Help the polars!

It's been long time I din't watch TV, especially my favorite documentary channels . During my wedding week when I was at my hometown, I saw a very shocking documentary about polar bears. It doesn't seems like the size I saw in the zoo or from the documentary I watched years ago. They were so thin, and looked exhausted after long hour of hunting, swimming, starving!

The key factor is thinning of the polar ice results in thinning of the polar bears too. Not only that, over fishing, polar bear hunting are the other factors that contribute to the slimming and extinction of the bears!
Look at how adorable, how healthy, how fluffy they were!

Now look at what human has did to them! Look at how sick, how thin they are now. 

I believe the Nature is balance. The more you destroy, the heavier they will pay back! Now, the earth is too hot right? Not enough ice right? Look at the snow fall, the blizzard in winter this year. Is a sign of nature on trying to balance back. Think of the movie 2012. I believe most have watched it. It was saying the super solar flare that cause the end of the world but now I don't think so. It's us! 

Validation

This is a short clip of a young parking attendant giving free parking validation and personal validation. Validation to a person is to recognize, to confirm on that person behavior, appearance, clothes, and some time even someone thought.

After watching the fable, I found that giving validation on someone is a good way to start a topic with stranger whom you just met. Not only that they will start talking and tell more about themselves, they will smile and they will like you and remember you. Giving out compliment or validation is a very powerful method in creating rapport between people in a very short time as well. So, guys and girls, praise more to people. You'll not only create more smile and laughter to the world, you'll also leave a good impression to others as well.

Money Personality Type

People always relate success with money. Every successful people are rich people! Somehow, I find it quite true as well. Most of the successful people learn and know how to deal with the money they have. How you treat the money is how the money treat you back! So get to know a few major types of money personality that consist in the society.

1. Spenders: I would say there are a few levels on spenders. In general, spenders are people who enjoy spending money to fulfill their emotional needs. They are instant gratification type.There are very disintegrate type of spenders (spend on whatever branded items they see even they don't need it) and there are also not that crucial type of spenders (they shop and they bargain, yet they still spend to fill the emptiness in emotion). Basically, spenders are people live rich die poor. The worst type is end up debts more than income and yet their income will not be able to catch up their monthly debts. Credit cards will be their lifelong partners!

2. Hoarders: Another term is call savers. They are the opposite of spenders. They feel money as security instead of materials. They spend only what it is need. They do not like to owe money to others. They will try to clear debts as soon as possible if they ever have one. They tend to be more conservative and do not take much risk in investment. So Hoarders are those type of person that live poor die rich! The extreme one will even think credit cards or borrowing money from bank as evil. From hoarders: Die off you credit cards!

3. Avoider: Try not to speak about money with avoiders. They are worse in remembering money and figure. Money basically will not be affecting their judgement. They are not very particular in how much they spend or how much they save. So, they are very weak in money management. Besides, they are the one who pay bills after the payment period. It's not they don't want to pay, its, they don't even care to pay them. Extreme case is they wait until people chase after them then only they pay the bills. If they owe you money, they can forget to return you; and if you owe them money, hurray for you as they tend to forget who owe them money and how much you owe, hahaha!

4. Money Monk: Money monk is somehow like avoider, they hardly talk about money and when it comes to pay bills, they are very similar to avoiders. Although they don't avoid money as avoiders do. Just that, they are more neutral towards money. They focus more on relationship, spiritual finding. To them, money is not everything and money is also the least important thing. Basically, money monk treat money as nothing!

5. Amasser: Unlike the hoarders, amasser like to accumulate money. They enjoy growing money. Amasser can be very good investor or employee. One enjoy using money to grow even more money and the other enjoy working to gain more money. The layman term is one enjoy money working for them the other enjoy working for money! Extreme amasser tend to over leverage or overstressed themselves in getting money.

For a successful money manager, you need to learn to be BALANCE in these 5 types. Successful people know when is the right time to spend and spend on the right things. They also learn on how to save money but not hoarding the money tightly. They also know the balance between their family relationship, friendship and partnership versus with money. Sometimes, having an avoider mindset is good as not everything is related to money and not let money influence your decision. Amasser is a too strong a word for successful people. I would say they are investors and do not over leverage on themselves in investment or any money making opportunity. Lastly, I would also encourage people to DONATE some money according to own comfortability frequently to religious and non-profitable organization! So become success with a noble deed.

Speed Wealth

Recently, I just attended a 3 days seminar by T. Harv Eker. The Seminar name is Millionaire Mind Intensive (MMI). From there, I met my friend and she lent me a book name Speed Wealth written by T. Harv Eker. The book only consist of 70 over pages and yet contains a lot of useful information and experience shared by Mr. T. Harv Eker.

In the book Speed Wealth, the author mentioned that there are 8 important principle that lead to success in less than 3 years.
The 1st principle is to develop a speed wealth mindset. Must always position yourself to be willing to learn as the product cycle of Start, Growth, Maturation, Saturation, Decline happen so rapid.

The 2nd principle is to deliver massive value. Demand, Supply, Quality and Quantity defines your value. Demand = how much market wants it. Supply = how much readily available in elsewhere.Quality = how good your products and services. Quantity = how much you deliver your products and services. Make "cloning" of yourself as well.

The 3rd principle is Timing: choose the right business at the right time. Right vehicle at right place and right time. Model a proven winner and improve on it. It's often faster, easier to affiliate with a company that's up running than to start from scratch.

The 4th principle is to systemize. Create a business system (a repeatable process that produces a profit) that you do not work IN it.

The 5th principle is to duplicate. Duplicate to serve bigger market.

The 6th principle is to leverage. Work smart instead of work hard.
Sample of leverage:
1. start with little or no money
2. use other people's talents, skills, contacts, credibility and resources
3. fully utilizing the latest technologies to increase speed and efficiency
4. use the power of media to get millions of dollars of free publicity
5. borrowing celebrity fame for endorsement
6. selling products before you have them, or at least before you have to pay for them
7. expanding business using you customer's or supplier's money
8. getting the best people in the industry to work for you now, for almost "nothing"
9. getting more from your employees by properly training them, treating them well, giving them the space to express their true talents.
10. getting more from yourself, enhancing your business knowledge, developing your personally and increasing you stamina and energy.
11. managing your time more effectively so you do the right things instead of just do the things right.

The 7th principle is cashing out. Start with the end in mind! The 4 enviable choices:
1. keep the business, continue to hands on and make a huge income
or 2. keep the business, cash out your time be delegating the day-to-day affairs and make a huge passive income.
or 3. sell part of the business and become an instant millionaire.
or 4. create a combination of all the above.
Bear in mind that everyone thinks they can do better than you, once they take over! Deal with large successful corporations where a million or 2 is a drop in the bucket!

The 8th principle is to do it now! Practice being happy now! Practice does not make perfect, practice makes permanent. Practice whatever you want to be in future, now. Get money handle! and learn, learn, LEARN!

The success spirit in my self! You have it too!

I would like to tell a story about myself in the past that has a very strong image until now.
Until the age of 15, I still don’t know on how to ride a bicycle. Everyone was laughing at me but I don’t care until a day I see all of my friends were riding bicycle and how enjoy they were. I was the one that left out. So I told myself that I need to learn how in order to enjoy the fun. 

First I start by borrowing a 4 wheels bicycle. I started off with it. I start to ride and enjoy with my friends. People still laugh at me even I know how to ride! “That was how baby ride a bicycle”
Basically I do not care on how they look at me and the problem is 2 wheels bike is more common that 4 wheels. 2 wheels bike is harder to control as compared to 4 wheels. So I decided to take up the challenge to ride a 2 wheels bicycle. HAHAHA! 

At 1st, I can’t even make 1 cycle out of it. Thankful, these friends are true friend and mentors. They are willing to teach me HOW. They guided. I still remember those keywords. They said learn how to BALANCE YOURSELF, CONQUER YOUR FEAR (my mind was keep telling me it’s difficult to balance!!!) and JUST KEEP PADDLING! WALAH! I start to able to paddle a few cycles! True joy were form in my heart that time. 

That’s not the end yet, only able to make a few paddles doesn’t mean I can sustain. It took me 3 months from riding a 4 wheels bike to start paddling a few cycles of a 2 wheels bike. I fell and hurt myself in order to maintain the ride. I fall, I bleed, I never give up and continue to do it. I can’t even remember how many times I repeat the above statement. 

However, I do noticed improvement, the numbers of falling and the severeness of injuries decrease inversely proportional to the number distance I can cycle. Finally, in 6 months time, I manage to “graduate” and now the cycling method has implanted in my subconscious mind. I know how to ride once I’m on bike. Thanks to those friends who teach me and I'm grateful on that.

I believe everyone will have this kind of story within their own. Recall it, bring back that type of similar feeling, energy and apply it on everything you do. This is the true you that can lead you to your own success!

What is your success definition?

There are a lot of definition for success. Most of the people defined their success in the form of monetary, materials or status. As an example, people defined their success status by owning millions of dollars, owning some luxury cars or properties and etc. Some define it as successfully climbing to the top of the corporate ladders and having more digits of income.

All the success definitions are defined by own individual. All the definitions mentioned in the paragraph earlier are alright. I would just like to add on that doing the things you like everyday is also a success in life. Doing something you are passionate about everyday will drive yourself towards to success too. Not necessary must be driving big car or living in a mansion.

Let me share a story.
Once there was a boy who likes shoes. He has a very strong passion in making shoes. He starts to make his very first shoes when he was kid. When he was in studying as fashion design in college, he worked in a factory as shoes cleaner to fund his education. He just so passionate about shoes designing and non-stop designing in his own style. During the early times when he just started his company, he is still infamous and that doesn't stop him from what he love. He just keep designing and making shoes until one day people start to recognize his work and he become a super famous ladies' shoes designer in the world. Do you thing this is also a success story? He just become success and famous by just doing what he passioned about everyday. Even though there are a lot of noise beside him to influence him from quiting what he is doing but he just ignored them and continue to do what he loves to.

So, have you found the things you love to do? Are you doing the things you like everyday? Are you defining your own success? Find what you really love to do and do it everyday!
To me success is just a very simple theory, Do what you passion and passion on what you do!

How to fight fire??

Fire is start from a spark.When the thing caught on fire, the fire will channel to the next object. The fire will spread to nearby object and grow bigger. If the object beside the fire is water, do you think the fire can spread?
Since ancient, water is known as the nemesis to fire. Water is the most common ways use to extinguish fire.
A small fire need quite some amount of water to put it off. The bigger the fire is, the bigger the amount of water requires to extinguish it! (According to volumetric size, the amount of water require to put out the same amount/volume of fire is always insufficient.)
If there's a big fire, and not enough water to put it off, watered the surrounding objects will help the fire from spreading and eventually the fire will put out itself as there's nothing for it to burn.
Even though the water is insufficient, pouring the small amount of water onto the fire will cause the fire to flicker and get smaller in a short period of time. Constantly pouring the small water is as good as putting the fire off with a one time big amount of water. Probably the process only took longer time but end up will putting off the fire as well.
Think of the 3 situations below:
1. If initial fire is surrounded by more fire?
2. If initial fire is surrounded by wind? Especially the wind blowing from a single side 1?
3. If initial fire is surrounded by  only water?
What do you think of the initial fire?

Try link the article above with
a. Fire = Anger
b. Water = Calm
c. Objects = Human/Person
What do you think?

The 5th Elements of Success (Part 3, add on)

I got a few feedbacks from some blog supporters and friends of mine. They gave a whole new idea about the Elements of Success. 

The add ons are:

WIDER NETWORK: 

That covers INTERNET! In fact, internet really shorten the time of success as well. Our generation is really bless. During the old days without internet, information is hard to reach. People can only ask people, search from library or buy books off the shelf. Now, with just a click, the information needed is feed to our screen in just seconds. 

Internet does really help us in saving time and expending our knowledge. Further more, people now a days use internet to earn $ too. 

In order to main the internet network, we still need to spend our time, knowledge and money just to access it. Am I right to say that?

The 5th Element, Attitude:

This is the last key and it is the "most most most most" important one compared to the other 4, hahaha! I would use very simple words to explain the biggest circle of all -

Take ACTIONS with the correct INTENTIONS! 

After we know how and we apply them, then it will lead us to where we want to be!

The 4 Elements of Success (Part 2)

The 4 elements of success are strongly interrelate with each other. Each of them exist because of contribution from one another.

Knowledge:

Knowledge can be gain from many different ways. Reading books or online materials, watching documentaries or sometime through movie. And now you even can listen to podcast to grasp the knowledge.

Think about how you get through the process of gaining the extra knowledge you need? Do you spend money and time in order gain it? Example, you buy a book with money, then you plan your time to read and to complete the book you bought.

So in exchange of knowledge, we spend money and time to gain that. 

Money:

How does the money goes into your hand? You work, you invest, you gamble? Some even rob or steal to have money into their pockets. No matter how the world goes, money exists and accept it. We need to get money not to buy happiness over here. We need money to buy us necessities. We need money to get ourselves to live on. You work hard and spending more than 8 hours a day for a month to get your salary (which is money). Beside you spend your time working, do you use your knowledge, your expertly to exchange money as well. 

So in exchange of money, we spend our time and our knowledge to earn it. 

Time:   

How about time? How do we exchange money to earn time? Let's think about it together. Can you buy time with money? The answer is Yes. As an example, how do you travel from your home to work? Walk which is free but you will end up either wake up early in the morning or you'll be exhausted and ate when you reach. Compare to walk to your company, you pay money to get there. Paying money save your time in reaching to the company. Let's say you take public transport - buses. They are cheap, slower and compare to your own car which is costlier, you drive by your own you get the reach your work place faster and you can have a better time management as you do not need to wait for the bus. 

How about exchange of knowledge to earn time? These 2 elements are so closely bond together that we often ignore it's co-relationship. Everything we do, every decision we made, every problem we solved can be answered as using our brain to come out a solution to achieve the goal in shortest time as possible. Think of human evolution in cooking. A few thousands year ago, our ancestors use probably 1 hour to light up the fire by using 2 stones and it took another 30 minutes to cook the raw meat. Now, we just put our food in mircowave oven and everything is ready in 10-15 minutes. The world is improving in time. Everyone just want fast results, immediate effects kind of thing. Everything you enjoy now is the evolution of human being from the contribution of inventors and thinkers. Now, human are so smart that they are trying to stop aging! 

In exchange of saving time, control the time or even "prolong" the time, we trade of our knowledge and money!

Network:

Last but not least, the network circle is placed directly in the middle of the triangle and pointing towards to the outer 3 elements. This is where the most critical and useful of all. It affects all the 3 and you need all three together to gain and maintain it. The most simplest example I can think of is your friendship. Do you spend time to maintain your friendship? Do you spend money on your friends? Do you exchange knowledge with your friends?

We as a human can't be expert in any field. Individual resources also very limited. That's why people network. People borrow others expertise or knowledge to save time and money. We learn from other's people experience so we can achieve we goal in shorter time, lesser money. We borrow other people time to gain extra knowledge that we do not have the time to spend to read on it or we split our jobs between 2 person to save more time. We combine 2 people money together in investment so we can have bigger pools and lesser risks. 

We always use our network of people to achieve our goals because network help to cut short and hasten all the 3 elements and it also requires all 3 elements to gain and to maintain the network!  

Learn and acknowledge all these 4 elements. Plan them well. Play them well and Progress them well. These 4 key elements will eventually lead us to our own goals. 

The 4 Elements of Success (Part 1)

There are 4 key elements that can lead to success. They are knowledge, money time, and network. Every successful entrepreneur and businessman know how to manage these 4 elements well. How they do it and what is the relation between these 4 keys? 

1. KNOWLEDGE:

Knowledge that can lead you to the road of success is very important. A person without knowledge and knowing the skills but never apply or use them is as good as blindfold and doing with both eyes covered. 

Knowledge can be acquired through a lots of ways. The most common ways are reading, listening or tapping to other people talks. 

Acquire the correct knowledge will lead you to success!

2. MONEY:

Money is another key to success. The money mention in this column is not the root of evil. Money in here means planing of your own financial. Plan the spending and saving well. Plan on how to utilize the money to work for you. Live below your mean and try to maximize the saving. From there plan out on how to invest your savings. 

Learn on how to identify good debts and try to get rid of bad debts.

3. TIME:

Out of the 4 keys, this is the fairest of all. Every one has the same amount of time - 24 hours a day regardless you are rich/poor, young/adult. Time management is very important and people always neglect this. Plan your time wisely in everyday. Not only that, plan it for weekly, monthly and even annually. 

Every seconds you waste, you'll not able to earn it back. 

4. NETWORK:

Network means your own people's web. There are so many different types of jobs, professionals, and people working in so many different fields. the society is built from multiple single organism. How the society is linked? It's linked and formed from the people network! Imagine you are a single thread of the cob web, can you catch the prey? So what if you work with the other 10 threads together by linking each other up and form closer, do you think it'll be easier for you to trap the prey? The more threads you mixed, the bigger the web and smaller hole you form. End up, the big big dense web is able to trap prey easily and even the smallest creature also can not escape from it. 

Go out, network so you can form your own big web.  

In part 2, I'll be sharing on how these 4 keys are related so closely together to achieve success. 

Success is Continuous

My Friend shared a very good phrase to me: Success is the result of Good Judgement. Good Judgement is the result of Experience. Experience is the result of Bad Judgement. - Anthony Robbins. 
Another friend of mine replied to his buzz by mentioning: True, we have to gain experience by doing the same thing to improve ourselves. Properties investment requires property viewing in many many times to gain our experience and knowledge. Then it results in good judgement and successful investment at last! No pain no gain...it closely applies to what we are doing now. 


A lot of people afraid of having bad judgement and meeting up with failure. How to avoid failure resulted from bad judgement? There are 2 ways:
1. 80% of the people choose this - Don't think of it, Don't judge on it/Don't hold responsible on it, Don't do it and you'll not face it! 
2. 20% of the people choose this - Learn and study from others. 


Then from the 20% of people that have the knowledge on how to avoid bad judgement, only 20% out of these people really practice it and try to avoid meeting failures. The rest of the 80%? End up in the state 1. after knowing more!


So, these 20% people of the 20% in total (state 2.), do it in order to be successful and there are only 2 outcome after they do it:
A. Only 20% really gain experience they want and successful by practicing what they have learn and applying good judgement. 
B. The rest of the 80% met with failure even if they know how to avoid due to some bad judgement or something they do not know happened. 


Let's continue with people from State B. Still 2 states will happened: 
80% back to state 1. and 20% will continue in the state 2.


How about people of state A.? Do you think only 1 judgement you make in your whole life time? The 20%:20%:20% will continue to judge and experience and again some will stop there. 
80% from the scarce will get lucky on the 1st attempt and not that good on the 2nd time and end up in state 1. The 20%:20%:20%:20% left which is so few people will continue the whole cycle above and more and more will be filtered out from these vicious cycles!


Success is not a single moment, it's a long continuous cycles of good and bad judgement. Only those who are persistently practicing the 20% will continue to MAINTAIN SUCCESS!!! Not only need to not stop learning, not stop attempting as well!

Daily Intention setting

Intention to me is like purpose of doing something in order to get another thing. It can be an aim or goal you set as well. No matter what you do, what you want to get in term of material or non-material form such as knowledge or satisfaction, there is always an intention or purpose behind.
Intention can be good and bad. Good intention always lead you to positivity and constructive result to you or people/things surround you. Bad intention will lead you to negativity and destructive to people/things around you and yourself. Both results are measurable by time. Is just the matter of fact that you can received it in immediate or later.

My life is set with an ultimate goal that I need to achieve no matter how! In order to achieve it, I have a long way to go to. Many personal obstacles I have to overcome. Many wisdom I need to learn and apply. It's not easy and the journey is long. Proudly said that I'm not alone in this journey. I have many people supporting me to strive to the goal. This is a very very big stride.
The big stride start amazing starts with a small single step. Every single day of what you do and perform will lead you to the ultimate goal you have. As an engineer, here comes the equation:
Small steps -> A big Stride
Daily performances -> Goal of your life
Daily performance = Small single step
So in order to achieve the big goal of life you need to accumulate every small little steps you do daily. The ultimate goal will not achieve in a day nor buy doing a single step!

Everyday, I think of my personal ultimate goal. I've been ignoring the small littles steps that I need to take before I reach there. I just keep dreaming that I will reach there someday and without taking much serious actions everyday.
Now I finally realized that, I need to set an positive and good intention daily. Not only that, time need to be well planned as well. For each and every occasion in a single day need to set at intention behind to drive you there or to motivate you to learn something.
How can I do that?
1. Well planned schedule ahead. It can be plan day before or even every morning before you start your day!
2. Take a deep breath and close your eyes.
3. Think of what you want to do; what you want to learn; what you want to achieve.
4. Set it right with a positive intention behind. Use positive and encouraging words in setting your intentions.
5. Focus and complete it.
6. Acknowledge yourself once you complete. (very important as acknowledgement can drive you further and this is what I do not practice.) Acknowledgement can be as simple as praising yourself!

Set it daily in the beginning and slowly advance to weekly, monthly and yearly.

PS. I start doing this today. I split it into day and night and sharing this in my blog is part of my night time intention. I intent to record this down to remind myself and share this to others. My mind is focused, and it feels great after blogging it out and fulfill my daily intention!

TV entertainment revolution soon

Apple iTunes that split the music album and revolutionize the music entertainment industry and personal music entertainment,

Now, the apple TV is going to a new level that I believe that will revolutionize the new home entertainment industry with more affordable and flexible rental services!

"Longest" stare

Eye contact is very important when you communicate with people. By looking at the other person eyes when you are talking to them or listening to them is not purely just a good manner, it is to create a rapport with them. Eyes are link to the soul of a person and I really belief in that. In more practical term, eyes are connected to human brain. You can know the person interest in your speech by looking into the eyes or you can show your interest to the person by sending "signals" from your eyes to the speaker.
Normally, you talk when you look at the person. But have you ever tried blank stare? Staring or looking into someone eyes that you love is not a blank stare. When couples look into each other eyes without talking, signal waves are transmitting and receiving from both parties to get rapport or layman term call "shock". I tried staring into a person which I totally don't know, new met for 1 minute. A 1 minute of blank stare with him is really uncomfortable especially we can't speak and only can smile to each other. When the person you are staring is the same sex as you, even worse!
However, this practise can help you to become easy when you speak with stranger or talking in the stage or in public.  

Penny Wise in using credit cards

I have a few friends who are very penny wise. They know how to get the cheapest things, where to find best bargain available and with them around me, I definitely can save a lot of trouble and money in finding the greatest  deal in town.
There are so many ways to explore to further reduce your bills by paying them credit cards. But do you know that even your credit card bills also can get discount as well? They are very familiar in maximizing their credit cards points and even know how to minimize their credit card bills!!!
For example, when you know there's sales from certain credit cards, you'll purchased the item using the credit cards to get points + discount. This is normally you'll do. Some times, the discount will go higher if you purchase exceed certain amount of $. So, you can pull people around you who is buying from the same shop to enjoy that. This will help you to accumulate your credit card point higher and faster. By end of the month when you need to clear your credit card bills, some bank card eventually will give you rebate whenever you pay ANY bills using their card. This further reduce your credit card bills accordingly! End up, you are enjoying tons of discount, rebates!
Really an eye opening after learning that from them! Will I do that to save all the pennies? You do your maths and see how much you can save.

Read Aesop Fables again when you grow up

When we were kids, our parents and teachers used to read Aesop Fables to us. The very first one that I know of is The ants and the grasshopper. It was the first that I read. For those adults that forgotten the story, it goes like this:

THE ANTS were spending a fine winter's day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, "Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?" He replied, "I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing." They then said in derision: "If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter."

Does the story sound familiar to you all? When we were young, we learn these Aesop's short stories. During back then, these stories are cartooned. I admit, when I was young I personally enjoyed watching the pictures or cartoons more than I knowing the moral behind each stories.

There are 100 over short stories being told by Aesop. Not only kids need to read them, I think youngsters and adults now a days also need to go through the stories again, learn and practice the moral conveying behind each stories. When you are grown up, the understanding of each stories will be different from a viewing point as when you are a kid. Go through them every night like your parents use to tell you bed time stories when you are young. I believe you'll enjoy and learn at the same time.

How you wake up every morning?

Normally how do you wake up every morning?
Do you need an alarm to wake you up daily or you can wake up by yourself without the aid of an alarm?
These are commonly found in working class people who is rushing for time and not to get to work late.
State 1. You woke up automatically every morning at the state of without being late without the aid of the alarm.
State 2. You woke up when the alarm rings.
State 3. You woke up because your alarm irritate the partner beside you and end up they woke you up.
State 4. Your alarm will keep ringing, snoozing and ring again and yet you still unable to wake up. (Worse if you are alone without partner sleeping near or beside you :P)

During the weekdays, statement 3 is how I did. I'm grateful because when I was in the University, I have room mates to wake me up. Now I'm employed and I have a wonderful wife to wake me up every morning. All of them have become my alarm and the alarm clock I set is use to wake them up. Hahaha. Without them, I think I'll end up in state 4!
However, since young until now, it was the other way round for me during every weekends. I woke up automatically every morning sharp at 8am without any aid. I don't know why. No matter what time or how late I go to bed on the Friday night, I'll end up waking myself up automatically at 8am. I become my friends and family alarm during weekends. I will end up in state 5 if I become their alarm and woke them up during weekend at 8am - Got beaten up!

The Power of Conformity

Recently my friend, Yeow Chuan shared a clips to me and I find this clip is really meaningful.





After watching the clips, I have different 2 point of views in my mind.
1. People will tend to follow the majority do.
2. If we all do things at align, the minority will follow.
From these 2 points, I came out with 2 different conclusion.
1. Be special among your friends/people around you is OK. Do what you like to do and do not need to follow the crowd.
2. In a group or company point of view, in order to achieve goals or targets, everyone must do things together to form unity. If all the people are fighting for improvement, you yourself will not want yourself to let out. As the subconscious in the mind of "do not want to be left out" will be triggered and the amazing result you'll find is all will be ending up fighting better in a group.

(Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OC_JfCWYnTQ)

Questions are the Answers

Just got a book from my friend, Vivian. The book she lent to me is from Allan Pease and the title is Questions are the Answers. I would say the book is short but direct to the point. It is very useful in fact powerful when dealing with people, network marketing, insurance marketing. I summarize the content as below:

1. The five golden rules for success
Rule 1: See More people
Rule 2: See More people
Rule 3: See More people (Networking is the keyword)
Rule 4: Use the Law of Averages
Example for rule 4: 10:5:4:3:1 - Ratio use in life insurance. 10 prospect answer phone, 5 agree for appointment, 4 turn out, 3 complete the presentation and 1 would buy. Example of making $500 for a closing, you'll be making $50 for each person picking up phone call!
Rule 5: Improve your averages. After you got the ratio, try to improve them.

2. How to get to "Yes" - The four key technique
Key 1: Melt the ice - create rapport
Key 2: Find the hot button
- Extra income, Financial freedom, have own business, More spare time, Personal development, Helping others, Meeting new people, Retirement, Leave a legacy
- Ask five solid gold questions (In sequence)
i. What is your number one priority? (base on the hot buttons above)
ii. Why did you pick that one?
iii. Why is that important to you?
iv. What are the consequences of not having that opportunity?
v. Why would that worry you?
Key 3: Press hot button - showing the plan
Key 4: Get a commitment - ask them to join or buy

3. Six strategic skills for powerful presenting
Skill 1: Bridging - Not entering silence state by asking "meaning...? For example? So then...? Therefore...? Then you...? Which means...?" + lean forward, palm out, stretch the last letter of the bridge and lean back shut up.
Skill 2: The head nod technique - Nod your head + saying " Isn't it? Wouldn't you? Isn't that true? Fair enough?"
Skill 3: Minimal encourages - Saying "I see..., Uh-huh..., Really? or Tell me more..."
Skill 4: How to keep eye control - Best way is use a pen to point what you are talking and lift pen up when talking to maintain eye contact
Skill 5: Mirroring - When the person mirror you means rapport built
Skill 6: Pacing - Speak in a pace with the person and not faster than the person does

4. Six tremendous techniques for making positive impressions
Technique 1: Palm power - always palm up to show submissive and politeness
Technique 2: The handshake - hold straight and shake up and down to show equality
Technique 3: Left hand holding - hold your items with your left hand to keep your right hand free
Technique 4: Smile power
Technique 5: Territorial respect - Build a comfortable standing distance
Technique 6: Dress for success - Correct dress code

5. Learn to read body language
Many many things to learn over here... The author himself has come out a book for this topic call Body Language publish during 1976. Can go and check out.

How to win friends and Influence people

After I've read through so many titles, this is another strongly recommended book as published in the blog title is a must read, and I say must because it will definitely help anyone in any aspect when you are interacting with people. This book was written by Mr. Dale Carnegie over 70 years ago and until today, the content is still solid and practical. In fact, the best part of this book is they even summarize it in such a simple phrase for every chapter that I would like to take this opportunity to share with you all.

Part one - Fundamental techniques in handling people:
1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Part two - Six ways to make people like you:
1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage other to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in term of the other person's interest.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Part three - Win people to your way of thinking;
1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect to other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Thrown down a challenge

Part four - Be a leader:
1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistake before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise.
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

Do go through the book by yourself and you'll learn much much more from there. This is another great book introduce by my friend, Yeow Chuan.

Answer of my last post - "Are employees ok to make mistake?"

The answer of my last post is answered within a few hours. All thanks to the big example from Mark Hurd, the ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP). From the day he took over as HP CEO, he has double the HP share price and that amount we are talking is in billions of dollars. Yet, just a small sexual harassment case he offended requires him to resign immediately.
As long as you are under employed, no matter what rank or position you hold in he company you are working at, you better don't make any mistake. The society is very realistic and cruel. So the moral of the lesson is:
1. Be your own boss. Your mistake is not questionable by your subordinates and you are the one that going to "eat" every mistake you have made.
2. I would rather make mistake when I'm on the very top of the management team. Low level worker will not get any compensation after making mistake; sometimes they have to pay for their own mistake. However, if you are a CEO, you'll get still get $12millions when you are fired! World is so unfair...

Are employees ok to make mistake?

No one is perfect in this world. Everyone made mistake before.
When we are small, whenever we made a mistake at home, our parents or guardian scolded us. After that, they still forgive us. We are still given a chance to correct.
When we are a little bigger, whenever we made a mistake in school, the teachers will lecture us and will still forgive us. We are still given a chance to improve.
When we are an adult, start working in a company, if we make a mistake no matter it is big or small, we are immediately get warning, screwing, and even firing. The worse is no matter how you have contributed to the company, even you help the company to earn/save millions of dollar, you will still be black marked, and will not be forgive or forgotten by the employer. In a company, employer take contributions and hard work of subordinate as a must but mistake is always not tolerable. Is this fair? The society is not encouraging people to make mistake but who don't make mistake? The only problem is they just don't give chance for you to correct and improve.
Worst case scenario after making mistake is you get panellize and jail term. Once you reach that phase, the world will not forgive you... Come on la, we are just human, try to give people a chance to show that they have changed to better! Else, those people will most likely end up behind the bar again.
 

Why can't we add -ve prefix in -ve words to become +ve meaning?

People are encourage to become +ve thinker, optimistic or sanguine. So how do you encourage them? One of the way is to speak in +ve manners or meaning to them. How to speak in +ve manners? Speak using +ve words. 

However in English words, there are more -ve words as constructing -ve words is much easier. You can easily turn a +ve meaning words to a -ve meaning words by adding prefixes such as "De-", "Dis-", "Un-", "Anti-" and etc. 

eg 1. Happy x Unhappy

eg 2. Motivate x Demotivate

eg 3. Satisfy x Dissatisfy

eg 4. Social x Antisocial

Do we have words by adding such prefixes make the -ve meaning words become +ve again? 

eg ? Sad x Unsad?; Irritate x Disirritate?; Frustrate x Defrustrate?; Rebellious x Antirebellious? and etc.

(I got all the words underline in red after adding the prefixes in front, because the auto spelling correction indicate there's no such words. LOL, really no such words at all.)

So from this day onwards, start speaking in +ve manners. It's not easy and challenging. Whenever you speak in +ve manners to people, people will feel good and in return, you'll feel good as well. Good thing doesn't come by easily but definitely worth for yourself to take up the challenge. This will surely make the world a better place if everyone is trained to speak in +ve manners. :D


PS. If anyone can find a -ve words and add prefixes to become +ve meaning, Please share in comment.

Don't speak De- Un- Dis- words that hurt

My best pal just passed over another great book he finished to me weeks ago. The author name is Dale Carnegie and the book title is . 
In one of the early chapter, he shared: "If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person's point of view and see things from that person's angle as well as from your own."
Before I make any decision, I always compare from my point of views and other people stand point as well. Today I learn something even more powerful, instead of other people stand point, I positioned myself as that person and what will he think and what will he do? It's no longer and I and You thinking. It's an I + You + I am You thinking.
Peoples' hearts are fragile and sensitive. They are sensitive to the negative words. The negative words are like hammers that will shatter people fragile hearts. Example of negative words are normally found in the letter starts with "De-", "Un-", "Dis-" (maybe more), like De-motivate, De-moralize, Un-happy, Un-grateful, Dis-like, Dis-courage and etc. All these words will tend to get you further apart from people who you try to communicate with. Worse is irritate, and worst is outrage others by offending them.
So next, time DON'T speak these words to people. People just don't like to hear them. Paraphrase them to become a nicer way or manner before the words come out from the mouth. Do you know it's a challenge in doing that as well? You can turn happy to UN-happy and you can't find word such as UN-sad.

Testing to blog via new iPhone

I just got the new iPhone 4 two days ago. I've been long waiting to own an iPhone since long time ago. I would like to own it not because it is fancy or trendy. It's because of the mass applications available in the Apple store.
There's so many amazing applications available in this phone. Just finish configuring and downloading softwares that I need to this phone. Now I can blog, read books, check mails and chat with just one little device in my hand especially when I'm waiting!
I told myself I'm gonna make full use of this phone!

Government turn paparazzi

Typically, people feel proud about their own country's success but does the country proud of their own people success? The country should be proud of if the people is famous.
The problem having in some country is they don't feel proud if their own countrymen become too famous and success in their life. Why you are you mixing with Hollywood stars? Why are you spending millions of dollar in your birthday bash? They not only envy you, they start to question you and even investigate on your celebrity status.
Why the government is so free in investigating A people success? Why don't they put their manpower in investigating and fixing the country social problem instead? What is the government thinking???
If you become famous one day, would you like your government start monitoring you? Eyeing on how you spend your $$$ and checking on all your family and friends around you because you are famous? I thought that's the job of paparazzi?

The Tipping Point

I would like to introduce another good book to read -  by Malcom Gladwell. Basically it means How little things can make a big difference as printed on the coverpage.

What the writting is trying to sell in this book is like sometimes, minor things that done can make changes and influence the bigger world. According to the author, there are 3 main factors that can tip the whole situation around. They are:

1. The law of the FEW. The few is basically talking about 3 types of person. They are Connectors (people who has very large contact and network), Mavens (people who is extreme knowledable and interest in many fields) and lastly Salesmen (The persuaders).
2. The Stickiness factor that will makes people stick to it like drugs!
3. The power of Context. How the environment, background, and the surcumstances can change 1 person and lead to change many others.

In my opinion, it is quite true as everything big thing start from a small point. This is widely seen in Fashion!
Eg, if a very small group of super wealthy, trendy ladies start to wear Giordano, the less wealthy will always follow the wealthier as they think they are the one who walks in front of fashion, and start buying Giordano. So the middle classs who mix with the upper middle class will be following and so on. Giordano will become a super brand and end up selling at the same price as Calvin Klein clothes.

Blue in the red ocean

Currently I am reading this book called Blue Ocean Strategy; written by W.Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.

According to the author, red ocean means the existing market available, which is stagnant, full of competitions and lean profit. Mean while, Blue ocean means create a whole new market from the existing market, with different strategy and some times special focus group or targeting new market flavour. The blue ocean strategy will create a whole new taste for the market without competition and brings great profits.

How to create the blue ocean strategy? Just focus on 4 things; Eliminate, Reduce, Raise and Create. 

Interesting Chinese poem

Just read a poem from newspaper. The poem starts with:

奈无吹大风,
落下无红花,
眠愁如崩雪,
星稀似入月.


If you read it from bottom till up the other way round, you can notice it is reflecting our current situation in, Salary, Workload and Bonuses. For those who don't know Chinese, no need to translate also will know the answer.