two times when I contacted him. The first time was in 2006,when I just started work and I felt bogged down. The second time was in mid-2008, when I wanted to leave my ex-company to pursue my passion and I was contemplating how best to deal the situation. Looking back, these were times when I was less sure than my usual self, when I needed support. It wasn’t surprising he came to mind then, since I saw him as my pillar of support in the past.

Each time I contacted him, we almost immediately clicked like in the past. This was despite not being in close contact for almost a year each time.  None of us mentioned the awkward incidences that led to me breaking away back in school. For the next few months, we quickly grew closer and closer, talking late in the night, emailing, meeting up frequently and just hanging out. And again, he would treat me in the same special way that was more romantic than platonic.

In all honesty, I removed the possibility of us being together when I made the decision to stay away in 2005. I had contacted him because I just wanted to talk to him, not to see if we could be together. Thus, when the whole romantic vs. platonic behavior began, I was skeptical of his intents. I kept him at an emotional distance while enjoying the friendship as it was.

However, as we talked more and went out more often, I thought perhaps things had changed since the last time. Maybe this time, he was serious. Maybe this time, it was real, you know? Maybe by not reciprocating, I was closing myself out in love. With renewed hope and faith, I decided to give this another shot. I began to respond in kind.

Yet after the initial pickup, things reached the exact same point as before. The same point of ambiguity – a friendship-bordering-on-relationship-but-not-a-relationship relationship. I was engulfed with the same confusion and second-guessing. Same questions, same hypotheses, no concrete answers. It was incredulous. I thought it had to be some kind of a joke. It was like living in a loop – repeating the same actions and experiencing the same outcome, again and again. Like the same scene in a play that kept reenacting itself, except it had no ending.

Once again, I was saddened and hurt. When it became obvious nothing was going to change, I broke away – silently this time. They say once bitten, twice shy. And third time is the charm. When this happened the third time in 2008, it finally sunk inside me that nothing was ever coming out of this friendship/relationship. I had given it (the relationship) one too many opportunities to play out and it didn’t.

With a heavy heart, in Dec 2008, I decided to move on for good this time.

(Actually in that month, I experienced 2 huge disappointments – this incident with G, and another about addressing money barriers while pursuing my passion. In Jan ‘09, I wrote about how I overcame the latter disappointment. I didn’t write about G then because I wasn’t ready to. Today, I’m finally ready to do so, having gone through the realizations below that have helped me move on.)

Realizations that Helped Me Move On

© harold.lloyd

It took a long while, but I finally moved on 4 years after we first broke away in 2005. The funny thing about these past 4 years is that there were many times when I thought I had moved on during this period, only to find out afterward that I hadn’t. I’m glad to say now that majority, if not all, of this episode is now behind me. For sure, this didn’t happen overnight – it was through little steps, little realizations along the way that enabled me to finally put the past behind me.

Recognizing He Didn’t Want To Be With Me

Regardless of how his actions were romantic vs. platonic, ultimately I realized that if G was really serious about being together with me, he would have taken action long ago. There was no need to dance around at the sidelines, not after all these years too. Not in 2005, not in 2006, and certainly not in 2008. There could be one billion and one reasons why he didn’t take further action but the fact was he chose not to do so. It took me a while to accept this, but when I did I saw things much more objectively.

Realizing He Was Not The One For Me

During the times when we were close, I saw G as my soulmate. So when it turned out nothing was coming out of the friendship/relationship, I found it difficult to see myself with someone else. Even as I went out with other guys, I would often compare them with G. My preset bias made it difficult for guys to measure up against him, so as  a result I turned my back on other guys.

But then I realized if G was my soulmate, these loops wouldn’t be replaying over and over again, each time culminating to the exact same ambiguity. No matter what I did, no matter how I tried to alter the outcome, it always resulted to the same end. To have it happen once was enough – but to have it happen three times, staggered across different time periods – it proved beyond any doubt nothing could come out of this. I kept trying to look beyond but it was a dead end. A dead end. There was nothing beyond. I finally realized that G was not the one for me at all.

Forgiving Him… and Forgiving Myself

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” – Lewis Smedes

Deep down, I hated G for the way he dealt with the situation. I felt he was irresponsible. If he didn’t like me, why did he even say all those things? Why did he keep quiet when I confronted him? Why did he continue on behaving that way even after I told him to stop it?

No matter how I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, a part of me still blamed him for what happened. He had played with my feelings and betrayed this trust. All the promises he made in the past were just empty words. I felt like his pawn in this whole game. I was angry at him. I was resentful.

Beyond that… I was angry at myself. If he was supposedly a jerk, then I was angry I even allowed myself to be fooled by a jerk. If he was irresponsible, I was angry I was blind enough to leave my heart in the hands of an irresponsible person. All in all, I was mad that I had not taken proper care of myself. I had let myself get hurt. I had let myself down.

Last year (3 months ago in Dec 2009), I realized if I wanted to truly move on, I needed to forgive him… and myself. I was dragging the past emotional baggage around like a dead carcass all this while, punishing myself. The hate was still inside me. Only by forgiving him, was I forgiving myself.

After I realized this, interestingly, I experienced some inner resistance in me. It was as if I didn’t want to let it go, like I didn’t feel it was fair to forgive him after what he had put me through. But then I asked myself “So do you want to carry around this whole baggage instead? And think that you are making him pay when you are really just punishing yourself?”  Upon hearing this, it took a few seconds before I consciously decided to let go of the hate. The anger. The resentment. I suddenly realized I had been so silly, holding on to all of these for so long, never ever realizing that I was really just the only person suffering the whole time. When I finally let them go, I couldn’t help but smile. I felt lighter immediately, like some invisible weight was lifted. It was liberating.

Letting Him Know the Truth

A closure couldn’t take place if he didn’t even know what had been happening all this while. I thought he deserved to know the full story all these years. I felt I should bring to his awareness the implications of his actions, for his own journey of growth, and for the well-being of whoever is in his life / crosses his life in the future. What he decides to do after that is his personal choice.

So in same month of Dec ‘09, I wrote a long email to him. For the first time, I shared my thoughts feelings transparently. I wrote about all the key events that happened between us, starting from 2005. From when I liked him, to breaking away, to living in a loop for the few years, to breaking away again in 2008. I told him how I felt he was irresponsible in his communications. I told him how I hated and resented him for what he had done. Finally, I told him I had forgiven him. I was ready to move on.

I didn’t expect him to reply. To be honest, it really didn’t matter at all because the email came from a moral obligation to let him know the truth of what had been going on, rather than to get an answer. Whether he answered or not, or whatever his answer was, didn’t matter anymore as I had put this behind me.

If you want to know, he replied within the day, expressing surprise at the contents of the email. He gave his side of the story, saying since we were in university, he really admired me, my passions, courage and my values. He said he also found me to be caring, smart and pretty. Because of that, he really liked spending time with me. Back then, he was unsure of whether to pursue the relationship romantically, but ultimately decided what he really wanted was for us to stay as good friends. He explained I always had a special place, which was why he always treated me exceptionally different from other people. At the end, he apologized for the hurt he had caused me.

His answer helped draw light on the events of the past few years. I replied back, thanking him for the apology and that I had accepted it. I was thankful that the loop was finally broken. #14 of my key highlights for 2009 was actually referring to this.

Living For Myself

© rebecca-lily

The final closure I needed was with myself.

Regardless of the multiple hypotheses I had on why G and I were not together, I had always concluded it was because I wasn’t good enough. If I was good enough, he would have wanted to be with me. While I stopped liking G since a long time ago, the fact that he didn’t want to be with me was a subconscious block. It was no longer about why G and I couldn’t be together. It became an issue with why G didn’t want to be with me. Was it something wrong with me? Was I not good enough to be with? This experience left a huge dent in my self-esteem.

This belief that I wasn’t good enough enveloped me like a quiet shroud. Consciously, I was sure of myself and my capabilities. Subconsciously, I kept thinking I wasn’t good enough, that I was not deserving of love, that I was ugly, fat, unworthy, critical, judgmental, not feminine enough, etc.

Because of that, I went on a marathon to improve myself these past few years. I kept thinking I was not good enough to be with someone. I worked on improving my temper. I cultivated patience. I became a kinder person, putting myself in others’ shoes and to be caring more for them. I tried to lose weight. I tried to be less critical and more encouraging. I tried to be more feminine, dainty, quiet and demure, against my natural demeanor where I was more open, forthcoming and earnest.

While “improving” myself made me feel better, it was just for a short while. I would feel inadequate after a while, being overly self-critical and pinpointing how I could be better. I never seemed to be good enough. It was only a month ago where I questioned myself – What exactly was “good enough” then?

I came up with a list of qualities I thought were “good enough”. Pretty, short, petite, demure, quiet, kind, reactive, feminine, dependent, relenting, etc…. It was then I realized these were the qualities I thought were “good enough” for G, or guys for that matter. What would happen after I acquire these qualities then? Would I be together with G?

Maybe.

Would G be happy?

Probably.

Would I be happy?

The answer hit me with a quiet “thud“.

No.. I wouldn’t be happy.

It struck me that even if I became a girl that G would like or what I thought G would like, it wouldn’t matter – Because I wouldn’t be happy. I may be good enough for him then, but I wouldn’t be good enough for myself. This isn’t about the specific qualities itself, but the reason behind the desire to change. For what it is worth, that list is probably inaccurate. The point is, I was trying to change to fit into what I thought G or somebody else would like. Changing for that reason wouldn’t have gone anywhere far because I would never be happy that way. If I want to be happy, I myself need to happy, first and foremost.

Recognizing the Relationship Was Just a Mental Illusion

With the realization above, that was when it finally clicked that the relationship between G and me had been a mental illusion all along. Subconsciously, a part of me thought G and I would be together if I turned myself into Person X (with the X list of traits G was looking for). But the truth is, I can never be Person X. More importantly, I don’t want to be Person X. It is not what I see myself evolving into. This is not what I see to be in line with my growth, my life, my destiny.

Since the relationship between G and I can only exist if I’m Person X, in reality this relationship can never exist because I can never be Person X, nor do I want to be Person X.

It was a simple, yet powerful realization. When I realized that, it felt a veil that had been covering me all these years had finally been lifted from my head. I felt the fog around me was gone. I had finally freed myself from the mental shackles I had put on myself all along.

End of a Chapter, Beginning of the Next

Looking back, it has been a long journey these past 5 years. A journey filled with happiness, hope, sadness, disappointment, anger, self-doubt, self-hate, and at the end of it, deep revelations, growth, and an all-new self-awareness. I didn’t realize it then, but I had been living under the shadow of this relationship all these years.

Yet, I recognize everything that has happened has helped me become a better person. I’m grateful for that.

I’m glad to have finally gained closure on this and with myself after all these years. I have realized that whenever we refuse to move on, we prevent new things from entering into our life. The ones we are punishing isn’t the other person, but ourselves. When we let go of the past, we are in essence allowing new things to enter into our lives. If you want to attract new possibilities, you need to first release the old baggage you are hanging on to.

Right now, some of you may be in an ambiguous relationship and not know what to do. Some of you may be in broken relationships. Some of you may be thinking of whether to return to a past relationship which didn’t end off well. Some of you may be trying to move on from an unhappy past relationship.

Many of us are usually not aware when they should be moving on – I was in this exact same situation. Part-4 of the series is on the Top 12 Signs It’s Time To Move On From A Relationship. It’s over 3,500 words long – I’ve spent deep thought writing this and I hope it will help you find out if it’s time for you to move on in your relationship.

Related Posts:

• How I Moved On From A Heartbreak – Part-2: Heartbreak and Sadness
• 10 Steps To Move On From A Relationship
• Are You Looking For A Relationship To Complete Yourself?
• How I Moved On From A Heartbreak – Part-1: My Journey With Love
• Top 12 Signs It’s Time To Move On From A Relationship
• Sneak Preview: The Personal Excellence Book (Pre-Order Starts 18 July, Sunday)
• Are You Emotionally Generous?
• 12 Dating Facts About Me