Click back in time and watch the 1-hour webcast about caregiving for my ailing Dad, as my brother and mother gave him the best care over his last 2.5 years. And here’s the short obit about his life. I also have a private memorial page for my Dad to which you’re welcomed to request access to view.

Though I wasn’t able to list it on Amazon as a free ebook (but I did list my eBook there for easier download), I can post it here as a free download.

• Download ebook in .MOBI format - for Kindle [instructions]
• Download ebook in .EPUB format - for iBook on iOS (iPad), Nook, Sony, etc [instructions]
• Read it online via Issuu or Slideshare

For me, it’s about the speed to publish. (so not everything is perfectly formatted; and this also gives me an opportunity for me to experiment and to learn digital publishing on different platforms)

The e-book that’s I’ve just published is a compilation of blog posts from my 12 years of blogging that will serve as the starting point for telling more about my life. I’ve dubbed it a “chronological edition” because the blog posts are ordered chronologically, and the book title is tentative. In the final edition, I think the ebook’s length will more than double in size, as I’ll be expanding on a number of issues, including: depression, bipolar disorder, career choices, and identity formation. As a bunch of blog posts, the ebook is obviously disjointed and not an easy read.

I realize that I don’t have a most sensational life story like some others who’ve  been published, be it a courageous battle with disease, growing up in adverse circumstances, turning from a life of drugs and/or crime, or going from rags to riches. On the one hand, I see myself as an average guy, and yet, I also know I’m terribly unconventional so it’s taken many years to begin to feel comfortable in my own skin.

My thinking about the book is to just tell the story and avoid being prescriptive. In that sense, it won’t be in the genre of self-help nor inspirational. The telling of the story itself is the point. Maybe this is a new genre? But I am eager to hear feedback from you readers as to how I can better shape this ebook to be of more help to people.

In the ebook, I explain more of why I’m writing this ebook and what’s prompted me to author at this stage in my life. So, please do download it, read it, and provide much needed feedback. Your voice matters!

Whether the final edition will be published by a traditional publisher or if I’ll be self-publishing is yet to be determined. Either way, it will be published and not perish.

In the 21st century, what ought to be published is no longer is prohibited by the market. (others who have self published: Ben Franklin, Ezra Pound, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Paine, Jane Austen, Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Virginia Woolf)  And, I will make the final edition available in digital and print formats.

And what if I were to win the lottery and a large chunk of change? Here’s what I’d do (and by blogging it I’m going on the record, so that means you could call me on it if I deviate off plan)  –

• Set aside half for tax purposes
• Set aside 10% for as my faith expression of obedience of giving to God’s kingdom. It would go into a charitable fund and I wouldn’t give it all at once
• Do the math with a financial advisor to set me and family on a course of financial independence based on the standard of living we currently have (debt payoff implied)
• Set aside a world travel fund to go to 20 world-class cities around the world
• Set aside a hospitality fund for local & regional gatherings of all sorts – conversations change the world
• Launch a web-based webcast/netcast network for next generation voices– Asian, Latino, African American, Middle Eastern, multi-racial — to delve into real-life issues of family, race relations, mental health, vulnerability/shame, vocational empowerment, think pieces, social commentaries, globalization (not entertainment, not fashion, not celebrity gossip, not tech, not gaming, not politics)
• Launch a R&D “skunk works” lab for non-profit innovation with a bias for long-term impact over short-term results
• Start a publishing digital imprint for next gen leaders that need to be heard, not (only) those who can sell books
• Establish a giving circle / community fund for the dreams of next gen Asian Americans
• Host annual summits for gathering thought leaders that can advance needed change in: faith & race issues for evangelicals; next gen faith for minorities; minority philanthropy

Am I idealistic? You betcha!

Here’s the thing. You gotta play to win. I didn’t buy a lottery ticket. So this blog post is entirely hypothetical. What would you do if you won a large amount of money, hypothetically?

This American Life has retracted this story because we learned that many of Mike Daisey’s experiences in China were fabricated. We have removed the audio from our site, and have left this transcript up only for reference. We produced an entire new episode about the retraction, featuring Marketplace reporter Rob Schmitz, who interviewed Mike’s translator Cathy and discovered discrepancies between her account and Mike’s, and New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg, who has reported extensively on Apple. Ira also re-interviewed Mike Daisey to learn why he misled us.

As a journalistic genre, This American Life is committed to certain journalistic standards, and this one episode got away. On their blog with the press release, the Executive Producer and Host Ira Glass wrote:

I have difficult news. We’ve learned that Mike Daisey’s story about Apple in China – which we broadcast in January – contained significant fabrications. We’re retracting the story because we can’t vouch for its truth. This is not a story we commissioned. It was an excerpt of Mike Daisey’s acclaimed one-man show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” in which he talks about visiting a factory in China that makes iPhones and other Apple products.

Episode #460 explained more about the fact-checking after the airing of the original episode, its retraction, and an interview with Mike Daisey to seek an apology and explanation. I’ve listened to both episodes. Painful. (And what might Apple’s legal department be plotting?)

Daisey felt justified in doing what he does as a storyteller and believes his work is a legitimate exercise of artistic license. Sure, a scriptwriter has the freedom to create a work of art as movie or play or book by rendering a dramatization based on a true story. There’s a place for that. That place is not a journalistic-style radio show. Maybe Garrison Keillor? Or Jon Stewart? Stephen Colbert?

This kind of problem will keep aggravating the world of journalism as social media enables anyone and everyone to have a public voice. Everything is looking more like op-ed pieces. Journalism perhaps isn’t able to uphold as high a standard as it used to because of an accelerated news cycle in a 24/7 communication world, or maybe new media is revealing the subjective biases and inaccuracies of the reporters’ work.

I’ve had a few encounters with journalism, and news reporters (with news involving people I knew) did not get the facts nor details right. This recently happened in the OC Register and its February 23rd article Rick Warren builds bridge to Muslims. Rick Warren was forced to respond amidst an already busy highly-demanding schedule. First to clear up theological issues, in an interview with Brandon A. Cox and The Christian Post. Secondly, a line-by-line documentation of the factual errors in News & Views 3/10/12: ON RESPONDING TO FALSE ACCUSATIONS (also posted at ocregister.com), the Saddleback Church email newsletter. Some of the damage may be irreparable, as OC Register noted on 3/9/12 in Effort to reach out to Muslims stirs outcry. And media representative A. Larry Ross wrote up this article, Saddleback Church: Setting the record straight on outreach to Muslims, published at ocregister.com .

My hunch is that as media technologies keeps developing and maturing, the lines will only get more blurred. And, these situations are indicators of a shift of trust away from faceless institutions towards individuals in one’s social network.

Oh, and the dust hasn’t settled yet on Mike Daisey and his American Life episode. There’s more.

On March 19th, “… at a long-scheduled appearance at Georgetown University, Mike Daisey gave his first public talk since the news broke last Friday that This American Life was retracting the now-infamous episode featuring his work. Daisey is a complicated and conflicted figure, and, it’s hard not to feel complicated and conflicted about him and about his work. His talk last night provides a new dimension to the story that is now at the center of a scandal.” —The Atlantic Wire

All too often well-intentioned Christian ministry leaders / preachers / teachers / people give encouragement with pithy sayings and the quoting the Bible verses, without the demands of genuine compassion that requires entering in and walking alongside someone’s pain and confusion. (cf. Overcoming Anxiety: Dealing with Anxiety and Worry) If you’d not been schooled in the right-of-center flavor of Christianity, the answer to life is always: Jesus, Bible and prayer, not necessarily in that order.

Thank you Rhett for taking a whole different approach, a very personal one at that. By sharing your life and the things you’ve learned along the way, it draws me relationally and I’m freed to know that my own anxiety is not necessarily coming from a place of doubting God and I’m not someone to be fixed per se. And more than that, anxiety can be invitation from God towards a more rewarding faith.

My confession: This book came timely for me as I’d been simmering about anxiety in my life, not in a paralyzing manner from an overwhelming number of choices, but more of an annoying nagging feeling. My anxiety seems to be recurring about performance, and the discomfort of having to evaluate my work, or worse, to have others evaluate it. Whether I success or not, or could do better, or am celebrated for excellence, there’s that thing about performance evaluation that I just plain don’t like. That’s all I got to say about that right now.

[disclosure: I received a complementary review copy]

Many years of research conducted by The Gallup Organization suggest that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors.

These people are best able to develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families.

A review of the knowledge and skills you have acquired can provide a basic sense of your abilities, but an awareness and understanding of your natural talents will provide true insight into the core reasons behind your consistent successes.

Your Signature Themes report presents your five most dominant themes of talent, in the rank order revealed by your responses to StrengthsFinder. Of the 34 themes measured, these are your “top five.” Your Signature Themes are very important in maximizing the talents that lead to your successes. By focusing on your Signature Themes, separately and in combination, you can identify your talents, build them into strengths, and enjoy personal and career success through consistent, near-perfect performance.

Your Signature Themes: DJ CHUANG

Ideation

You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.

Input

You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information—words, facts, books, and quotations—or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

Strategic

The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.

Adaptability

You live in the moment. You don’t see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. And so you discover your future one choice at a time. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have plans. You probably do. But this theme of Adaptability does enable you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment even if they pull you away from your plans. Unlike some, you don’t resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. You expect them. They are inevitable. Indeed, on some level you actually look forward to them. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.

Woo

Woo stands for winning others over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, strangers can be energizing. You are drawn to them. You want to learn their names, ask them questions, and find some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversation and build rapport. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don’t. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. There are new people to meet, new rooms to work, new crowds to mingle in. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet—lots of them.

Thanks to all the staff and volunteers at each of the 10 churches for celebrating Jesus’ birth and making our Christmas all the merrier:

1. Harvest OC, Irvine
2. Eastside Christian Church, Fullerton
3. Friends Church, Yorba Linda
4. NewSong Church, Irvine
5. ROCKHARBOR, Costa Mesa
6. Saddleback Church, Lake Forest
7. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach
8. Mariners Church, Irvine
9. Kingsfield Church, Aliso Viejo
10. Coast Hills Church, Aliso Viejo

   
While I won’t name any one particular church service as a favorite or as the best, I will list these highlights and comments:

• Biggest Surprise: big-band-style concert band at Friends Church
• Most creative production: shadow-puppets retelling the Big Story at ROCKHARBOR (Journey of Joy video) [probably over 1,000 pieces cut-out & painted and every performance live!]
• Best Christmas gift: family portrait photo-shoot at Eastside Christian Church
• No more room in the inn (full-capacity crowds): Harvest OC, ROCKHARBOR, Saddleback Church, Mariners Church
• The more popular Christmas songs: Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard on High, Joy to the World, O Holy Night, Hark the Herald Angels Sing
• Don’t recall hearing: Away in a Manger, O Come All Ye Faithful, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Deck the Halls, Jingle Bell Rock
• Most consistently-presented theme: Eastside Christian Church [paper-mache Christmas trees and paper snowball as physical prop for responding to sermon to "let go"]
• Most comfortable seating: Friends Church, Coast Hills Church
• Screen with the widest aspect-ratio: Kingsfield Church
• What we didn’t see: a Gospel Choir, Handel’s Messiah, Christmas musical cantata, live Nativity with live animals, drama/skit
• Quietest worship time: late-night 11pm worship in the chapel at Mariners Church (very cool to hear the chapel bells ring at midnight of Christmas)
• Best-dressed choir: St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (actually, the only choir we saw, and they sounded great!)
• Children singing: Eastside Christian Church, NewSong Church

And the memories that stay with me about the OC Christmas Tour 2011 and a few learnings about churches: Christmas has inspired people all walks of life, not just churches and those who follow Jesus, most obviously through the arts and movies. We love a wide variety of expressions of worship in different churches. Churches really do produce their best worship services for Christmas, and that takes a ton of planning, preparation, and volunteers. It takes a lot of planning of logistics to get from one church to the next — gotta tip your hat to itinerant speakers/preachers who travel a lot. I can sympathize with those who go to church for the first time (or rarely), and how being in a strange place not knowing where to go or what to do is quite daunting.

And, for us, you can never get too much of Christmas!

Look at this list actual mission statements below. I confess the meaning of a mission statement is lost on me. I can’t tell what it is that the company or organization is actually doing. So if you’re starting an organization, does this mean you can pick any one of them? They all have good purposes and apparently they’re working.

Maybe a mission statement like this could work just as well: “to make money so the world can be a better place” or “to make a difference in the world by providing good jobs and making great products” or “to give people a great experience“. Yes?

Look for yourself ::

“… to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come in contact with (us).“

“Be America’s Best Quick-Service Restaurant“

And, these mission statements, all from Fortune 500 companies:

To help all people live healthy lives.

To nourish and delight everyone we serve.

Bringing the best to everyone we touch

Our purpose is to enrich the lives of people we touch.

… to earn money for its shareholders and increase the value of their investment.

Profitable growth through superior customer service, innovation, quality and commitment

… to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential.

Be the best in the eyes of our customers, employees and shareholders

Undisputed Marketplace Leadership

To supply outstanding service and solutions through dedication and excellence.

to provide products and services to the market which meet or exceed the reasonable expectations of our customers.

Our mission is positive outcomes.

We are a market-focused, process-centered organization that develops and delivers innovative solutions to our customers, consistently outperforms our peers, produces predictable earnings for our shareholders, and provides a dynamic and challenging environment for our employees.

Serving Others For Customers A Better Life For Shareholders A Superior Return For Employees Respect and Opportunity

Our goal is to be the leader in every market we serve, to the benefit of our customers and our shareholders.

We are committed to attracting, developing, and keeping a diverse work force that reflects the nature of our global business.

We will provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world’s consumers. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit, and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders, and the communities in which we live and work to prosper.

We will continue to build a corporate culture that respects and values the unique strengths and cultural differences of our associates, customers and community.

Our mission is to design, manufacture, and deliver products and services that meet the unique needs and expectations of each customer.

And THANK YOU for being a regular reader or even a random visitor to my website and blog here at djchuang.com! Thank you Twitter followers and Facebook friends too!

(aside #2: It’s hard to make these lists of people to thank, because I don’t like leaving people out, as a highly-inclusive kind-a-guy… the list above are those that have made the biggest difference, you make a difference too, just not as big as theirs, in my life, yet…)

‘Leadership fatigue’ comes about for a number of reasons including such things as: persistent decision making which may have an impact on other people’s lives; defining and developing business directions, sourcing income streams for the business, consistently adjusting to dramatically changing economic environment and meeting regulatory, industry or professional requirements.

In this Seattle School talk, Dr. Dan Allender identified the reasons why most people are leaders, the top 5 issues leaders face, as well as some personal reflections on how to care for one’s self in the midst of leadership fatigue.

… business leaders and executives demonstrate fatigue because 1. so much of what they have been doing is not working as well as they would like and 2. what they know how to do, is not producing the results that are expected of them. This most commonly shows up as “things not moving fast enough” and “resources dwindling”. It also shows up with not having the “right people on board” or not being able to “retain the talent” needed to be successful.

… anyone who wields great power is bound to rub some people the wrong way, and those disaffected people accumulate over time. They also tend to have longer memories. As Dan Julius, a senior academic administrator now in the University of Alaska system told me years ago, “the things you did that upset people and create enmity live on much longer than what you did that people liked and created supporters.” … “leave before the party’s over,” which contains much wisdom about the importance of leaving positions before our charms have faded, and about the discipline required to do so. By overstaying, leaders place themselves in situations where they become less effective, tarnish their legacies, and are therefore less able to move on to a new position of power.

Can I make a confession? I sure get tired of leading. Though I currently do not occupy an organizational C-level leadership position, I confess that I sure get tired of having to initiate more frequently than I’d like. Sure would be nicer if it’d be more 50/50 where someone else initiates with me vs. my initiating with them. I don’t like the weight of having to make decisions with its consequences affect myself and others. Some people eat stress for lunch. I’d rather eat dessert.

Like any family with a new addition, the Lee household is a study in controlled chaos. However, instead of diaper changes and late-night feedings, this Irvine family is bustling with the adventures of Braeden, an inquisitive 5-year-old with a passion for all things outdoors. He joined his family this summer via adoption from South Korea.

Jeff and Rachel Lee had long discussed adding to their family, which includes two biological daughters [...].

Adoption appealed to Rachel, a psychologist; however, Jeff was uncertain. A mission trip to Africa – where he assisted a boy who needed lifesaving heart surgery – changed everything

“He realized he could easily fall in love with a child he was not biologically related to. That was in 2006, the same year Braeden was born,” Rachel Lee recalled. “Last year, we determined that, with our two daughters getting older, we had reached a ‘now-or-never’ point; it was time to move forward and adopt, or to decide not to add to our family.”

The Lees felt an older child would fit well with their active crew. Since both Jeff and Rachel were born in Korea, adopting a child from their native country was also a logical choice, Rachel says. Their research led them to Braeden, who had a heart condition and lived in a Korean orphanage.

The ever-changing landscape of international adoption has one constant feature: a continually increasing need for adoptive families for older children and children with special needs, says Kimberly Alls, coordinator of the Waiting Child Program for the Lee’s adoption agency.

Alls advises those considering opening their hearts and homes to a child with special needs to carefully consider their motivation for adopting, asking questions that include …

Read the full article in magazine-layout format or in text format.

And the sidebar has these very valuable tips of “Adoption Etiquette: What not to say to adoptive parents” (by Judy M. Miller)

Finding the right words honors the relationships in an adoptive family, where love transcends blood and genetics. More than 10 million families have considered adoption, and approximately 1 million more are seeking to adopt at any given time.

Those who meet the new addition include extended family, friends and acquaintances. And, sometimes, they are strangers you can’t help but notice because they are conspicuous; these people obviously see that you don’t “match.” Their curiosity is natural. But sometime it gets the better of us.

Adoptive parents often find themselves in the spotlight. Those who have adopted internationally or trans-racially find themselves under more scrutiny and approached more often. Generally, non-adoptive parents don’t realize that they’re being intrusive and may be disparaging with their questions and comments.

Certain terms and phrases, while well-intentioned most of the time, rankle the adoptive parent by implying that a family formed through adoption doesn’t measure up. Many adoptive parents aren’t always good at responding, particularly when they are approached by a stranger or in the company of their children. Here is some advice for avoiding the “cringe factor” among adoptive parents:

Don’t say anything along the lines of “God bless you!” or “You’re an amazing person to do this.” In “Shared Fate: A Theory and Method of Adoptive Relationships” (Brentwood Bay, BC: Ben Simon Publications, 1988), author H. David Kirk found that 92 percent of adoptive parents had been called “saints” in one form or another. Adoptive parents aren’t saints for adopting, and this type of praise may make them uncomfortable.

Don’t use the word “real” to qualify the adoptive family relationships, as in “real” mom, “real” dad, “real” child, or “real” sibling. Adoptive parents and adoptive families are as real as a birth parent and birth families. The word “real” implies that the relationships within the adoptive family are not real. This isn’t the case. The relationships within the adoptive family are as true and as permanent as in any other.

Don’t say, “They’re so lucky!” This may be the top contender for cringing among adoptive parents. Like non-adoptive parents, adoptive parents consider themselves the lucky ones. They have a beautiful child to raise and enjoy

Don’t say one of your “own” children. Similarly, don’t ask, “Which one is yours?” or “Are they sisters?” These statements and questions can devalue the relationships within an adoptive family. They address the dissimilarities, especially within trans-racial and multiracial families. Adoptive parents know that the relationships in their families transcend blood and genetics.

When approaching adoptive parents about their family, remember these important tips:

The details about how the family has come together are private.

The adoptive parents expect you to respect their privacy.

These are the adoptive parents’ children.

Positive adoption language

Use these terms when referring to relationships within adoptive families:

“Parent,” “mommy,” “daddy,” “sister,” “brother,” etc., for describing adoptive family members “Birth parents,” “birth father,”

“birth mother” for describing the man and woman who conceived and gave birth to the child

“Was adopted” rather than “is adopted”

“Your child” rather than “your adopted child” or “your own child”

“Placed for adoption” or “made an adoption plan,” rather than “orphaned,” “given up,” “unwanted” or “abandoned”

Link to my video.

Now I find myself blogging at a different pace: it’s looking like once or twice a week for this season of life. In the past, The pace I liked to have for my blogging is 2 to 3 posts per week.

(What is a good rhythm of blogging? As a point of reference, I typically advise people to not start blogging if s/he cannot make a blog post at least once a week. I know there are people out there more in the professional blogging realm that blog every weekday in a very disciplined manner. For business- and goal-oriented people, that’s a good thing to do.)

With 12 years of blogging, I’ve certainly not exhausted topics to be blogging about. I’m not considering pulling the plug. This blog started as a personal endeavor and will remain so. Just a place where I can share (a part of) my life and to connect with people far beyond my geographical limitation. Yes, I have a wide eclectic range of topics of interest.

All this to say, not all that much is changing here. Just a change of pace. Add a comment with a topic you’d love to see me blog about. And I’ll queue it up for next week.