What You Need

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God gives you what you need not what you want.

I’m not even sure I’m quoting the right sentence but this is what I remember. It is so much easier to blame God of not getting what we want despite us getting what we need.

For the past few years — I’ve been exactly getting what I need, I won’t make this a long detailed post but just two very “random” acts of God:

1) There was a tech event where we can put in our namecard and at the end of the event the winners will get prizes. The #1 prize was an iPad which was still quite a rare product. I was wishing for that product yet I was #3 and what I got? A huge suitcase (and a smaller one inside) just in time for my years of travelling. I never owned/bought any suitcase before and I’m still using it even today.

(I believed it was held by Merah Putih – Pak Antonny Liem handed me my gift)

2) I’ve never really had a proper bag for work. What I had was combination of those trendy bags for uni students and half professional looking leather bag from Coach. When we entered Google Launchpad, we got this awesome backpack from Google where I can put my laptop, ipad, phones, pencils, and everything on its respected pockets. With someone who is as forgetful as me, this is really really handy and again —

God gives what we need. We should be more thankful :)

Mindfulness

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Lately this is the keyword that has been prominently filling my mind, especially as we get to the end of the first quarter of 2017. I felt like I haven’t done as much as the time spent and I realized failing to plan is basically a plan to fail.

One of the things I realized I’ve been doing a lot for the past few months are constantly unlocking the iPhone – reaching out to the Instagram app icon on the dock – and just keep scrolling and liking and watching Stories. Without realizing that 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or even an hour passed by.

I’ve been also playing this game Tower Keepers. At first it was just to fill my waiting time or maybe when I’m in the traffic. Now, I kept opening the app, for the sake of spending the “energy”, adding that I have to watch a 1min ad every time I finish a “fight” – I rarely spend less than 15 mins.

(Read: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/28/how-technology-gets-us-hooked)

After reading some articles on the topic, one of the definition that I like is this: What is mindfulness? Refer to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s traditional definition of mindfulness: it is a way of paying attention to, and seeing clearly whatever is happening in our lives. The attention paid is purposeful, in the moment, without judgment. It’s about having the time and space to attend to what is ahead of us, in spite of distractions competing for our attention and our past history that shapes how we think and perceive the world.

I think most of the time we spend the day, week, month, without realizing what we spend our time for. The opposite of being mindful is just procrastinating or spending your time to do unproductive things or worse, doing bad things to yourself. Ever since I read these articles I have:

Moved Instagram outside the dock and even to the last page of my iPhone. This way I spend less time on Instagram per day. The least I want to do is to spend more time reading book vs scrolling through Instagram. I’m even considering to delete the app from my phone and just access it from time to time from the web.

Spend less time on the game and currently thinking to delete the game this month.

Started planning my month, week, and thus days better. I really want to spend an effort to make my day more productive including ending the day knowing that I have created more than I have consumed.

What do you think about mindfulness and have you did anything to create the culture of mindfulness in yourself?

Yet Another Best Year Yet!

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I am still amazed that I can keep saying this year in year out. 2016 was nothing short of incredible for me. Another year full of travels. Wanted to update this blog earlier in the year but the past 3 months has been awesome that I kept pushing this day by day. Finally get to update this!

2016:

January:

Celebrated the New Year with the BFFs at Sentosa

Starting the year with all hands on deck meeting at Talenta and our monthly dinner

Reunited with my sisters

H Island weekend out

Watched Justin Kan (YC Partners & Founder of Twitch – $1B exit to Amazon) keynote/on-stage interview on a weekend.

February:

Growing Talenta’s family dinner

My sister’s – Michele’s birthday

Chinese New Year! The year of Monkey!

Went back to Medan, my dad’s hometown!

Did a keynote at Clapham conference

Another keynote at GnB Accelerator launch.

March:

Participated in Wirausaha Muda Mandiri 2016 at Jogjakarta

Exhibited at Binus Job Expo 2016

Finally visited Borobudur!

Traveled to Bali for PMSM (HR organization) event and had a break there

Given a chance to create a profile for myself by Enricko Lukman.

April:

Trip to Korea (Tagging along with CIDAuto team to their team retreat, saw the cherry blossom with my sister, shared my experience to Korean startup scene)

East Ventures’ SaaS meetup

April Talenta family dinner

Attended Tech in Asia Singapore 2016 which coincided with my birthday

24th birthday dinner with people that I became close with in 2016

First ever East Ventures Career Day

Opening of new East Ventures Hive

May:

My first ever uni friend got married

First ever Talenta HR gathering

Got into Google’s Launchpad Accelerator

Moved into Talenta new office

Attended my first ever Korean wedding

Had our first ever Talenta outing to an island without any reception or even electricity at day

Shared my journey in front of one of the biggest university in Surabaya

Watched Dimitri Vegas Like Mike

June:

Traveled to Taiwan for my sister’s graduation and also the youngest sister’s birthday(probably the only birthday in the family where the whole family is in the same town for a while now)

UMF KOREA 2016 (Garrix was sick and Van Buuren crazy!)

Landed in SF for Google Launchpad 2016 – wrote a piece about the experience.

Blk 71 San Fransisco! (SG startup founders would relate)

Google booked the whole ferry for our Golden Gate Bridge tour

Went for Yosemite and Bay Bridge tour

Finally checked “Skydiving” off my bucketlist 

Profiled by Asianentrepeneur.org

July:

New York, New York, finally! Went to:

Brooklyn – Times Square – Insight Venture Partners’ nice office – Grand Central Terminal – Top of the Rock NYC – Statue of Liberty – NASDAQ (NYSE) – Ate the original Halal Guys – MoMA – Brooklyn Bridge

Las Vegas! Went for a 4th of July party with Christina Suria (Steve Aoki!)

Had our largest town hall in 2016

East Ventures Founders meetup: Scaling organization

Back to Jogja for mentoring and judging of Fenox Startup WorldCup event

Interviewed by MNC TV for Google Launchpad experience

August:

Announced our funding led by Skystar Capital and East Ventures.

Pitched at Fenox Startup World Cup event in Jakarta

Covered by InfoKomputer magazine

Celebrated Indonesia Independence Day with the team

September:

Did our next HR gathering 

Our office is covered by Tech in Asia

Talenta’s management team dinner

Second Korean wedding ever!

Covered by Metro TV!

Celebrated Talenta’s 2nd birthday!

October:

Probably the most beautiful Bali wedding in my life so far

Halloween party with the gang

November:

Speaking at a panel for IWIC 2016

Singapore trip with bae

Speaker in two panels of Tech in Asia Jakarta 2017- always fun!

Interviewed by Billy Boen at Young on Top radio!

Talenta HR gathering with Googlers as a speaker

December:

Ended the year with Korean trip and started the year right