Rebirth of T-rex

I just bought the book, The Difference Maker-Making Your Attitude Your Greatest Asset, by John C Maxwell yesterday before attending a dinner with our team mates.

I can't wait to start reading it today and found that although the book may appears 'small', but it is full of essence. I would like to quote some valuable ones to be shared with you. However, I will encourage you to read the entire book and it may change your life entirely.

'Attitude isn't everything, but it is one thing that can make a difference in your life.' ~ John C Maxwell

'There is a little difference in people, but the little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.' ~ W. Clement Stone

'I think of attitude as an inward feeling expressed by outward behavior.' ~ John C Maxwell

'Where did I get my attitude?
- Personality- Who You Are
- Environment- What's Around You
- The Expression of Others- What You Feel
- Self-Image- How You See Yourself
- Exposure to Growth Opportunities- What You Experience
- Association with Peers- Who You Are With
- Belief- What You Think
- Choices- What You Do' ~ John C Maxwell

'Examine the labels you apply to yourself. Every label is a boundary or limit you will not let yourself cross.' ~ Dwayne Dyer

'The sum of all your thoughts comprises your overall attitude' ~ John C Maxwell

'To change your life, you must make a choice to take responsibility for your attitude, and to do everything you can to make it work for you. Your attitude truly can become a difference maker. It's up to you.' ~ John C Maxwell

I am currently reading the book- The AirAsia Story by Sen Ze and Jayne Ng and found the following quoted from Tony very interesting!

Believe the unbelievable, Dream the impossible, Don't take 'no' for an answer.

Hope it helps you.

I would like to share important concepts extracted from Andrew Matthew's Follow Your Heart- Finding Purpose in Your Life and Work. It's a book really worth reading.

1. We are here to learn lessons, and the world is our teacher
   When we fail to learn a lessson, we get to take it again... and again! Once we have learned the lesson, we move on to the next one. (And we never run out of lessons!)
   
2. The universe has no favourtites
   Your success and happiness depend on natural laws and principles- and how you use them
   
3. Your life is a perfect reflection of your beliefs
   When you change your deepest beliefs about the world, your life changes accordingly
   
4. The moment you get too attached to things, people, money... you screw it up
   The challenge of life is to appreciate everything and attach yourself to nothing
   
5. What you focus on in life expands
   so think about what you want!
   
6. Follow your heart!
   Your mission in life is not to be without problems- your mission is to get excited.
   
7. God is never going to come down from a cloud and say, "You now have permission to be successful!"
   You have to give yourself permission
   
8. When you fight life, life always wins
   If you want more peace of mind, stop labelling everything that happens as 'good' or 'bad'
   
9. How do you love people? Just accept them
   Complete acceptance is unconditional love
   
10. Our mission in life is not to change the world- our mission is to change ourselves.
    There are no 'outside' solutions, only 'inside' solutions
    

I was happy to meet up my friend from Singapore yesterday. I have learnt so much things from him and one of the interesting concepts is 'Don't be Color Blind'.
The concept is simple yet useful. Basically, we can group our activities into 3 different colors- Red, Yellow and Green. Yes, just like the traffic light.

Red- Activities that do not move you at all to your objectives/goals, just like stopping at the traffic light when it is red.
Yellow- Activities that prepare you to move closer to your objectives/goals.
Green- Activities that makes you achieve your objectives/goals.

Therefore, when you are selecting your activities within the fairly allocated 1440 minutes everyday, don't be color blind and choose your activities wisely. Keep performing as many green activities without being caught in red activities.

After understanding it, I come to realized that there are similarities in this concept with the others that I have learnt before this.

Habit 4 of First Thing First by Steven Covey in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, in which you should focus on the 2nd Quadrant of activities that are important but not urgent.

Besides, Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy also adviced that you should prioritize your daily activities by 'eating the biggest, ugliest frog' in the beginning of the day.

In short, focus on the Most Important activities that brings you closer in achieving your objectives/goals and dreams!

I would like to share my mission statement that was defined after the 7th Habits of Highly Effective People training.

Mission Statement

1. Financial Arena- I shall seek financial freedom and consequently freedom to do the things I want to do by managing my wealth with proper financial planning
   
2. Career Arena- I shall build a career preferably owning a business) that saves lives and change people lifestyles) alternatively “that brings benefits to people”
   
3. Recreational Arena- I shall pursue recreational activities that nurture and build deeper personal and family relationships
   
4. Health Arena- I shall maintain a healthy body (physically, mentally, spiritually and socially) via healthy diet, consistent exercise, open and positive mindset and meditation that is full of vitality, free from diseases, calm and relax, friendly and sociable
   
5. Relationship Arena- I shall build a healthy relationship with family and friends, in which we are caring, loving, empowering and supportive to each other
   
6. Personal Arena- I shall seek continuous learning and improving through self-development (Travel around the world, Attend motivational seminars by idol [Anthony Robbins, Bob Proctor, Jack Canfield, Jim Rohn] and Pursue post-graduate education)
   
7. Community Arena- I shall contribute to the community by actualizing my goal of helping 1 million people by 2019 by being a successful leader, mentor/ coach in leading, educating, inspiring others to achieve their success (Live, Love, Learn and Leave a Legacy)
   

Visiting another country in the early of new year was a great experience, especially in a new environment with difference weather, culture and history background.

Just returned from Beijing yesterday and eagerly wanting to share the experience during the great trip.

The following are a summary of the destinations during the trip.

6th Jan 2007: KLIA International Airport -> Beijing Capital International Airport

7th Jan 2007: Beijing Capital International Airport -> Breakfast -> TianAnMen Square -> Forbidden City -> Lunch (GuangDong Cuisine) -> Jade Factory -> YiHao Hotel -> Tea Shop -> Dinner

8th Jan 2007: YiHao Hotel (Breakfast) -> Great Wall of China (BaDaLing) -> Lunch (HangZhou Cuisine) -> YueXie Market -> Ya Xiu Market -> Crystal -> Ming Dynasty Museum -> BaoFuTang -> Dinner (Hot Mutton Pot) -> Acrobatic Show

9th Jan 2007: YiHao Hotel (Breakfast) -> Summer Palace -> Pearl Shop -> Lunch (Peking Roast Duck) -> HuTong Trishaw Ride -> Visit Old Beijing Area (Interview Resident) -> Dinner (Guang Dong Claypot) -> WangFuJing

10th Jan 2007: YiHao Hotel (Breakfast) -> ZhengYangMen City Gate (FengShui Center) -> Lunch (SiChuanMaLa Fish) -> JinJie Market -> YueXiu Market -> Dinner (ChaoZhou Cuisine) -> ShaoLingKungFu Show -> ShiShaHai Bar Street

11th Jan 2007: YiHao Hotel (Breakfast) -> JinTaiLan -> Underground City (Silk) -> Lunch (ShanXi Noodle) -> YueXiu Market -> Beijing Capital International Airport

Besides, I would like to share some photos taken during the trip to provide a 'snapshot' of these places.



With handsome tour guide-Jerry Li Xiang at TianAnMen Square



At WuMen of Forbidden City


Briefing in Jade Factory


At mid of the BaDaLing Great Wall of China


At Summer Palace



Extraction of Pearl in Pearl Shop



Trishaw ride in HuTong to visit old Beijing area


At WangFuJing (temperature was -6 degree)


View of ZhengYangMen City Gate


Photo with ShaoLinKungFu Masters


Huge vase in JinTaiLan


Minute work by JinTaiLan


Part of the tunnel in Beijing Underground City


Photo with handsome tour guide and pretty photographer during the last lunch in Beijing

Tomorrow will be the last day of 2006, looking back at the events happened and achievements obtained, there are 5 significant ones that I extremely happy about and satisfied with.

In short, they are the following:

1. A New Year Resolution of 2006
2. Career in MNC
3. Trip to London
4. Reading Habit
5. Victory in Volleyball Tournament

Firstly, it's the first year, the idea of new year resolution come into reality when I defined and focus on the crusade of 'Helping 1 million people in my life'. It's a very strong principle that I carry with me the whole year and I can see a very significant change in my personal behavior when dealing with people and events that are around me. It will be a continuous principle and practice for the years to come.

The year of 2006 is also a year that display a 'jump' in my career. I am accepted and employed in a well-known MNC IT Service Center. It's a challenging yet exciting to pick up the new role, especially to understand and be familiar with processes in executing the tasks and accomplishing the mission. A paradigm shift in managing the tasks has occured as I am required to see things in bigger picture as an analyst, be proactive and initiative.

One of the greatest moment of the year was the company trip to London. I was sent to support the User Acceptance Test for an application that measures productivity of the employee. The sharing of feeling from the pickup of limosine from my house to KLIA Airport, boarding a Boeing 747 on a business class, transiting at Amsterdam till the visits to many many tourist spots in London and Greenwich will take up to hours. It will be a life-long memorable moments. In fact, I just read the news about Air Asia may offer flight to London at a more budgeted rate next year. That motivates me to fulfill my dream to be back to London again!

Compared to the past 3 years of working life, 2006 is the year in which I read the most, including listening to a lot of audio books. Among these are a few best sellers, including the one by Anthony Robbins, Jim Rohns, David Canfield, Zig Ziglar...etc. In particularly, I like the video called 'The Secret', the book 'The Success Principle by David Canfield. I sincerely encourages you to read up some of these. It may change your life forever.

Lastly, another great event experienced this year is the achievement in volleyball tournament. I was selected to be one of the player for our company's volleyball team to take part in a tournament, in which many other MNC companies in Cyberjaya also took part. Our team has the best combinations of talented and experienced players, which lead us to beat the other teams and emerge as champion. I am really proud of ourselves!

Looking back at these for the year of 2006, there will be some other big plans coming up for the year of 2007.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best for the coming year. Happy New Year of 2007!

Read this to yourself every morning and evening (before you go to sleep)

THE SECRET TO YOU
------------------------
I AM STARTING OVER TODAY
ALL GOOD THINGS ARE COMING TO ME TODAY
I AM GRATEFUL TO BE ALIVE
I SEE BEAUTY ALL AROUND ME
I LIVE WITH PASSION AND PURPOSE
I TAKE TIME TO LAUGH AND PLAY EVERYDAY
I AM AWAKE, ENERGIZED AND ALIVE
I FOCUS ON ALL THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE AND GIVE THANKS TO THEM
I AM AT PEACE AND ONE WITH EVERYTHING
I FEEL THE LOVE, THE JOY, THE ABUNDANCE
I AM FREE TO BE MYSELF
I AM MAGNIFICENCE IN HUMAN FORM
I AM THE PERFECTION OF LIFEI AM GRATEFUL TO BE ME
TODAY IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

I would like to share something my friend from Taiwan shared with me. It's meaningful and please bear with me because it's in mandarin language.

Mission Impossible 『不可能的事』 世界上的事情非常奇怪～越是人們認為不可能的！做起來越有機會成功！第一位發現這個道理的據說是哥倫布

1485年5月～哥倫布到西班牙去遊說：『我從這兒向西走也能到達東方～只要你們拿出錢來資助我』～當時！沒有一個人阻止他～也沒有刺殺他～因為當時的人認為～從西班牙向西航行～不出500海哩～就會掉進無盡的深淵～想到達富庶的東方？那是決對不可能的！ 可是～在他第一次航行成功～第二次又要去的時候～不僅遇到了空前的阻力～而且還有人在大西洋上攔截～並企圖暗殺他！至於原因～非常明確～因為沿這條航線絕對能夠到達富庶的東方～他再去一回～那兒的黃金！瑪瑙！翡翠！玉石！皮毛！香料！就會使得他富比王侯！不可一世！ 越是人們認為不可能的！做起來越順暢！這一道理～在哥倫布死後救被人遺忘了！直至大約500年後～在華爾街上～才被一位叫巴菲特的美國人發現！

1973年～全世界沒有一個人認為～曼圖阿農場的股票能夠復甦～有的是甚至認為～曼圖阿不出三個月就會宣告破產！然而～巴菲特不這樣看～他認為～越是在人們對某一股票失去信因的時候～這支股票越可能是一處大金礦！果然～在他以15美分的價格買入為數不少的股票之後～不到五年～他就賺了4700萬美元！眾所周知～現在他已是緊排比爾蓋茲之後的大富翁了！

哥倫布所發現的那個道理～不久又被一個人發現！他是法國的一位小男孩！這個小男孩七歲時～創辦了一個專門提供玩具信息的網站！當時～沒有一個人把他放在眼裡～沒有一家同類的公司與之為敵～也沒有哪家行業會來照他簽訂合約！他們認為～那個網站只是一個孩子的遊戲～成不了什麼氣候！誰知結果卻出人意料～這位小男孩不僅把網站做大了～而且在他十歲時～就通過廣告收入～成了法國最年輕的百萬富翁！

越是一般人認為不可能的事～月有可能做到！這話確實很有道理！大家都認為不可能～必然誰也不去關注～誰也不去攻擊～誰也不去設防！！再者～不可能實現的事～一般都沒有競爭對手～第一個去做的人正好可以獨自乘虛而入！

另外！一般人認為不可能的事～肯定是件十分困難！甚至是難以想像的事！因為太難～所以畏難！因為畏難！所以根本不去問津！不但自己不去問津！甚至認為別人也不會問津！可以說世界上真正的大業～都是在別人認為不可能的情況下完成的！！在人類一步步從過去走向未來的過程中～不可能的事～一件還沒有發現！


Another great quote from John Maxwell :
Everyone has the power to impact the outcome of his life. The way to do it s to focus on today... Today is the only time you have. It's too late for yesterday. And you can't depend on tomorrow.

Points to Ponder
Try to answer the following question honestly:

Have you ever wonder what will happen if you stop working/can't work anymore from today onwards?
What have you done to prepare yourself for that?

Great Advise
Plan your day as if tomorrow never ends, but act as if tomorrow never comes.

The following are extracted from John Di Lemme on Rejection.

He stated that how we handle rejection is direct propotion to how we maintainpersistent level of action in order to feel fulfilled and find our WHY in life. He also described that rejection is an extremely negative force; however, if we can channel it to produce positive results, then we will benefit from it. 'The most successful people are those who have felt the pains of rejection, but because of their DETERMINATION they pressed onward and won the game.'

EXPECT REJECTION, LOVE REJECTION, LEARN FROM REJECTION AND YOU WILL SUCCEED!

Find your WHY and Fly!

Tips for Success
3 As for excellence (Zig Ziglar):
Attitude
Aggressiveness
Appearance

4 Ls for your success in life (by Founder and President of a company) :
Live
Love
Learn
Legacy

Happy Chinese New Year and Gong Xi Fa Chai. I would like to quote from Daily Dose of Happiness the following interesting point:

What do you see?
OPPORTUNITY IS: N-O-W-H-E-R-E

Did you see "nowhere" or "now here"? It's all in how we look at things.

I have just read a free eBook - Tame Your Brain! by Jan Tincher recently and found that some of the techniques the author shared on helping us to find personal success pretty interesting.

I would like to grab this opportunity to share what I have learnt from the author on Anger Management. As we are aware that anger could ruin our life and health, but how do we manage and control it to lead to disaster? The author has proposed that writing a letter to ourselves is an effective way to achieve that. The author describes that there are 6 levels involved in healing anger, in which each level has 2 feelings associated to it, in particularly the following:

Level Feeling associated to the feeling
------ --------------------------------
Anger ( blame & resentment )

v
Hurt ( sadness & disappointment )

v
Fear ( insecurity & wounds )

v
Regret ( understanding & responsibility )

v
Intention ( solutions & wishes )

v
Love ( forgiveness & appreciation )

In the letter, we write a sentence per feeling. Each will lead to more and we write all of them until we can't write another sentence for that feeling anymore.
For the feeling, you could start with the following but not necessary a must to start it that way:

Blame: I blame you for _______
Resentment: I resent the fact that _______
I resent you for ______
Sadness: You make me sad when you ______
Disappointment: You disappoint me when you ______
Insecure: In feel insecure when you ______
Wound: You wound me when ______
Understand: I understand the situation as ______
Responsible: I feel responsible when _______
Solution: I feel a solution might be ______
Wish: I wish ______
Forgiveness: I forgive you for ______
Appreciation: I appreciate the fact that you ______

Remember to send the letter to YOU AND ONLY YOURSELF, but not other people, otherwise it defeat the purpose.

A new year with a new beginning! Happy new year to you.

The year 2005 ended with positive and negative events. My service to our company's partner ended in the mid of December followed by wedding ceremony of my gf's sister. Soon after that were my dad's brain surgery, my resignation to the company and joining of new company in the new year. It sounds pretty ad hoc and everything happened just within a very short 3 weeks.

However, I personally feel that the greatest achievement is the opportunity to be offered by a worldwidely known MNC. With this, I have achieved and exceeded the goal I have set in year end of 2004 in terms of salary. Besides, as I have promised to my gf, within a year the figures has a 50% increment of what I was acquiring in year end of 2004.

With the entry to the MNC company, the scope has increased tremendously to looking at the world map & looking at millions and billions! The potential to grow has increased tremendously too. The paradigm switch gets me excited and nervous in the beginning, however, time to get into serious business has come too.

After induction/orientation programme I attended yesterday morning, it has gave me a glance of what I shall prepare for the near future with goal setting and planning. At the same time, synchonization of the work's goal and personal's goal is extremely important. Some work has to be done! :)

Anyway, I have came across an interesting writing on "Insight of Success" (by Kamaruddin B. Hassan) which I would like to share with you too. The element of success can be abbreviated into a positive word- GRATEFUL:

Goal
Relationship with others
Attitude
Time Management
Effective & Efficiency
Follow-Up
Under Promise & Over Delivery
Love

Besides, I would like to extract a few of his compilations in his book, which is mainly by Napolean Hill:

"When an opportunity came, it appeared in a different form and from a different direction. That is one of the trick of opportunity. It has a sly habit of slipping in by the back door, and often it goes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat. Perhaps this is why so many fail to recognise opportunity."

"Success comes to those who become success conscious. Failure comes to those who indifferently allow themselves to become failure conscious."

"The longer you work in the right direction, the closer you are to success. Too many men give up when success is within he grasp. They leave it for someone else to capture."

"Wishing will not bring riches. But desering riches with a state of mind that becomes an obsession, then planning definite ways and means to acquire riches, and backing those plans persistence which does not recognise failure, will bring riches."

"... Life's battle don't always go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later, the person who wins, is the man who thinks he can!"

"Broadly speaking, there are two types of people in the world. One type is known as leaders, and the others as followers. It is no disgrace to be a follower. On the other hand, it is no credit to remain a follower."

Leadership has always been an important element to achieve success and lately I have read a lot about it. Just to share some interesting points with you here.

John Maxwell has defined 21 laws of leadership, in which the following are the first 4 which I quoted from him:

1) Law of the Lid:
- The leadership ability determines the level of effectiveness.
- Personal success without leadership limits your effectiveness.
- The higher you climb, the more leadership you need.

2) Law of the Influence:
- The major difference of leaders is on the influence.
- Leadership is influence and influencer makes things happen.
- The very essence of all power to influence lies in getting the people to participate.

3) Law of the Process:
- Leadership develop daily but not in a day.
- Everyone has the potential to be leaders.
- Leaders are born but successful leaders are learnt.
- It is the capability to develop and improves their skills to distinguish a leader from his followers.

4) Law of the Navigation:
- Everyone can steer a ship but leaders charge the course.
- Followers need leaders to be able to effectively navigate for them.
- A blueprint to navigate: PLAN AHEAD
- P: Pre-determine a course of action
- L: Lay out your goal
- A: Adjust your priorities
- N: Notify key personnel
- A: Allow time for acceptance
- H: Head off the essence
- E: Expect problems
- A: Always point to the sucesses
- D: Daily review your plan
- Preparations build confidence and trust in people

A saying from Anthony Robbin:
Success is to create pleasure on your life and making yourself to grow; Failure is able to find pain no matter how good it is!

While learning a lot from Anthony Robbins, I just read another great book by Chen An Zhi- "How to successfully be rich?" (translated). I won't drill down into the $$$ part as it's quite sensitive to some people, however, I would like to hightlight some important points about why people fail? Yes, it's true, we have been always searching, learning and practicing how to be successful, but we seldom look at the opposite, which is why we fail? Imagine if you are practicing the rules of success but at the same time committing to actions that lead you to failure, how well will you perform?

There are plenty of factors mentioned by the author, however, I will list down the three main ones, which are:
1) Lack of Goal (No Goal)
- Many people include me wants to be successful, but how? What do we want to achieve? How can we achieve the goal?
- Thus, defining your own goal is important. Try asking yourself, what do you plan to achieve today?

2) Goal is not recorded
- Oftenly, we have a goal but they are not recorded. When we are asked, "Do you have a goal? Where do you record them?"; most of us will just answer "Yes, I have many goals. I just remember them and keep them in my brain." That's in fact the exact answer I have given to my girl friend when she asked the same question. That's funny right? Yes, it's one of the root to our failure
- Besides, the goal should be specific and reasonable/achievable too! You can't say I want to earn more money. But how much is more? RM1 more than current is considered more too! Also, you can't expect to earn 100K in the next month while your current salary is only 3K. Though it might happen, but it's not reasonable.

3) Changing Goal
- Many of us keep on changing our goal after we have set one.
- We need to define short term, medium term and long term goal such that they are in sync and able to assist you to achieve what you have set.
- Set your dreams high, but set your goal reasonably.

I would love to share more in the future. Please feedback.

Today, I have a great time with my friend/leader who helped/trained me to see things differently. He shared with me many insights and we have gone through some motivation materials by Anthony Robbins. Thus, I would share with you some essence I managed to capture (quoted from Anthony Robbins):

1) "The past is not equivalent to the future".

2) In order to change our life, we need to know where we are heading (our goal), make a decision to achieve it (take action), evaluate the result and change our approach if it's not working.

3) Use role models or learn from people who have succeed to help us speed up our pace to achieve success.

4) "Failure and Fear can be your best friend".

5) "Everything we do is driven by need to avoid pain and desire to gain pleasure". Thus, when changing your behavior, focus on how not changing is more painful than changing and how changing brings more pleasure.

6) "Use pain and pleasure instead of pain and pleasure use you"

I am trying something new today- to do my work in Star Bucks, KL Sentral. It's the firs time I spend half the day in Star Bucks doing things I like in a very relaxing mode.

I came to KL Sentral in the morning with my friend. He met up someone for interview while I try to establish the wireless connection in Star Bucks. I was so stupid and didn't read the instruction correctly. I was connected via the WAN, however, didn't know that I just need to key in the given user id and password shown on the login page. I was doing other development work till my friend has finished his interview. We went for lunch and he headed down to Melaka while I stay back in Star Bucks. Too bad my gf wasn't online and can't chat with her.

I spent some time researching for solution while trying them. Besides, also chatting with my friend in Shanghai whom I just met. I like the environment here as it plays Jazz, which is very smoothing. I wish my gf is here with me. I also hope that my house can be designed to provide such environment in the future. After dinner, we can read books, chit chat, yoga, go online or even dance under such environment to relax ourselves, hindering from hypertension. :)

Since last weekend, I have been attached to a new project and will be in customer site for 3 months as Consultant. Time flies, however, the team members are very friendly. We have been able to work as a team very well though only being together for two weeks. We went for lunch together and since the team is quite huge, I take turns to join different gang. My colleagues even join them for lunch together.

Yesterday, I managed to meet up a few secondary school class mates (in particularly, Ing Huei, Kuan Yen and Pek Keen) for dinner. Too bad that a few other class mates couldn't make it. Though it was just a very short session, but we managed to get ourselves updated about each other. Hope to be able to meet them up again in near future.

Three hours more, I will be attending another reunion dinner, but this time is for primary school class mates. My ex-class monitor has arranged the session and managed to invite 3 of our teachers to join us. Hope that it will be an enjoying session.