The ultimate writer meets the ultimate talk show host

By Noryani Ismail

I saw JK Rowling interview with Oprah last night and it was phenomenal.  She is first Billionaire writer.  Her prophecy, as written in the book came through -- that every child will know Harry Potter.  She said the idea of the Harry Potter book came when she was waiting for a train.  She also mentioned that her daugther will sleep next to her when she was writing.

It is the same experience that I have. My daughter will always wake up in the middle of the night or wee hours in the morning when I am working on the laptop and come sleep next to me.  Sometimes her brother would join.  I guess maybe many writers with young children will experience this. Many suggest that we start writing only when the children have grown up and need less attention.  Either that, or you would wake up at 3am or 4am to write, which was what I did and is still doing.  Because stopping the natural flow to write is like trying to stop a full term baby from being born -- you can't.

I love the fact that both Rowling and Oprah know that their success is a phenomenon which is decided and created by God.  This is why according to Rowling, eventhough she will continue writing, she will not be obsessed with trying to match or top Harry Potter's success.  Oprah felt the same way, that in her next phase of career -- managing her TV network, she will treat it as a next project.  The project will not be compared with her current phenomenal success with Oprah Show.  It will be what it needs to be.

If you missed last night's interview, you can sneak peak at the Oprah website:

http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/The-Long-Road-to-Success-Video

Enjoy the interview! I'll go back to finishing my current writing assignment -- Natrah.  Stay tuned!

Surviving in the Google Age by Noryani Ismail

Snipet:  I feel that now is the right time for me to shed my old school thoughts and adopt a more Googlier perspective.  How does these amazing young people view the world? How do they solve problems and resolve issues?  How do they look at opportunities?  I must see the world from their standpoint if I want to succeed in their era.  So, I picked up this book for MPH recently and having a blast reading it.

Some of us carry industrial age ideas, and experience which is why we feel that sometimes we are banging our heads against a brick wall trying to make things work in the Google age.   No wonder we fail.  Well, we don't fail I suppose, that's too strong a word.  We manage to achieve some successes of course.  What I mean is we hardly make an impact, not even a dent, compared to those Google-age 20-somethings who didn't even finish college.   Imagine guys hardly out of college making millions, even billions almost effortlessly, while many more experience adults struggle to break their first million (if their lucky).  I asked myself, what happened here? 

I have a strong hunch that this is so because the more experience adults are actually trying to fit in their old ideas to a new world.  They don't understand this new world.  They...we...just don't get it.  The young guys like Zuckerberg of Facebook gets it because this age is their age.  I want to know how Google, Skype, Facebook, Youtube make their fortune by letting people use their service for free and by making themsleves ubiquitous.  Facebook is valued at US$15 billion, but they are essentially a free platform.  We "oldies" here want to charge for every single thing, and still may not make as much as these "kids".  So, I feel that now is the right time for me to shed my old school thoughts and adopt a more Googlier perspective.  How does these amazing young people view the world? How do they solve problems and resolve issues?  How do they look at opportunities?  I must see the world from their standpoint if I want to succeed in their era.  So, I picked up this book for MPH recently and having a blast reading it.  My old thinking and belief shattered bit by bit.  Ah...we have so much to learn from these kids. 

Kunyah at Suzie's Place by Noryani Ismail

A couple of days ago was "cheat day" for me at Kunyah Cafe, 2nd floor Wangsa Walk Mall, next to TGV Cinema.  I have the pleasure of doing lunch with two old friends - One of whom is owner of the cafe, Suzie.  That's Suzie in the pix below. As you can see, Kunyah is very modern, the food comes in western and local varieties.  It's quite a clever play of the word kunyah, which is Malay for chew.  It makes me want to open a cafe next to hers and call it Telan.

The pix above was taken with my loyal Sony Ericsson phone.  Unlike the rest of the world, I haven't migrated to iPhone.  I'm an iBook user, though.  Not yet an iPad user.  Prosumers are those who are one of the first to own the latest gadget in town.  I'm not one of those people.  Consumers are those who step right in when it starts to get popular.  I'm not one of those neither. I'm more of a practical consumer (pracsumer?) - I'd buy when I need it...absolutely need it.  In fact, i "Switch"ed to iBook only 3 years ago because it is very low maintenance.  I do not need to struggle with virus and spyware issues.  I do have to struggle with the fact that some software, applications and computer games are not, how shall I say..."Mac"able.   As for now, my iBook and Sony Ericsson still serves me, and serves me well.

Talking about serving me well, I have to mention how I fully used my "cheat day" at Kunyah.  (note to diet newbies:  cheat day is the one day a week when you give yourself permission to indulge in otherwise sinful meals, and not to mention desserts).  In my case, I had the pleasure of chewing on Kunyah's Mee Bandung AND Pasta.  And for dessert, Suzie recommended her bestselling Mudpie.  It's a chocolate and vanilla icecream pie, laced with peanut butter chocolate and topped with whipcream and almond flakes and colourful sprinkles.  To die for (literally, if you have this everyday).  See the before and after picture below:

  

Don't be fooled by the existence of two spoons.  I ate almost the whole lot on my own -- something I had not done for 5 months.  I went home happy and stuffed, from having chewed, swallowed and digested Suzie's wonderful dishes.  I thank Elmy for paying for the food.  But, I had to pay the next day -- by running 2 lapses around the Bandar Tun Hussein's Park.  Today, I probably jog up a nearby hill.  All this for having chewed some mud. 

ps:  Check out Kunyah Cafe's facebook for more info and menu.  

1999: An Ode to 6 Billionth Baby

The world welcome it's 6 billionth baby in 1999.  This is the article I have written in 1999 based on UN Human Development report.  It's one of my favourite articles.  Even my 'hard-to-please' editor told me I did a good job.  Let's see if I can add this file properly.  I hope its readeable. 

 

What is the Picture of Your Life?

Recently, in workshop called 7 Innovations, the participants was asked to draw their dream living room on a blank piece of paper which colour magic pens.  The point of the exercise is to show that you can use drawing to communicate your ideas, so that people you deal with are clear about your expectations.  The instructions sounds simple enough.  But it took me quite a while to gather my thoughts about how does my dream living room look like.  My mind raced to my current living room, which is nothing more that an empty space with one sofa. I kept countless of interior decoration magazines and I love the wonderful interiors shown in the magazines.  But I thought, to have a living room, like what I saw in the magazines, will take way too much money.  I had waited and waited for that day to come when we will have this bottomless pit of money.  Only then will I worry about how my dream living room will look like. 

So, when I was asked to draw our dream living room, I struggled.  I tried to remember the drawing that my husband have made previously.  Then, I thought to myself, but this is MY dream living room.  At least in this workshop, I can draw what I want without worrying about approval from anybody else.  So, I did. Painstakingly at first and enjoyably in the end.  I finally got a picture together, which we are supposed to share with a partner.  My partner was quite astonished with my drawing.

"Wow! Is this your living room?" he asked.  "Well, I suppose it's my DREAM living room," I answered while complimenting him for his own drawing.

It struck me that all this while...I have been complaining to my husband that we do not have a complete living room, we don't have rugs, sofa sets etc, but I have not even put my mind on what I really wanted.  And I mean with precision.  What is the measurement of the living room? What kind of seats do I want and what size? What kind of material and what colour should the sofa be?  How do I arrange them in the living room?  What are the colours for the wall and what about the curtains and rugs?  Some people will just buy any kind of furniture which they find attractive and/or which are on sale and try to fit it in whatever space they have. Whenever they see a rug or curtains or cushions on sale they just grab them.  What is important is how those pieces fit into the grander plan of the living room.  I had once bought a Bali daybed which is very beautiful and made from quality material.  Once they delivered the furniture home, we saw that it was just too big for our living room.  We had no choice but to return it and get a smaller one.   In essence, getting the picture right is important for us to getting what we want.  How can I make my dream living room a reality, if I can't even show people or myself for that matter, how it will look like when it is done?  What a thought!

Living rooms aside, how many of us have a "picture" of our lives when "it is done"?  What is the dream life that we want to live?   Do we want to travel the world to help ppoor and needy children? Is our ideal life moving to the countryside and live in a big house with a farm from which we rear our own meat and poultry and vegetables?  Do we want to be the billionaire CEO of an IT company?  Why is it that we worked so hard 60 to 80 hours a week?  What do we want to accomplish?  We often come hoem tired, not knowing what's all that hard work for, accept for the fact that it help to pay the bills.    Has it taken us anywhere nearer to our dream lives? Do we even know what our dream live is?

See, each and everyone of us is born with the subconscious mind, whose duties, among others is to bring us what we want AND what we don't want with absolute precision.  The problem lies with the fact that many of us spend most of our time discussing and complaining about the things that we don't want.  We can describe with absolute detail and with emotion what we don't like:  we know the colours, the sound, the smell. So, the universe delivers to us precisely what we don't want.  Those who have accomplished their dreams must have been really precise about the picture that they have painted about their lives.  Success is not automatic, or by chance.  These individuals know precisely what they want and they go for it.  The universe correspond to that precise goal and deliver it to the rightful owner.

So, the living room exercise is like a knock on my head.  How can I get my living room done, when I don't know how it's supposed to look like when it is done?  The more tougher question is what is the picture of my life.  For most of us, if we were to draw a picture of the life we crave for, it will be absolutely different than what we have now. But what is it?  It is proven that if we look at a picture everyday, the picture will come true for us in our lives.  So, we better find and refine that picture and put it in front of our eyes every day.

Just a month ago, my husband showed a picture of a bedroom which he would like to propose for our children's room.  I like it, the children like it. In that short period, the room has fast becoming a reality:  the tiles has been installed and walls has been painted with the exact blue shade that we love from the picture.  When we know exactly what we want, the universe will point us towards making it a reality.  I think I better get serious about drawing the picture of my life.  What about you?

The Write Thing at The Write Time

I was stuck in the traffic jam for one hour this morning.  Not a really fun thing.  But an epiphany emerged during that moment.  Yup, God created everything for a reason.  Even traffic jams.  I had an A-Ha moment, as Oprah would say.  Thanks to an old school buddy who called me and dragged me into a conversation.  Who would think I would have a life-shifting, deep conversation with an old friend on this blessed rainy Friday morning, while waiting for my turn to drive forward a few inches in the infamous KL traffic. Her insight has helped me narrow down my search of what am I supposed to do with my life, as a service to humanity.

People always say that sometimes we looked so far away for answers that we couldn't see what's right infront of us.  In  my case, what I was looking for, was right inside of me.  No wonder I could not see it.  But my friend could.   "Let me tell you about you," she said insistently.  And she has known me for more than 20 years.  "You can write.  That's what you do.  Do you know how many people would want to learn from you?"

"Well...", I tried to respond but I was in a lost for words.  "It never occured to me! I write all the time, it is something I love to do and I do it ever since I was a little girl.  At school, I `escaped' from my add math classes to write script for the school play."

Writing to me is as natural as breathing.  It never occured to me that this is actually something special or extraordinary or could add value to others if I teach them.  So begins this next chapter of my life. Thanks, Elmy.