Everyday is Sunday

You know when you are Rich

2007-07-09T15:47:00.000+08:00

The distinction between the rich and poor is sometimes very very profound. Your automatic and unconscious responses to the following scenario might reveal some truth about your mindset (be honest to yourself, that is the least you could do):

1. When you're at the filling station and petrol had just risen another 30 cents?
A: Oh shit. Stupid government
B: Oh, who cares. I will take the bus then
C: I think it's time to look into Petronas stocks

2. When you read in the papers that some guy just landed with some big ass project?
A: That guy sure got connection one. Got rich daddy back up sure lar.
B: Good for him but anyway I'm not in his company so what-the-heck.
C: Perhaps I can get to know him and learn how he did it.

3. When you are the mall a new handphone just come out. You:
A: Nah, I can't afford it
B: My handphone is good enough. Besides, I don't need those new functions
C: How can I afford it?

4. When you are the book shop?
A: Dude, who goes to the bookshop. Let's hit the movies
B: I go for bestselling romance titles
C: I go for bestselling business or self-development titles.

5. When you buy a house, you would?
A: This is a nice new development. I can max out my salary and the bank will surely approve
B: Nah, I dont need a house yet. I think I will just continue to rent.
C: This house has positive cash flow and 20% below market. So I make money when I buy it and I can continue to buy more since it is not eating into my salary

6. When you're at home?
A: Watch TV or play games
B: I usually go out and hang out with my friends
C: I do research on the investment strategies.

7. When you are out with your friends, your groups usually talks about:
A: Cars, woman, games or Cosmetics, gossips, fashion
B: We dont talk much.
C: Opportunities, investment.

8. When you read about a successful entreprenuer?
A: It is easy for him to says now that he is already successful
B: Nah, that is too much work for me. Besides I already a manager in an MNC
C: I think I can learn from his examples.

9. When you graduate, you save money for?
A: My first car
B: My first gadget
C: My first investment

After going through the question above you might have already realized that your mind set is perhaps what stopping you to achieve financial success. And the final question and perhaps the most important question is:

What are you going to do NOW to be rich?

90/10 Rules

2007-06-01T20:50:00.000+08:00

Excerpt from 'Why we want you to be rich? - D. Trump and R. Kiyoksaki'

90% of the wealth belongs to 10% of the population. Robert said that he will only do something when he is sure that he can the 10% of the population. That is why is don't really play golf!

Except

2007-05-31T20:56:00.000+08:00

Nothing is easy, but who wants nothing - Donald Trump

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

2007-04-05T14:57:00.000+08:00

Currently reading a book "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" by T. Harv Eker. Great book with some sense of humour. Excerpt from the book:

"Have you ever heard that the lack of money is a bit of the problem? Now hear this: A lack of money is never, never, ever the problem. A lack of money is merely a symptom of what is going on underneath" (underneath here refers to your inner self and belief)

"...They will argue, Well, money isn't as important as love. Now, is that comparison dumb or what? What's more important, your arm or your leg. Maybe they are both important."

Buzz Marketing

2007-03-22T13:34:00.000+08:00

At last I bought book "BuzzMarketing" by Mark Hughes as I feel that it will really help to propel our business.

Buzzmarketing: Captures the attention of consumers and the media to a point where talking about your brand or company becomes entertaining, fascinating and newsworthy. It is about giving people something clever, amusing, catchy, remarkable to talk about. It is about giving something they'll enjoy sharing with others to entertain, to sound smart.

I shall continue to read....

The Secret

2006-11-27T23:59:00.000+08:00

By thought it came to me. Now probably is the 3rd time I watched that show already. Somehow or rather, I got my hand on a very precious little DVD; named The Secret.

The Secret talks about the Law of Attraction. Using positive vibration and positive thoughts, you can attract greatness and abundance to you life. It is a fantastic DVD that everyone should watch.

Goto www.thesecret.tv for more info. There is some short clips that are being shared at youtube.com currently.

Getting out of the Piles

2006-09-09T18:20:00.000+08:00

Jack Welch - Straight from the Gut
Winning teams come from differentiation, rewarding the best and removing the weakest, always fighting to raise the bar.

Jack Welch - Straight from the Gut
When people make mistake, the last thing they need is discipline. It's time for encouragement and confidence building. The job at this point of time is to restore self-confidence.
...
Piling on during weak moment can force people into what I called the "GE Vortex". You can see the "vortex" when leaders lose their confidence, begin to panic, and spiral downwards into a hole of self-doubt.
...
Of course, arrogant people who refuse to learn from their mistakes have to go. If we are managing good people who are clearly eating themselve up over an error, our job is to help them throught it. This doesn't mean to take it easy on your top performance.

Jack Welch - Straight from the Gut
Eventually, I learned that I was really looking for people who were filled with passion and the desire to get things done. I have to 'feel' it.

Prisoner of our own mind

2005-12-29T19:06:00.000+08:00

Fundamentally, in all spiritual teachings (religion or non-religion such as new age) we are 'ONE'. One with the people of the world and one with nature and one with ourselves. When one can achieve such one-ness, you will find inner stillness and peace with oneself.

Each one of us deep down inside (inner-self) operates from one and only one thing call 'love'. We love ourselves and we love others and all around us. Simplest example is when you look at the ignorance and the high spirit of a new born before they are (just like us) being domesticated by the influence of they parents, peers, environment and even education. Thus, there is really no separation between the new born and people around us, and what is between them is pure love. Unconditional love.

However, through domestication, we began to separate ourselves with others. We learn to discriminate with ethnicity, skin color, education background, family background etc. And soon, we realized that the only person that we should care about is ourselves. The only person that we should trust and trust us is no other than ourselves. Therefore, we are separated.
Such separation creates uneasiness and continuous struggle within us as we no longer operate from love but from fear. Fear of being cheated, fear of being humilated, fear of not achieving the future, fear of the past and etc.

Soon such fear has taken over our lives and our thoughts (some say mind set). Unconsciously we are operating based on a fear-based mind-set and believe system. We are then a prisoner of our own mind.

At times, you will have short glimpse of your true self. The self which operates from love. You experience an estatic feeling of love, excitement and fun. Some say that it is your true inner-self, some say it is your passion. Either way, you feel a great undescripable warm, fuzzy and peaceful feeling. However, your fear based mind will reason with you that it is not true, it is an illussion or it is just to good to be true. And before long, you begin to operate from the fear based mind once more.

Why am I writing this?

Everyone wants to be great and noble! However, some lost the passion for greatness and nobility as time goes by with domestication and continuous bombardment of negativity and latter operate in fear.

However, I believe that deep within all of us, we have a calling or at least an intention to do good for this society but was reasoned out of it by our fear based mind. A world is still as beautiful and still intact as it is now because we still believe that there is hope and that we can live together as 'human-being'

Perhaps this can offer you a different perpective on this topic of this entry. Or perhaps there is some other perspective that you can offer?

Hiatus

2005-12-29T19:01:00.000+08:00

I realized that I am in hiatus for a long time! In fact, I have forgetten all about the accelerated learning altogether. However, I will not push myself to write anything as in an obligation. I want to keep it as a joy to share and to learn from you rather than an obligation to showcase myself.

Accelerated Learning 3: Kinestatic Learning

2005-09-30T16:30:00.000+08:00

There is so much to learn in this new information age. And as the saying goes,
"The more you know, the more you realize you don't know"

Traditionally, we learn by visual (eg reading) and audio (eg yr lecturer speaking) and most teachers/lecturers thinks that this the best way to learn so they enhance reading and speaking with Power Points and etc but you will still yawn!

Because, most of us aren't entirely visual and audio learners. Most of us are kinestatic learners. In our cikgu's term, kinestatic students are those 'devils' who cannot sit down quietly, they are the'Hyper-active monkeys'. "kine" stands for movement. Kinestatic learners are those learners who like to move alot and they learn best when moving around. Research shown that most of student are indeed 'Hyper-active monkeys'.

Kinestatic ppl are the hardest to tackle if you don't know how. Their minds will fly of to la-la land as soon you talk about anything. You need to engage them constantly, you need to captivate them. We will talk abt how to deal with them in the next entry.

So how do you know that one is a H-A Monkey? Let start by looking at yourself and the people around you. Kinestatic people usually:

Shake your leg when you are sitting idle.
Summersault your pen or eraser or anything at all, when you are bored.
Keep changing your posture or sitting position every other minute.
Concentrate better when standing up rather than sitting down.
Play with your fingers, knuckles, or other people's fingers and knuckles (hmm... :P )
Prefer playing games when learning rather than listening to the lecturer in front yapping.

Now, look around you. And try to identify those kinestatic people that we are talking about. And you will be surprise how many people falls into this group. But sad to say, educators usually supress their natural characteristics. It is not their fault, coz they know no better.

So how to tackle them?

1. Try games! Try joking with them.
2. Allow them to shake their legs for crying out loud!
3. Or perhaps try winning their hearts and keep them in the learning circle

We will discuss how to keep winning yr students heart or even your audience in the next entry. We will look into how to create rapport and win them over in a presentation so that your audience are now open to you. Won't you love that you can 'HOOK' your audience and they will follow you in your presentation ride.

Stay tuned!

Justice

2005-09-15T14:02:00.000+08:00

Between post teaser!

Justice:
Justice is an act, not punishment of an act.

Accelerated Learning 2: Psychology of Learning

2005-09-09T11:20:00.000+08:00

When we go to lectures, the lecturer goes "yack, yack, yack"and you goes "yawn, yawn, yawn". You get bored as soon as he yacks. The lecturer can use the most hi-tech gadgets to teach; computer, projector, powerpoints and etc but fail to realize that this teaching methods are borrowed from the days of the dinosaurs!

Let's begin by understanding your audience. Most people obtain information, from 6 different sensors; sight, smell, sound, taste, feel and of course the 6th sense. Yup! the sixth sense. When you attend a great seminar, there is a lot more than just the mere presentor and his content. There is alot that the organizer has put into the setting of the room which will trigger you subconsciously, and only your 6th sense can sense. Have you ever feel that there is something great about the seminar, you even went to great heights to dissect it (it is the music, the speaker, the content?) but just fail to know why? Let me tell you why, because what you see with your 5 sensors are just limited to those 5 sensors. What your 6th sense picks up, cannot be understood as long as you are still in the realm of the 5 sensors. When you detached you might be able to find the answer. But no worries, we will slowly go thru it in this blog.

Now that you understand the way, a learner picks up information, the most successful of seminars will engage as much of these sensors as possible. How many times, your get punished for eating in class?

Next, we will look at our mind! I know you know about the right brain and the left brain. Right brain is the creative brain and left brain is the logical brain. So for learning to be effective, both sides of the brain must be engaged. Most academic teaching never bother to engage the right side of the brain. Most lecturers just throw you facts, numbers and ask you to swallow it raw! Let me now throw you a challenge.

How can I make a subject that is so left brain-ed, such as accounting and mathematics, be left-right brain-ed?

Below are some of the very surface techniques that you can use: (note: very very surface and superficial way to accomodate the left-right brain)

1. Use colors -> Colors stimulates the right brain

2. Use diagrams and pictures -> Our mind thinks in pictures. Don't believe me! Try this. Picture a CAR in your mind. Now, picture the word CAR in your mind. Which is easier? In fact when you picture the word itself, you see the picture of the word.

3. Play some kind of musics -> Musics stimulate the right brain.

....I am sure you can think of more ways.

At the next entry, we will look a type of learner which takes up the majority of your audience but time and time again their learning preference is being supressed by their teachers.

Accelerated Learning 1: Learning - Teaching revisited

2005-09-08T17:56:00.000+08:00

Let's start by talking about Accelerated Learning itself. Most teachers or presenters must put this into their heads that in learning, the most important party involved is the LEARNER. It is the learner not the teacher. And what most of us do, since the start of time, whatever we teach is whatever we think the learner should learn. It has always about the teacher. No wonder the students are bored to death!

Therefore, the first paradigm shift as a teacher is that, you don't teach but you help the learner learn. Once this paradigm is ingrained in your mind, it becomes clear as to where the direction of your teaching goes. Put yourself into the learners shoes and ask, what use of this that I'm going to teach if I had my students master it? The next question you should ask yourself is this has all my teaching styles and materials teacher focus (meaning, you create the materials you want to teach - in short "syok sendiri")?

We shall continue more the next time. The next time we will go right into the cheese of it. I promise. By the mean time, ask yourself the questions mentioned.

Why Rebrand?

2005-09-02T12:27:00.000+08:00

After going through some workshop on Accelerated Learning, I decided, what the heck, let's put some element of accelerated learning in the articles in this blog! The first major different is the look of the blog, now it is simpler and "streamlined" and it loads faster too....see accelerated blog. He he he !!

Have you ever wonder why is that some presentation are as bored as watching paint dry and some are really interesting, even if both are presenting the same thing? Have you ever be in a presentation (being as an audience or a presenter) that nobody is listening, even if the topic is so damn important? Or have you ever complained that the content is totally irrelevant?

The ultimate! Have you ever be in an presentation, where the presenter is good, the presentation is perfect but at the end of the presentation, nothing changes, in the way you think, the way you do things, and it influence nothing in you?

With AL, we are going to change all that. You are all going to learn the secret of Anthony Robbins great workshop. You will learn how to motivate, influence, empower your audience to whatever you are presenting?

Think about this,

1. Would you want to know a how to captivate your audience and they will buy into your presentation?
2. Would you want to know how to influence your audience without them knowing it so that they will comply with you? It is like, hey, this is presentation is great, but I don’t really know why. This is when we are dealing with the power of the subconscious mind..ooooo hahahahaha
3. Or would you like to learn a small skill on how to communicate better with the people you meet ?
4. Or perhaps a better way to teach your students or your kids so that they can score better grades?

Don't you think with such skills, they will propel you to further heights!

Stay tuned! We shall reveal the secrets of a great facilitator, presenter and communicator in the next entry! We will talk about AL (accelerated learning), NLP (neuro linguistic programming), NAC (neuro associative conditioning) is the next few entries.

"Rebranding"

2005-09-01T16:14:00.000+08:00

Today, I had a calling to change the looks and perhaps "rebrand" the whole blog. So what will you expect from the rebranding exercise :) ?

1. A more structured content.
2. More content - i hope.
3. New image (coz the last one was loading too slowly)
4. New brand name.
5. New topics -> Money, Accelerated Learning and NLP

Stay tuned...

Conscious about your consciousness

2005-08-11T11:04:00.000+08:00

Ok, my last entry was in June...OMG!!! Today I found sometime to write. The credit for this entry goes to Dr Muruga - Easy UC Way, Elkhart Tolle - The Power of Now and Donald Welsh - Conversation with God as much of what I will write here is what I picked up from their books.

“Conscious about consciousness” is a big and deep subject I must say. But I will try descibe it as simple as possible. Note that the brain and the mind is two different entities. The brain is physical while the mind is not. Think of it like computer hardware and software.

Let us start by understanding the mind. Each and every one of us has 2 minds; the conscious mind (CM) and the sub-conscious mind (SCM). No doubt that there conscious mind, for without it you cannot think (thinking is a conscious mental action), you cannot rationalize and you cannot do math! However, you might debate that there is no such thing as a subconscious mind.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Blink” illustrate very well through sound scientific researches and facts to support that there is such thing as aSCM. It’s a very interesting book that highlights the power and effect on the SCM on us and our daily lives. You can read that book if you want proves that SCM is there in you. However for this entry, I assume that you agree with me on the SCM issue.

Your conscious mind (CM) is where the computation, reasoning and thinking take place. CM receives data from your five senses (touch, sight, taste, smell, sound), computes them and comes out with a conclusion. It is happening all the time, even as you’re reading this entry.

You can recognize the words because your sight picks them up and your CM is able compute by relating the words you read with those you had learned before. In a fraction of a second, your mind will decide whether what is written make sense or just pure junk. What are you thinking now? What ever you are thinking, you are judging that opinion put forth by me to you.

You can judge or relate because there is something that you can relate with. You cannot relate if it is something obsolute (There is no white if there is no black). That something that your CM relates to is the programs that is in your SCM. Since it is subconscious, your conscious reasoning will not know that it is there. I will demostrate to you that there is such programs and such programs are there all the while.

But before that, I want you to understand where you acquire such programs.
When you are born, your mind is empty. As you grow, you fill them up with programs either consciously thru advise and education or unconsciously. Those programs were 'inserted' by your parents, teachers, peers, society, environment and etc.

Now, you might say, yeah I know that, I know that what I am now is what I am before. But what you didn’t realize is that these programs are running your lives not you. When you fight to win a debate, you are merely holding on to your inner programs thinking that they are right but the fact is that they were inserted into you long before you can realize and since it is in your SCM, you don't even aware that it is there.

Allow me to do a simple demonstration to prove to you. You might need to pen and a paper. All you need to do is just to answers some simple questions below.

Is raping a woman good or bad?
Is criticizing about your colleague good or bad?
Is helping an old woman good or bad?
Is running naked on the street acceptable to you?
Is having sex before marriage acceptable to you?
Is this a dog eat dog world?
Is the Bilwangta Pier a big pier or a small one?
Is it fair to being taxed heftily?

I believe that the answers to most of the questions come in naturally and some of you might thinking it is obnoxious to even ask the first question. But that’s not the point, notice that you have a little difficulty relating to question 7 for you have not heard of Bilwangta Pier before (actually neither do I). You cannot relate to Bilwangta Pier for you have no prior knowledge of that pier, you have not learn it, you have not heard about it. Notice that this is what I have been talking about, the program that your CM relates to.

I am sure you will be able to answer question 7 if I have told you something about Bilwangta Pier prior to you doing the test.

You might thinking that running naked on the street is not acceptable, but can I say that it is purely your own point of view for your SCM program reflects that running naked is no good. Perhaps, you are told that it is a shame to be naked in the public before. Therefore you say it is not acceptable. Why do people in other countries find it to be acceptable even to have sex in the public? Who is right and who is wrong? Nobody is right and nobody is wrong! It is just that they are coming from their point of view, their programs that have been inserted into them is different. If you force your program into someone else, chances are you might break into a fight. That how wars and disagreement happens. That’s what make you think that the government is not doing their job, coz you are relating to the information that you got from some source earlier and your CM says that it is the truth.

A classic example is that, long long time ago, when men believes that the world is flat. All believe that that world is flat, so if you live in that era, you will automatically accept that the world is flat for that is the FACT!!! If you say that the world is round, they will say that you are CRAZY!

This happens until know in most aspects of your live. You merely accept what have been given to you as fact without questioning it. Most of the time these so-called-facts that have been inserted into you are unconsciously shaping your life. Whenever your CM relates, your CM will relate to this so-called-facts. And imagine that this fact is not what it is supposed to be, do you think you are into great trouble?

Bare in mind that not all these programs are bad. Then, you might ask that how do I know? Easy, look at which part of your life you are not satisfied and not working out, and that part of the programs you might consider changing. If not, you will be all the time re-living that bad experience. It goes by saying, you have a bad mindset. A poor mindset.

If you been able to grasp what I have been saying, you have now shifted your paradigm. You are now conscious of your consciousness.

You will realized that things are just what it is, it is how we relate to it with our inner programs that makes all the heart ache or happiness. You will realized that you yourself is either bending or breaking your own live.

Hope that this entry enlarge your perpectives and you are no longer a prisoner of your own mind.

Last blog in April

2005-06-16T02:26:00.000+08:00

Wow, I didn't realize that I last blogged in April. It seems like just yesterday. Been rather busy lately even thought due to the fact that I'm jobless for the moment. But this doesn't seem to bother me lil as I know for sure things will turn out fine. I'm an optimist!

There's something really profound and really great when I share to people (usually those that I met) about the mind and the programming that you have in your mind due to years of experience and teaching. I think I will make it a point to write about it. Most of them were awe by the simple exercise and simple explanation that I gave them and it might just change the way they think and perhaps live altogether. I call this Conscious about your own consciousness (some call it enlightenment) and you can also call this paradigm shift. Next blog....next blog

Legal Human Prostitution

2005-04-18T19:54:00.000+08:00

Outsourcing some process in HR is normal, esp where the company doesn't want to engage their staff to do mundane and monotonous work. Today, I heard that there is a company in Malaysia, which will I will not name and I shall call it company O that helps other company to outsource their staff or to outsource a particular position to the company. Maybe they are there for a long time but this is the first time I heard about it, or at least I pay attention to it. Imagine, you are a staff of O but you go to work in a different company, let say company A. This happen because A doesn't want to take in staff directly so you they can save on head count and you will appear as a liability to the company.

Reason why A outsource the position (eg, Software Developer) is because the company do not want to go through the hassle of employing a new staff, train them and take care their welfare and things like that. Also, the company can just request for a change of staff if the company deem that staff is not suitable unlike conventional hiring where there is a lot of procedures to follow in order to terminate a staff which is quite troublesome. Sounds reasonable. Not quite!

The thing is that I feel companies like company A are treating their staffs as if they are another object in the company, another commodity, i.e. toilet paper. Company A needs toilet paper and O is the supplier. O supply the toilet paper and A pays for the toilet paper just like how A would pay for its other expenditures. If A feels that the toilet paper is not good enough, then A can demand to change to a new brand by simply calling O. If A thinks that the toilet paper supplier is no good, he will change the supplier and ultimately change the current toilet paper. The difference here is that the toilet paper is actually a human being.

To me, I felt troubled that humans are treated like objects, commodities and liabilities. For the sake of convenience and money, people in this complex economy are treating other people like toilet paper for their own benefit (big fat $$$). Company O is basically selling human legally in broad daylight. This is what I call LEGAL PROSTITUTION. The sad thing is that, because the NEED to survive, they are inviting such PROSTITUTION, just like saying, “Come! Rape me! Rape me!”

Humans are beings with a spirit, mind and emotions. They are not toilet papers. But this is what comes to when company wants to reduce head count so that their company performance and profit/loss would look good to their shareholders on paper.

A will not train, develop and promote that person as he is not even a staff of A. Meanwhile, O typically will not train, develop and promote him either as why would O want to incur extra cost on the deal which will bring down O's margin and O’s profit. Just imagine how would that person feel, how high is his motivation when he knows there is no promotion. No career path. Neither O nor A cares as he is now treated like a PRODUCT. Any development on him would be like R&D on a PRODUCT so that he can be sold more easily.

I believe, in this life everything works in circles. This is just my personal opinion, do not quote me on that. The reason why company O emerged is because company A have a need. But why does this trend set in only during the new millenium? In this economy, the ultimate customer is people like you and me! The consumers. One can say that their business is B-to-B but on the other side of the B or at the ultimate end is still the consumer. It is like B to B to B to …. to C. Ultimately it will end with a C. If not where does the money comes from. You might now ask, “What has all this got to do with the human resource issue?”

As consumers, we are always on the look out for cheaper bargains every time. We are train by our parents and companies themselves to look for better bargains. Look at the price wars between various companies across various industries. As consumers are looking for cheaper deals, in order to maintain profit and maintain competitive, companies have no choice but to reduce cost. And one way to reduce is to look at ways to reduce the biggest expenditure in a company, payroll (Payroll is always a huge liability to a company. Reducing payroll is like using the 80/20 rule to solve the problem. Spend 20% of your time on something, which will yield 80% of the result).

All companies are automating processes with the help of IT to reduce staff. They are outsourcing their call center to reduce staff. They are outsourcing their IT dept to reduce staff. They are outsourcing HR processes to reduce staff. Now, they are outsourcing their staff so that they will have no more staff!

When company is reducing their payroll, their staff will get less disposable income. When their staff have less disposable income, they as consumers will squeeze the price of the products that they will purchase. And the more consumers squeeze, the harder the company will look for ways to reduce cost. And the more the companies reduce their cost, the more the consumers will squeeze. Look! It’s a vicious cycle!

There is a THINKING SYSTEM at work. This applies in everything! We know we know it but we pretend not to know it. We just don’t care. When we don’t care we don’t take it as a part of us.

It is not the consumer’s fault or the companies’. It is a system at work which only when you detach yourself from the system, you will be able to see it or some call it a paradigm shift. So most of us it like a dog chasing after its tail.

This is what Peter Senge in this book "The Fifth Discipline" called System Thinking. You cannot escape from it unless you can see the big picture. But unfortunately we are trained to solve micro problems since young. We are trained to break down a big problem into smaller parts and solve it and thus we never see the bigger problem as a whole. So all the time we are just reacting to the symptom. We say we are being proactive but the fact is we are just being proactive to the symptom. It’s like we know we are going to fall sick one day, so as a proactive measure, we stock cold pills at home.

Look, I'm not here to tell you to buy expensive goods. My intention is just to highlight the SYSTEM that is at work here, which you and I are sucked into.

Sorry for the grammer. I know it is long but the main point is that the message is well received.

Mediocrity Is An Accepted Moral Value

2005-04-15T12:06:00.000+08:00

I got a great distinction yesterday night as I was reading “Conversation with God” on issues of sex, money, power, fame, success and etc. It dawned onto me that at a deeper level we all are looking for more sex, more money, more power, more fame, more success but our conventional thinking forbids such as we are taught along this line:

"So the world's message is: if you feel negatively about it, then you can enjoy it! " - refer to prev post.

For me, we were taught that it’s all right to feel not so joyous about something be it sex, money, power, fame, etc. But I now know that it is not all right not to be. No wonder most of the time most of us, including me would feel bad about something good. Let take money as an example, why do we have a mix feeling (both joy and fear) about having abundant of money? Because we were taught or at least exposed to that having more money is not appropriate.

Here the juice of it. We, as Malaysian were taught in Formal Education that we should not ask for more, be more and experience more. In fact, we were taught (perhaps still being taught to the newer generations) at a young age (Standard 1 till Form 5) that is good to live in mediocrity. In Pendidikan Moral (Moral Studies) we were taught that Kesederhanaan (mediocrity) is a Nilai Murni (Good moral value).

Yup! It's immoral in the society eyes that we want “more”. That’s part of the reason why we feel bad about having more money, more sex, more power, more fame. Having “more” is already against the moral values of the society, together with issues of “money is the root of all evil”, “sex makes you a slut, makes you dirty and crumples family”, “power creates war” , “fame attracts paparazzi”, “wanting to know more is busy-body” That's why, we never sore to great heights because we think that it is “good” to be less. No wonder we were never happy because we don’t believe in self-gratification and self love but rather we believe in mediocrity and sacrifice.

Our thoughts come from years of mental programming from personal experiences, mistakes, teaching, education and more. However, we are at most of the time not aware of such mental programming functioning and if we were to guard that thought all the time we will go bonkers (according to Lynn Grabhorn, author of “Excuse me, your life is waiting”). But listen to your inner feelings, not the feeling derive from a thought within your mental programming.

Ok, if the author from Mind Your Language - The Star reads this, it will definately be out in the papers for its fantastically good english.

I LOVE SEX! I LOVE MONEY! I LOVE POWER! I LOVE FAME!

2005-04-15T09:25:00.000+08:00

hi guys, I was reading a book "Conversations with God - Book 2" by Neale Donald Walsch yesterday night and I came across a very (very is an under statement) interesting text by "God" (now don't get all offended here) which I find it very true and I would like to share it with you. It is going to be a long one (again long is an under statement :P ) as I don't have any intention to cut it short for I don't want to misintreperet the mesage from Him.

Please, I urge to take some time and read it. And keep an OPEN MIND Here it goes:
Chapter 7, page 74

Why did you create two sexes? Was this the only way you could figure for us to recreate? How should we deal with this incredible experience called sexuality?

Not with shame, that's for true. And not with guilt, and not with fear. For shame is not virtue and guilt is not goodness, and fear is not honor.

And not with lust, for lust is not passion; and not with abandon, for abandon is not freedom; and not with aggresiveness, for aggressiveness is not eagerness. And obviously, not with the ideas of control or power or domination, for these have nothing to with Love.

But...may sex be used for the purposes of simple personal gratification? The surprising answer is yes - because "personal gratification" is just another word for Self Love. Personal gratification has gotten a bad rap through the years, which is the main reason so much guilt is attached to sex.

You are told not to use for personal gratification something which is intensely personal gratification! The obvious contradiction is apparent to you, but you don't know where to go with the conclusion! So you decide that if you feel guilty about how good you feel during and after sex, that will at least make it all right.

It's not unlike the famous singer you all know, whom I will not name here, who receive millions of dollars for singing her songs. Asked to comment on her incredible success and the riches it has brought her, she said, "I fell almost guilty because I love doing this so much."

The implication is clear. If it's something that you love doing, you should not also be rewarded additionally with money. Most people earn money by doing something they hate - or something that is at least hard work, not endless joy

So the world's message is: if you feel negatively about it, then you can enjoy it!

Guilt is often by you in your attempt to feel bad about something you feel good about - and thus reconcile yourself with God...who you think does not want you to feel good about anything! You are especially not to feel good about joys of the body. And absolutely not about (as your grandmother used to whisper) "S-E-X . . . "

Well, the good news is it's all right to love sex!
It's also all right to love your Self!
In fact, it's mandatory.
What does not serve you is to become addicted to sex (or anything else). But it's "okay" to fall in love with it!

Practise saying this ten times: I LOVE SEX

Practise saying this ten times: I LOVE MONEY

Now, you want to a really tough one? Try saying this ten times: I LOVE ME!

Here are some other things you are not supposed to love. Practise loving them:
POWER
GLORY
FAME
SUCCESS
WINNING

What some more? Try these. You should really feel guilty if you love these:
THE ADULATION OF OTHERS
BEING BETTER
HAVING MORE
KNOWING HOW
KNOWING WHY

Had enough? Wait! Here's the ultimate guilt. You should feel the ultimate guilt if you that you:
KNOW GOD

Isn't this interesting? All through your life you have been made to feel guilty about
THE THINGS THAT YOU WANT MOST

Yet I tell you this: love, love, love the things you desire - for your love of them draws them to you.
These things are the stuff of life. When you love them, you love life When you declare that you desire tehm, you annouce that you choose all the good that life has to offer.

So choose sex - all the sex that you can get! And choose power - all the power you can muster! And choose fame - all the fame you can attain! And choose success - all the success you can achieve! And choose winning - all the winning you can experience!

Yet do not choose sex instead of love, but as a celebration of it. And do not choose power over, but power with. And do not choose fame as an end itself, nut as a mean to a larger end. And do not choose success at the expense of others, but as a tool with which to assist others. And do not choose winning at any cost, but winning that costs others nothing and even brings them gain as well.

Go ahead and choose the adulation of others - but see all others as being upon which you can shower adulation, and do it!
Go ahead and choose being better - but not being better than others; rather, better than you were before.
Go ahead and choose having more, but only so that you have more to give
And yes, choose "knowing how" and "knowing why" - so that you can share all knowledge with others.
And by all means, choose to KNOW GOD. In fact, CHOOSE THIS FIRST, and all else will follow.
All of you life you have been taught that it is better to give than receive. Yet you cannot give what you do not have. That is why self-gratification is so important - and why it is so unfortunate that it has come to sound so ugly.
Obviously, self-gratification at the expense of others is not what we are talking about here. This is not about ignoring the needs of others. Yet life should also not have to be about ignoring own needs.

Give youself abundant pleasure, and you will have abundant pleasure to give others.
.....

System Thinking

2005-03-07T15:44:00.000+08:00

Curently I'm reading this book Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge and it is a fantastic book on Self Improvement, Organization Learning and whole lots. The concepts and the approach of Peter are fantastic and some what revolutionary. I'm completely mesmerized by what is written in the book. If you ever get your hands on that book, it is worth reading. But be warned, the language and the style are quite dry but the content is mind blowing. Don't expect flowerish language and any kind of big hu-ha's like those in other self-dev books. His is more like a thesis and textbook kinda style, more scientific I would say.

To begin with, he addresses the issue of System Thinking. According to what I can remember from the book, we are all part of a system, a huge system. When we are younger, in fact till now, we are trained to chunk down a huge problem in a smaller bits and solve them independently. Once all smaller bits are solved, you will ultimately solve the big problem.

In organization and even studies, we are streamed and specialized into one specific area. This is how we are trained to just look at things at one point of view, one small bit of a generically huge problem. However, that is fine with lower level employees but it will be a big problem if upper management maintains that kind of a mindset. You are not thinking about staying down there aren't you?

What Peter suggest in his book is that, we must look at the bigger picture of each event. However, we must also be meticulous enough to look deeper and look at finer things, for if not, we will not get things solved. "Looking at the forest and also the trees" . When we look at the big picture, we will see how one thing relate and/or connected to the other. In fact, this is how life and nature works. We work and live in harmony with everything. We don't live in exile. We can't live in exile. Nothing can. So, why are looking at this independently.

Let me throw you a question, what if, what seems to be an successful organization is just a mediocre one? A company is successful if we look at it individually, agree? But if we look at it as a whole, it might be a different picture. As a whole here doesn't mean comparing with other competitor in the market, it also means looking internally on how we are doing things individually without any leverage.

Most of the time, we think that if we manage to solve the problem within an estimated budget, time or constrains we are successful. What if there is another better solution? Peter Senge suggest that, the only way to know is to look at the situation as a whole, not chunk it down.

In his book, he explains this situation of System Thinking with a very nice example. Both the Americans and the Japanese have superb vehichle engines. The Americans, are in fact very happy with the design and the performance of their engines, until they realized that their Japanese counterparts, are able to produce their engines (which is of same performance and quality)at much cheaper price. After some studies, the Americans found out that their engines use many different type of sizes of bolts and screws for different part of the engine compared to the Japanese which only have one standard size. In this case, the Japanese can lower down their inventory complexity and demand for lower prices from suppliers for their bulk purchases of bolts, resulting in lower production cost.

This happened because, the Americans have many different department designing different parts of the engine; engine block dept, fuel combustion dept and etc. So when they put them together, and things turned out well, the project was considered successful. Each dept uses their own design standards and that means different types of screws and bolts.

The Japanese althought take a longer pain staking time and effort to coordinate everything as a whole, managed to rip better results at the end.

Besides, there's is a lot more about this System Thinking. Another thing that he mentioned is the "Beer Game" which he clearly illustrate the power of system in this world, which I will write about in the next blog.

After system thinking, I will be talking about Personal Mastery, a new paradigm or approach towards personal success!!! Till then...

Where is peace? Where does peace begin?

2005-02-18T15:18:00.000+08:00

We all know the Hebrew word "shalom" and the Arabic "salaam." We know that they share the same meaning: Peace. But there's an even
more basic meaning for those words. They mean WHOLENESS. You could even say UNITY, or ONENESS. (It's interesting to note that wholeness is the original meaning of the word "integrity," too.)

And that idea of wholeness and unity is really the key to the whole thing, because to be AT PEACE we need to understand our oneness with each other and the Universe/World. Our unity.

...

Socrates was once asked how to get to Mount Olympus. And his answer as to make sure that every step you take is in the direction of Mt. Olympus. So every step we'll take today will be in the direction of a conclusion. We may travel a circuitous, roundabout route but we'll end up at the conclusion that peace isn't to be found OUT THERE. That it lives here, deep within us,and our task is to go within, get to know it, and set it free in the world.

We'll take our starting point from the words of Jesus when he was asked what was the greatest commandment. He said it was to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second greatest, he said, is like it: Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

So there are really THREE prescriptions here: Love God, love others, love yourself. And again, when we understand the concept of wholeness and unity we can see that those three are really all the same. We are all part of the one life, the one substance, and so to truly love one part of that life is to love all.

...

If we were actually following this advice, we wouldn't be talking about world peace. We'd just be reveling in it. Where love rules, peace thrives.

So it then makes sense that where the opposite of love rules, there is no experience of peace.

Now some people would say that the opposite of love is hate. But I think there's something even more basic that comes first, and that's FEAR. And fear is even more insidious, too, because while many, maybe most, of us can truthfully say we're not harboring hatred, few of us are without fear.

When we look around and see circumstances and events we don't like, don't want, that our hearts cry out against. Like hunger, violence,
racism or other forms of suffering. If we're unaware that present circumstances are always just the tangible results of our past thinking, we can feel that those circumstances and appearances are inevitable, that they're the Truth of our existence and "just the way it is."

We begin to accept them and that breeds more fear -- fear of scarcity, fear of lack. The more we give into the fear and focus our thinking and feelings there, the more we create and attract exactly what we do not want. We trap ourselves in a vicious circle. So we go 'round and 'round with this scarcity thinking -- this
fear of lack. There's not enough. I've got to get mine and hang
on to it. And of course others are moving around in their own
versions of the same circle, so we all begin to cast a suspicious
eye.

We end up feeling separation, division, competition, envy, jealousy, sometimes even hatred. More fear. More fear of lack -- more "I'm not getting enough, somebody must be getting my share and keeping me from having enough" -- enough wealth ... power ... land ... respect ... security ... enough anything. Even enough love.

In this state of mind, we see others as keeping us from our good. THEY're the problem. We see anything but unity and wholeness. It becomes US versus THEM. We feel victimized, and so we look for someone to blame.

Mother Teresa said, "If we do not have peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

But let's back up a bit. What was that other thing Jesus said?Love is the antidote to fear. Perfect love casts out fear. He
said, "PEACE I leave with you ... Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

Well, we get opportunities every day. In fact we have the opportunity in every moment. Just about every day we find ourselves in the middle of challenging events and circumstances -- whether it's something major or as relatively small and simple as someone being rude to us or, say, cutting us off in traffic.

When something happens, we ALWAYS get to CHOOSE how we respond. And here's the KEY:

Our response to ANY event or circumstance can
give us peace -- or it can give us something
else.

Think about the rudeness example for a moment. Now remember THIS: How did you respond? Did your chosen response give you PEACE -- or something else?

The next time perhaps, instead of reacting immediately and automatically to what's happening, we stop for a moment to breathe and consciously CHOOSE the response that gives us peace.

Now, think of a time when your child or spouse or partner was
away from home and late getting back. No phone call. No way to
get in touch. You're just left hanging there, wondering where
they are, what's going on. As the minutes tick by, what happens? FEAR. For some people it shows up as worrying, for some as anger. Some get sick with it.

And then your loved one shows up, safe and sound, the fear dissolves in an instant.

(So where did it ever actually exist? Hmm.)

And that frenzy WAS just something you put yourself through -- no
one forced you. You chose it. You chose the response that did not
give you peace. But when you know HOW you reacted you can choose the opposite instead.

Does it change the outer circumstances? Not immediately, and you can't always undo what's done. But it gives you peace of mind in the moment. And that's what matters.

...

Now I said we have the opportunity to choose peace in EVERY moment, and here's what I meant by that. It's not just our responses to the things that are happening to us right now that affect our experience of peace but our ongoing responses to the things that have happened in the past.

I'm talking about forgiveness.

...

Forgiveness is a gift we give OURSELVES first. A gift of peace.
And love. And wholeness.

A California couple, Peter and Linda Biehl, were proud and happy
when their daughter Amy won a Fulbright Scholarship and went off
to South Africa to work in the movement to replace apartheid with
equality.

When Amy was killed by a mob during a riot, the Biehls faced a defining moment of choice: They could let their lives be devoured
by hatred and anger or they could forgive.

Amy was gone, and for a long while their grief was overwhelming. But ultimately their response was staggering. Abandoning their upper-middle-class jobs and lives, they moved to South Africa and established a foundation in their daughter's name. There they met two young men, two of the mob who had murdered their daughter.

And they forgave them.

But the story doesn't end there. After these men were pardoned they went to work for the foundation to try to atone for what they could not undo, and this odd foursome became friends, more than friends. These two young men who killed her daughter now call Linda, "Mom."

How did they find the strength to forgive such heartbreaking loss?

But when we stop and look for the Truth, we begin to see that while their choice to forgive has certainly benefited the two young men, it has been of much greater value to the Biehls. Instead of bitter lives deformed by a desire for vengeance, they chose lives of love, forgiveness and service as a living memorial to their daughter. They chose to build up rather than to tear down. They have saved their own lives and the lives of others and now,through their example and story, they have touched our lives, too, yours and mine.

Forgiveness requires courage, and I believe that to create outer peace in our world will require that at least one "side" in any conflict summons the courage to take the first step toward forgiveness. To be willing to let go of past hurts, however deep,
and begin to build something new.

This powerful story also illustrates another aspect of this
subject of forgiveness, and that is our responsibility for the
world we are right now creating with our thoughts and feelings.

We can say, "I want peace and plenty in the world," but if we are
holding anything at all against ANY other individual, then we are
blinding ourselves to the truth.

If we really understand that we are powerful co-creators and that our reality begins with our thinking, then who is responsible if we do not experience peace and plenty in our world?

I am. You are.

The cause is never out there somewhere, my friend. It's not in
that other person or in "THOSE people." It's right here in me, in
you, in all of us.

By taking care of ourselves first in this way -- by choosing to forgive and respond with love rather than fear -- we free ourselves, we sweep away the years of built-up sludge that jams up the channels through which abundance of every kind flows, and we move more firmly into our power to make manifest that peaceful, prosperous world we want to live in.

...

I want to share with you the words of Douglas Bottorff, author of A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PROSPEROUS LIVING.

Some years ago I was teaching a class on Creative Visualization. During the course of our discussion, the subject of world peace was raised.

A woman, pointing through the classroom window to her car in the parking lot, called our attention to her bumper sticker, which read, "Visualize World Peace." "This is what we all need to do," she declared.

To emphasize a point I was trying to make in the class I seized the opportunity and asked her this simple question "Are you now at peace with the world as it is?"

Her response was revealing. She said: "Of course I'm not at peace with the world as it is. The world is a dangerous and violent place!" The emotion of her conviction flashed in her eyes as she spoke.

Something very significant occurred to me as the result of this woman's response. Like many, she desired a world of peace. However, the actual VISION she held of our world was that it was a dangerous and violent place. Her desired vision of world peace was something that COULD possibly take place in the future. Her negative vision, however, was taking place in REAL TIME.

The significance of this fact lies in under-standing that IT IS THE REAL-TIME IMAGES WE HOLD WHICH DETERMINE THE QUALITY OF OUR EXPERIENCE. This woman was relating to the world on a day-to-day basis as if it were a dangerous and violent place.

That was her definition and her expectation of the world. How could the world show her anything else if that is how she chose to define it?

If this woman truly wanted to create an impact through her visualization of world peace, she would have to abort her real-time, negative vision and replace it with a vision of the world as a peaceful place!"

And that, my friends, is what we've come round to at last: Peace
can only exist "out there" when we choose to go deep and release
it from "in here." Up til now humankind has not realized the
depth of our creative power, and so we have created, again and
again, a world of experience that is NOT peace. But every moment
is new, an opportunity to choose again.

Henry David Thoreau once said that "for one who is hacking at the
roots of evil, there are thousands hacking at the branches." My
friends, WE can be the ones who do both, not merely trying to
rearrange outer circumstances but going within, to find and
dissolve the root cause as well.

As with the other aspects of true prosperity -- health and plenty
in our finances -- peace begins within, with "peace of mind," and
only then can it manifest in the outer world.

Dr. Mwizenge Tembo in Zambia writes, "The best strategy for
achieving universal peace and tranquility is the spreading of
love all over the world. Skeptics will laugh, but what other
choices do we have?"

Only the choices we have been making up 'til now, my friends. The
ones that time has PROVEN to us do not bring peace. But each of
us is free to choose again in each new moment. Free to choose the
way of peace and plenty. Right now.

"More life to all and less to none!"

-Adopted from "The Certain Way - 17 Feb 2005 Ezine" by Rebecca Fine www.scienceofgettingrich.net

Thinking about living

2005-02-17T10:40:00.000+08:00

Ok, much of my friends are blogging, so I tell myself I should not lose out or else I will be alienated :P . Then come the issue of what will I want to blog about. I guess as much I will just blog about anything good and empowering, since it is my wish to help and contribute to all.

This blog will be different, I guess. You can read thousands of articles, blogs, news on how and what happened to ONE unlucky gal who got rape on the way home with all the rationale and comments from people of all walks of life, and claim that they sensitive, considerate and civic minded for at least they care to notice...

but folks, dare to say NOT A SINGLE ARTICLE on how many gals are able to return home safely to their families and love ones. If you look at the probability, it's probably 0.0001%. I'm not saying that we shouldn't care, in fact we should help that girl but how we help and the space where we come from to help we really need to consider.

(Sorry if offended anyone in my sentence, all I wanted to do is just to provoke your consciousness. In fact, this is solely my point-of-view and you can agree and disagree with it, it perfectly fine).

I will post articles, book summaries etc on positive thinking, self-empowerment, MONEY AND MILLIONAIRE ISSUE, NLP, learning and more. I'm no guru/pro in this area of concern, the truth is, I'm just like you, on this journey - finding and trying all that I possibly can lay my hands on in hope for improvement. I just wanted to share so that, you might never know, someone, somewhere might just benefit from it and it will change his/her life.

"The mind is like a parachute, it works best when it is open" -can't remember who.

All i'm looking for is just an open mind.

Ok...enough babbling...let's start living. :)

Hieee

2005-02-16T14:03:00.000+08:00

hi, this is my first blog. There is some issues that I would like to share. I will at my best effort keep this blog updated as much as i possibly could.