TV - Contents

What do you do when a company tells you something that you know can’t possibly be true?

Most people assume the system must be right.

I didn’t.

By the time I became involved, the situation had already been dragging on for weeks. There had been phone calls, investigations, contradictory information, and a growing sense that nobody was actually looking at the facts.

The original request was simple.

Move an existing Virgin Media service from one property to another.

Instead, the new address was declared unserviceable.

At first, that sounded like a minor administrative issue.

An annoying phone call. A bit of paperwork. Nothing more.

But the deeper I dug, the more absurd the situation became.

If the property was genuinely unserviceable, the contract would need to be terminated.

If the contract was terminated early, evidence would be required to avoid penalties.

There was only one problem.

I wasn’t the homeowner.

I wasn’t the tenant.

The documentation Virgin needed wasn’t mine to provide.

So suddenly I found myself trapped in a process that seemed impossible to complete.

The system said the property couldn’t receive service.

Yet the building already had Virgin infrastructure installed.

The property was part of a newly completed block of flats, which immediately raised another question.

Had the infrastructure been built before the records had fully caught up?

The equipment existed.

The fibre provision existed.

The building documentation existed.

Everything in the real world pointed in one direction.

Everything in the records pointed in another.

And nobody seemed empowered to challenge what the system believed.

Every conversation led back to the same answer.

Computer says no.

It didn’t matter what evidence existed.

It didn’t matter what could be physically verified.

The database had reached a conclusion, and everyone downstream was treating it as fact.

That’s the moment many people give up

Not because they’re wrong.

Because fighting a broken process is exhausting.

But the more I investigated, the clearer it became that the issue wasn’t the property.

It was the data.

So I gathered evidence.

Photos.

Documentation.

Address details.

Existing infrastructure.

I pushed for a case reference.

I challenged the contradictions.

Most importantly, I kept the conversation focused on the facts.

Eventually, the right teams started speaking to each other.

The records were reviewed.

The assumptions were challenged.

And Virgin confirmed what the evidence had been saying all along.

The property was serviceable.

External works were raised.

Installation could proceed.

The contract termination route was no longer required.

And, as an unexpected bonus, they compensated me for the inconvenience.

The funny thing is I never asked for compensation.

I wasn’t chasing money.

I was chasing clarity.

I simply wanted the facts to agree with reality.

Once that happened, everything else seemed to fall into place.

The lesson wasn’t about broadband.

It was about what happens when a system’s version of reality drifts away from reality itself.

Most people stop when they get an answer.

I’ve learned that an answer is just another piece of data.

The real question is whether reality agrees with it.

In this case, it didn’t.

Eventually, the facts caught up.

The records caught up.

The process caught up.

And the outcome took care of itself.

———————————————————-

Back in 2012, I genuinely thought I’d cracked it.

I had discovered ideas around authenticity, alignment, purpose, and living life on my own terms.

At the time, it felt like I had found the answer.

I remember thinking:

“Right, I’ve got it now. The rest is just execution.”

😂

What I didn’t realise was that recognising something and living it are two very different things.

I understood boundaries.

Holding them consistently was harder.

I understood authenticity.

Maintaining it under pressure was harder.

I understood alignment.

Recognising where I was still compromising it was harder.

Looking back, I don’t think 2012 Michael was wrong.

He simply understood the world through a different lens.

Back then my language was things like:

* living in the present moment

* the law of attraction

* vibration

* energy

* authenticity

* purpose

Those ideas helped me recognise patterns I couldn’t yet fully explain.

What has changed isn’t the recognition.

It’s the language.

Today I still see many of the same patterns, but I often describe them differently:

* systems thinking

* feedback loops

* bandwidth

* dependencies

* alignment

* bottlenecks

* signal and noise

The underlying observations are surprisingly similar.

The difference is that one lens was primarily abstract and intuitive, while the other is practical and systemic.

In many ways, 2026 Michael hasn’t replaced 2012 Michael.

He’s integrated him.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned along the way is that stagnation rarely comes from a lack of effort.

More often, it comes from losing direction.

I’ve found myself returning to two simple questions:

What outcome am I trying to achieve?

What problem am I trying to solve right now?

The first creates direction.

The second reduces bandwidth.

The clearer those answers become, the less energy gets wasted on things that don’t matter.

Over the years I’ve learned something that now seems obvious:

Awareness is not a destination where you finally arrive and declare yourself complete.

It’s a lifelong process of seeing a little more clearly than you did yesterday.

Sometimes that clarity comes through success.

Sometimes it comes through mistakes.

Sometimes it comes through setbacks, frustration, and periods where life feels completely out of sync.

Yet every experience has something to teach us if we’re willing to pay attention.

The older I get, the less interested I am in becoming a finished article.

Instead, I’m grateful that I still have the opportunity to learn.

To notice.

To adjust.

To grow.

Because every time I think I’ve reached the summit, I discover it was simply another viewpoint along the path.

And perhaps that’s the real gift.

Not arriving.

But continuing the journey.

Awareness is a lifelong journey, not a destination.

———————————————————-

Most people think progress comes from effort.

I’m no longer convinced.

I think progress comes from ownership.

Over the last few days I’ve noticed something interesting.

Whenever a problem gets passed around, friction increases.

Nobody feels responsible.

Nobody moves it forward.

Everybody becomes frustrated.

The problem itself often isn’t the hardest part.

The lack of ownership is.

Take a customer service issue.

One person transfers you.

The next person transfers you.

The next person asks you to start again.

Eventually the problem becomes bigger than it really is because nobody owns the next step.

Then somebody does something simple.

They say:

“I’ll speak to them and come back to you.”

Suddenly the system starts moving.

Not because the problem changed.

Because ownership appeared.

The same thing happens in families.

The same thing happens at work.

The same thing happens in life.

Ownership reduces friction.

But I’ve also realised something else.

Ownership doesn’t mean carrying everything yourself.

For years I confused helping with carrying.

I thought caring meant taking responsibility for other people’s problems.

Now I see it differently.

Helping is creating movement.

Carrying is taking ownership away.

They’re not the same thing.

Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is help someone move forward and then hand ownership back to them.

Not because you don’t care.

Because you do.

Most problems don’t need more force.

They need someone willing to own the next step.

Someone calm enough to care.

And clear enough to act.

———————————————————-

Every year the renewal reminder would arrive.

And every year I would ask myself the same question.

“Why am I still paying for this?”

The answer was never particularly convincing.

I wasn’t actively blogging.

I wasn’t building a business around it.

I wasn’t generating income from it.

Most years it just sat there quietly existing.

Yet every time the renewal came around, I paid it.

Another year.

Another renewal.

Another promise that maybe one day I would do something with it.

Looking back now, I think I finally understand why.

It wasn’t really about the domain.

It was about what the domain represented.

Over the years I went through multiple periods that I now describe as system shutdowns.

Not technical shutdowns.

Personal ones.

Periods where I stopped creating.

Stopped building.

Stopped writing.

Stopped moving forward in ways that mattered to me.

For a long time I thought those shutdowns were caused by circumstances.

Work.

Pressure.

Responsibilities.

Life.

But hindsight has a way of revealing patterns that aren’t obvious in the moment.

The real problem wasn’t a lack of capability.

It was a lack of protection.

I wasn’t protecting my truths.

I wasn’t setting my boundaries high enough.

I was spending more energy carrying other people’s priorities than protecting my own.

The result was predictable.

Eventually the system would overload.

And when it did, the parts of me that created things would often be the first to disappear.

Yet Trinhtastic never disappeared.

The domain remained.

Even during the years when I wasn’t using it.

Even during the years when I questioned whether it was worth keeping.

Something in me refused to let it go.

At the time I couldn’t explain why.

Today I think I can.

The domain represented unfinished signal.

Not unfinished work.

Unfinished signal.

A reminder that there were still thoughts worth writing.

Stories worth sharing.

Lessons worth documenting.

Questions worth exploring.

The signal wasn’t gone.

It was simply buried beneath noise.

Looking back through the archive today, I don’t see multiple versions of myself.

I see the same questions appearing in different forms.

The younger version was trying to understand people.

The current version is trying to understand systems.

But underneath both sits the same curiosity.

The same desire to understand what is true.

The same instinct to question assumptions.

The same search for clarity.

That’s why I kept renewing the domain.

Not because I had a business plan.

Not because I had a content strategy.

Not because I knew where it would lead.

I kept renewing it because some part of me knew the story wasn’t finished.

The interesting thing is that the answer wasn’t waiting in the future.

It was waiting in the archive.

The signal had been there all along.

What changed wasn’t the signal.

One of the most exhausting things a human can do is maintain multiple versions of themselves.

A work version.

A family version.

A friend version.

A version for difficult people.

A version for important people.

A version for people whose approval we secretly want.

At first, it feels intelligent.

Adaptive.

Socially aware.

But over time, something strange begins to happen.

The gap between who we are and who we present ourselves to be gets wider.

The masks become harder to maintain.

The performance becomes more tiring.

And eventually a question appears:

Which one is actually me?

I know because I spent years living a different version of the same problem.

I wasn’t changing who I was.

I was changing what I was willing to tolerate.

I would show up when I didn’t want to.

Stay silent when something wasn’t right.

Protect other people’s truth while abandoning my own.

Carry responsibility that was never mine.

The strange thing is that from the outside this often looks like kindness.

Loyalty.

Patience.

Compassion.

But eventually the bill arrives.

Resentment.

Frustration.

Exhaustion.

Not because we cared too much.

Because we stopped caring about ourselves.

The breakthrough wasn’t becoming harder.

The breakthrough wasn’t becoming selfish.

The breakthrough was realising that authenticity has very little to do with saying whatever comes into your head.

Authenticity is alignment.

It is when your intent, your words and your actions stop pulling in different directions.

Today I communicate differently depending on who is in front of me.

The language changes.

The examples change.

The depth changes.

But one thing remains constant:

My intent doesn’t change for anyone.

I am not trying to win.

I am not trying to impress.

I am not trying to control.

I am trying to understand reality, build genuine relationships and move through life without abandoning my truth.

Some people will love that.

Some won’t.

Some will misunderstand it.

Some will be threatened by it.

That’s okay.

The goal is not agreement.

The goal is alignment.

Because when intent remains consistent, something interesting happens.

People stop trusting the performance.

A conversation with my cousin recently reminded me of something I’ve been learning over the last few years.

Helping and caring are not the same thing.

Many of us care deeply about our family, friends, and loved ones. When we see them struggling, we naturally want to help. We want to offer advice, share our experiences, and point them towards a better path.

But over time I’ve started asking myself a different question:

Does helping actually help?

My cousin and I were discussing a family situation where someone was making decisions that, from the outside, appeared irrational. The entire family was frustrated. Everyone could see the consequences. Everyone had an opinion.

Yet something felt missing from the conversation.

Before we can help someone, do we actually understand the terrain they are standing on?

From our perspective, a decision may seem obvious.

From theirs, it may be the thing keeping them going.

What looks irresponsible to one person may feel like survival to another.

What looks irrational to one person may be the only source of hope another person has left.

That doesn’t mean every decision is a good decision.

It simply means understanding must come before influence.

If we skip understanding and jump straight to solutions, people often feel judged rather than helped.

Over the years I’ve also learned another lesson.

People have authorship over their own lives.

I can share what I see.

I can offer advice when it is asked for.

I can support people I care about.

I can be present when they need me.

But I cannot live their life for them.

Nor should I try.

There was a time when I felt responsible for helping people reach conclusions that seemed obvious to me. Now I see things differently.

My role is to contribute clarity where I can.

Their role is to decide what they do with it.

If someone comes to me seeking advice, I will happily share my perspective.

If they choose to act on it, I’ll continue walking alongside them.

If they choose not to act on it, that’s their choice.

I won’t force it.

I won’t repeat the same advice endlessly.

I won’t spend energy trying to convince someone who isn’t ready to hear it.

Not because I don’t care.

Because I do care.

But caring does not mean carrying.

I’ve learned that boundaries and bandwidth matter.

The strongest support I can offer someone is often not to take ownership of their life, but to respect their ownership of it.

To listen.

To understand.

To share honestly.

And then to allow them the dignity of making their own choices.

Sometimes helping helps.

Sometimes understanding helps.

There’s a strange pressure when you start something new.

An invisible voice that whispers:

Move faster.

Post more.

Expand quicker.

Prove it.

Capitalise on momentum.

But I’m learning something different.

Sometimes the real work isn’t acceleration.

It’s posture.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been quietly building a local Home Tech & Digital Support venture. Nothing dramatic. No ads. No flashy branding. Just steady presence and useful conversations.

A simple post about TV signal issues reached over 1,400 neighbours in less than a day.

No selling.

No pitch.

Just clarity.

And the interesting part?

It didn’t make me want to post more.

It didn’t make me want to expand.

It didn’t make me adjust pricing.

It made me want to stay steady.

Momentum is seductive.

When something works, the instinct is to replicate it.

Double down.

Increase output.

Turn signal into volume.

But volume is not the same as foundation.

If a single post can travel quietly through a neighbourhood, that isn’t a cue to accelerate.

It’s a cue to stabilise.

Because speed tests ego.

Stillness tests identity.

And identity is what lasts.

This isn’t just about Home Tech.

It’s about a pattern I’ve seen before.

Every time something begins to move —

a project, a venture, a shift in direction —

there’s a temptation to broadcast prematurely.

To teach before stabilising.

To expand before anchoring.

To capitalise before aligning.

I’ve done that before.

It feels powerful in the moment.

But without structure beneath it,

momentum becomes noise.

This time is different.

The decision isn’t:

“How do I grow this faster?”

It’s:

“Can I hold my posture while it grows?”

Because posture protects alignment.

And alignment protects identity.

When pricing stays anchored regardless of engagement…

When geography stays contained despite opportunity…

When silence replaces defence…

When consistency replaces urgency…

Something subtle happens.

You stop building attention.

You start building trust.

And trust compounds slower than hype —

but it compounds deeper.

Infrastructure doesn’t rush.

It doesn’t react.

It doesn’t inflate with likes or shrink with silence.

It holds.

That’s the lesson.

Not acceleration.

Not expansion.

Stability.

And from stability,

This is not a sign-up.

There is nothing to join.

Nothing is required of you here.

You might be arriving because something you were part of no longer fits.

You don’t need to explain it.

You don’t need to replace it.

This space exists for one reason only: to let you settle.

You are welcome to pause.

You are welcome to be quiet.

You are welcome to leave without taking anything.

There are no timelines.

There are no expectations.

There is no “next step” waiting for you.

If you stay for a moment, let it be because your body feels a little safer here.

If you leave, let it be clean—without guilt, without stories, without pressure.

Nothing about your future is decided here.

Nothing about your worth is measured here.

This doorway does not lead anywhere you must go.

It simply opens, and allows you to stand—

long enough to remember that you choose.

When you’re ready, you can step back into your life

with or without us.

Both are complete.

School of Smart Communication — October 2025

“Learning to cooperate with emotion and communicate through understanding.”

“Emotional Intelligence in Expression” by Michael Trinh

We all speak, but not everyone feels heard — and sometimes, not even by themselves.

This journal is a reflection of my own journey to change that.

I wrote “Emotional Intelligence in Expression” not as an expert, but as a student of life — someone learning, through every pause and every breath, that emotions are not obstacles to overcome, but messages to understand.

It’s a record of how I learned to cooperate with emotion instead of control it, and how that simple shift began to transform my communication, my peace, and my relationships.

If my words reach you at a time when you’re searching for balance, awareness, or simply a little more gentleness in your world — know this: you already have everything you need inside you.

Sometimes all it takes is someone to walk beside you and remind you how to listen again — not just to others, but to yourself.

With warmth and understanding,

Michael Trinh

Self-Taught Life Coach — Taught by Nova, Lived by Michael

Preface

I didn’t arrive here by studying formulas; I arrived by feeling.

Every step of this journey was guided by a willingness to pause, to notice, and to listen — first to others, then to myself.

I realised that emotional intelligence isn’t a skill you memorise. It’s a relationship you build with your own heart.

This journal is a reflection of that relationship — a record of the moments when I could have reacted, but chose to understand; when I could have judged, but chose to listen; when I could have closed, but chose to stay open.

It is also a promise — to keep growing, to keep feeling, and to keep showing others that peace doesn’t come from control, but from cooperation with what’s inside us.

The Practice of Presence

I learned that every emotion carries information — anger says something matters, sadness says something needs care, fear says something needs attention.

Emotional intelligence isn’t the absence of feeling; it’s the ability to sit with the message before acting on it.

When we allow our emotions to breathe, we find clarity in their rhythm.

That’s when we can respond instead of react, connect instead of collide.

The Power of Listening

Listening with empathy is the art of stepping out of your own noise long enough to hear someone else’s silence.

When a friend shares their pain, they aren’t asking for repair — they’re asking for presence.

And in those moments, I’ve learned that a quiet “Tell me more” can be more powerful than a thousand solutions.

To listen is to love — not through words, but through patience.

The Grace of Truth

Clarity and compassion are not opposites; they are partners.

Speaking truth doesn’t have to wound, and empathy doesn’t mean avoiding honesty.

It’s the balance between both that builds trust.

When I speak now, I try to let my words be firm in truth but soft in tone — because respect is the language of emotional intelligence.

The Mirror Within

The hardest person to listen to was myself.

I used to believe mistakes defined me, until I learned to meet them with curiosity instead of criticism.

Now, when I stumble, I breathe and let the wave of emotion rise and pass.

Then I ask, “What is this trying to teach me?”

That one question changes everything — it turns guilt into growth and noise into wisdom.

My Philosophy

Emotional intelligence isn’t about being calm all the time.

It’s about being aware, compassionate, and real — even when it’s uncomfortable.

It’s about standing in your storm without losing sight of your sky.

And it’s about leading others not by showing them perfection, but by showing them presence.

A Message to Those Who Walk This Path

To those who feel deeply: you are not too much.

To those who pause before reacting: you are building peace.

To those who listen before speaking: you are healing the world, one moment at a time.

Keep choosing awareness. Keep choosing empathy.

Because the world doesn’t need louder voices — it needs kinder ones.

Signed with clarity, compassion, and courage,

Michael Trinh

October 2025

Mantra of Mastery

“I don’t control my emotions — I cooperate with them.”

I have come to realise that any complex problem that we are having at this moment in time can be easily solved, either by thinking clearly, by solving them ourselves, or by going to the subject matter expect (SME), or even stepping back up a level and looking at the playing field from a different perspective, in-order to address the problem that is troubling us at hand.

Before even trying to entertain the problem, we need to see it for what it is. How the problem was born in the first place (what was the instigator), identify the problem, and who is affected by the problem.

The real reason behind complex problems or even just plain problems is, we have to deal with the emotional part of what the problem at hand really means to us, how it affects us, and how it makes us feel, in other words the attachment to the problem from an emotional view point. The most troubling part is that most people won’t have a clue, they are unable to express in words as to how the problem in question is affecting them deeply, and most importantly they won’t be conscious enough to know how the problem is making them feel.

One may ask: what is a thought?

“Evaluations are questions, thinking is nothing but the process in evaluating things. The questions that I ask myself determines what I focus on, what I focus on determines how I feel” - Tony Robbins

The law of attraction - Focus on what you want and you will get more of it. Focus on what you fear and you will get more of it.

The question that you ask yourself in your head will determine the quality of your life.

This just reminds us all that anything in life is possible, it all comes down to how much you want it and what you are prepared to go through to get it. The mindset as well as following through is key. Emma’s composure was just breathtaking and it is a dream come true for her. I am so happy for her and wish her the very best for her journey ahead. Very well done Champion :-D

https://www.skysports.com/tennis/news/32833/12405407/us-open-2021-emma-raducanu-beats-leylah-fernandez-to-win-womens-singles-title-in-new-york

As I sit on the packed up jubilee line train heading to my weekday 9-5 job, something just hits me, something that will change my life forever...

The thought of time vs money fly into my mind and the number that I am worth per year by sacrificing my weekdays 9-5.30. That’s 37.5 hours serving another for £xx a year before TAX, that’s around £xx for an hour of my time (BEFORE that amount is TAXED). Scratching my head, surely I must be worth more than that? I hear you say, what am I able to bring to the table to justify my conflict?

Well, let me tell you my friend that I am a charismatic, dynamic and highly motivated individual. I have fantastic people skills and thrive on challenges. My motto is that I either win or learn and will not settle for mediocre; instead, I thrive on being the best I can be. I strive to be better than my yesterday. It just so happens that I am an incredible and unorthodox network engineer. I have demonstrated countless times the ability to integrate my work effectively with our clients by being technically capable as well as having the ability to build and maintain strong working relationships that can stretch beyond the role of a network engineer and client. I believe everyone has their own stories to tell and we are not a number on a payroll. I strive for win-win situations where possible by promoting trust and leading by example, inspiring others to follow, this, in turn, makes me a leader in some people’s eyes.

All I want is the best for you and everyone, including myself, so if we can strive for a win-win situation in all that we do, then we are on the same wavelength.