Great Storytelling Network Newsletter – 12 October 2016

We have quite a selection of stories for you in this edition of the newsletter. I hope you will enjoy reading what’s on offer.

Happy storytelling.
Aneeta Sundararaj

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WHEN a man wins a competition, it is customary for him to show some sort of elation. Some will punch the air while others may smile from ear to ear or let out a whoop of joy.

Not Abdul Halim Jahari, sous chef at DoubleTree By Hilton Kuala Lumpur.

When his bosses introduce Halim as the Culinary Cup Gold Winner for the Hilton South-East Asia F&B Masters 2015, he sits quietly, with his head bent and arms crossed. There is an air of calm humility about him.

Slowly, as his story unfolds, it becomes clear that it is this remarkable lack of arrogance that’s carried him throughout his career.

UNEXPECTED CAREER PATH

The story of how Halim, 32, became a chef at the hotel’s Italian Tosca restaurant, began when he was still a teenager helping his sister run a stall in Muar, Johor.

Their most popular dish was what he calls their own version of KFC chicken. When he completed his basic schooling, his plan was to go to university to do a course in Accountancy. But he found the qualifying exams too tough and turned his sights to a career in something else instead.

To read more, please click here.

“It’s already 9.30 at night. How you are going to go to the church for the funeral service tomorrow” Clarice asked her father as she opened the passenger door of her car.

“You are not coming with me?”

“Get inside first,” Clarice replied, sensing a long discussion ahead. Once she was in the driver’s seat, she said, “I can’t come with you. I can’t just leave work to go to a funeral.”

After her father’s dismayed, “Oh” they said nothing for the next 20 minutes.
When they arrived at Clarice’s two-bedroom condominium unit, she placed her father’s overnight bag in the guest room, and went to the kitchen to make some coffee for both of them. Her father followed her and said, “I suppose I will take the taxi to the church myself. Can you book one for me?”

“Which church is it?” Clarice dropped two lumps of sugar into the mug of coffee and handed it to her father.

“What do you mean which church?” Her father stopped stirring his coffee. “I have no idea.”

Clarice took a deep breath. “Dad, this is KL. It’s the city. There are hundreds of churches. Don’t tell me you didn’t find out which church it is?”…

To read more, please click here.

Self-published author Tim Keogh [Nothing But Blue Skies] reminds me of my newly self-published self just a few years ago.

‘I have managed to place my book with Waterstone’s,’ he writes exuberantly. ‘When I told the lady at the till another branch of theirs was stocking it, she immediately replied that she would take five copies.’

The good news was reported to me thus subsequent to Tim having previously reported to me that he had suffered an earlier rejection at the same branch, Waterstone’s being his first port of call. This eventuality prompted remembrance of my personal first ports of call with my first self-published book in tow, only to be rejected, as I told Tim, by the only male member of Waterstone’s staff suffering from terminal PMT and (elsewhere) by a Waterstone’s bruiser in a frock.

So far Tim has shifted all of 400 copies.

How well I recall my own ambition for my first book Every Street in Manchester at that stage. A 1,000 copies sold was my absolute be-all and end-all at the time. Because a 1,000 copies were bound to arouse interest with a commercial publisher. Just as a 1,000 copies sold, had seen Billy Hopkins and his originally self-published debut novel Our Kid whisked away to best-sellerdom by a commercial publisher who had initially knee-jerk rejected him. …

To read more please click here.

““Every path, every street in the world is your walking meditation path.
~Thich Nhat Hanh”

In my last article, The Surprising Problem With Meditation, I explained why it’s crucial to complement sitting meditation with walking meditation.

Though, it is relatively unknown, walking meditation is practiced worldwide. In Thailand, meditators sit and walk alternately during meditation retreats. In fact, many Thai monks use mindful walking as their main meditation practice. An elderly Thai monk was so fond of walking meditation, that when he was no longer able to walk, he instructed his attendant to wheel his chair around his walking path!

If you have limited time, walking meditation is a great way to combine mindfulness with exercise.

Three benefits of walking meditation

1. Banish drowsiness

If you feel drowsy or lethargic, you will benefit by switching to walking meditation instead of sitting with your eyes closed. Drowsiness during meditation is natural. Often we see not just students but even meditation teachers dozing off on their cushions.

To read more please click here.

Rohi Shetty is working on a new program, called The Ultimate Guide to Walking Meditation. Readers of How to Tell a Great Story are welcome to join the pilot course for free. Please email him at writenow09@gmail.com and he will send you a secret link to join the course as soon as it’s ready. You’ll also get a free review copy of his book.

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