A short personal-reflection video by George Kao filmed at Sutro Baths (San Francisco) in which he outlines the core foundations he is building for a good life as a new year begins. He describes four practical foundations—relationships, true livelihood (meaningful work), mindful chores (home practices), and content creation—and lists specific values he cultivates for each (e.g., stay/affection/curiosity for relationships; empathy/excellence/innovation for livelihood; consistency/helpful/engaging for content).
Chapters
Hi, this is George Kao and I'm here at the Sutro Baths in San Francisco, California. And as I was reflecting on this amazing scenery, I'm looking at how the foundations that have been built here is providing lots of enjoyment, relaxation for lots of people, even after decades where it's not been officially used. And it's also even providing an ecosystem for birds and other wildlife around here. And it's against the turbulent waves of the Pacific Ocean. And it just got me thinking about the foundations of our lives. And I want to invite you to think in this video. Think with me as I talk through what the foundations are that I am building, that I have built to some degree. And I'm building further in the coming year as we are transitioning right now into a new year. So let me share with you what my foundations are that I'm working on and then that may inspire you to think about and build yours more mindfully. So the first foundation I have would be relationships, my closest relationships, whether it's with family or friends or specifically here, I'm thinking about my life partner and how relationships that are nurtured provide us a way to keep growing in virtues. Because relationships are a rich source of potential conflict, but also a rich source of learning how to love others and learning more about others. So I think it helps us grow into virtues more and also relationships, when they are nurtured, provide us some stability for us to grow our true livelihood, the way that we serve the world and are supported financially as a result, and financially in many other ways as a result. And in my relationships, what I am, my top three values that I'm clarifying right now are staying is the first value, which means to stay no matter what in the relationship that I want to nurture, that I have nurtured, stay. The second value is affection. So showing warmth and kindness and love to the other person, exchanging that kind of emotions with the other person, and then curiosity, curiosity about learning more about that other person, whoever I'm talking about. And also curiosity if there's a particular conflict, to get curious about how we can grow stronger in the relationship as a result of that conflict. Okay? And the second area that I'm working on is true livelihood, which I define as to earn an honest living providing a much needed service, you know, in the world that allows, that allows me to grow personally spiritually and support myself and my family. So with regards, oh, and also to where I can show my human empathy and love. And I purposely put that in because I think increasingly robots are going to take over our jobs, but something that robots will, something that's going to be very difficult for robots to take over, if ever, is human empathy and love. And if we can practice that more and more in our jobs and in our professions, we will become more and more irreplaceable to others. And in terms of my values for true livelihood, I put empathy as a value that I'm continually cultivating excellence to doing the best work that I can possibly do and innovation, continually being willing to reinvent myself to serve my audience better and better and better. Okay, and then third area that I'm building is what I call mindful chores. And this is again, relating to the home. You know, we all have chores that we must do, whether it's cleaning or cooking or organizing or whatever it may be. And if we can do our chores with a thought that, you know what, I can bring prayerfulness to it, I can bring mindfulness to it. Then even doing mundane chores can be a spiritually growing experience. And lastly, I put my area of priority and foundation is my content. And what I mean by content is to keep sharing my best knowledge and expertise and experience in the areas of authentic marketing, joyful productivity, holistic success, and spiritual growing. And when it comes to my content, that area, my top values are to be consistent, to be consistent so that I don't get too perfectionistic. And I keep growing because I notice when I do content, I grow myself. And if I'm lucky, that also helps other people. That's my intention, certainly to be consistent, to be helpful, and to be engaging. Those are my three values for content. Helpful, of course, is to make things like videos and articles that are helpful for others to grow and to benefit them. And engaging to try to learn how to make my content more and more fun, entertaining to watch so that it's not so boring. Anyway, I hope that this has been an interesting video. You know, this is unusual. I usually show myself, but here, such an amazing scenery. I just wanted to show you the Sutro Baths in San Francisco in the Presidio Park. And there's my little dog buddy, very sweet little dog. And with that, I want to wish you an amazing transition into the new year. Or if you're watching this in the middle of the year, I want you to know that it is always possible to start again and again in building our foundations so that we can provide a life that is of benefit to others as well as growing ourselves in the ways that matter the most. Be well until the next video. I wish you mindfulness in continually building your foundations.
