Rewards of improving

Again from the book from John C. Maxwell, Be A People Person, John discusses about one of the important characteristics of a winning team, that is “keep improving”. What will be required to keep improving? We need to change, we need to take risk, we need to give up past success and failures to keep on improving and winning.

And something that interests me, is what John mentioned about the rewards of improving.

The highest reward for man’s improvement is not what he gets for it; it’s what he becomes as a result of it. Ask yourself why you are trying to improve. Is it to receive something for it? If so, that’s the wrong motive. Try to improve because it makes you a better person.

John C. Maxwell

Popularity: 31% [?]

Be A People Person by John C. Maxwell

This book taught me a lot about relationship with people, and how to become a person of influence, some of the articles I have discussed based on this book is art of selling, handling criticism, and passing credit to others.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Faith in others

Today I’m reminded of so many people that I have met in my life that has so much faith in me, even when sometimes I don’t. Some is just a sentence, and some is in a long conversation, but something similar between them is that their statements of their faith in me really encourage me a lot, and it’s something that I will remember all of my life.

 

 

From my experience, here are some ways you can express your faith in others

• “Prophesy” the great future of others

It was a “prophecy” made by my ex-boss, commented on my work when I about to leave his company, “Rob, you have a great attitude, you will be successful in the future!” My journey on becoming successful might still be long but what he said does encourage me a lot to keep and better my attitude and eventually achieve success in my life.

• Choose to focus on others’ strength

My ex-supervisor, told me, “Rob, if I want, I could point out or emphasize about your weaknesses, but I choose not to, I’m seeing your strength” and he continued on with mentioning about the strength that I have despite of my weaknesses.

• See their challenges as a potential

It was a long conversation with my friend, that I shared with him about my challenges or weaknesses. But one pattern that I see is his encouragement, how he can make such that all the struggle that I have is actually an advantage for me and a potential to overcome. An example is my financial limitation, and he turned the limitation into an advantage, where he’s also giving me examples of many other great people who is successful but started with the rough time with very much limited financial matters.

I’m really thankful to those persons that I have met in my life, who is having much faith in me. Now, let’s learn to have faith in others around us too.

There is another great article of having faith in others from SuccessBeginsToday.org as well, to check it out, please click here.

 

Popularity: 16% [?]

Being interesting

What makes a person interesting? Not necessarily the topic he/she is talking about. It’s more of ‘how’ than ‘what’, more of how he talk, how he communicate his/her ideas instead of the topic he is speaking about.

Today I want to share from a book I’m reading right now, in fact I’m studying it. It’s not an inspirational book, it is a technical, IT-related book. I’ve been thinking all along, whether anything that I can share about the book I’m reading right now in my blog. Of course I don’t want to share technical stuff in this blog, otherwise this blog will be reason2program or reason2code instead of reason2smile =)

The book is one of the Head First series (can be checked in Amazon here) and I study this book for a certification I plan to take next month. Something very interesting about this book was that how it’s been structured not in a conventional way, a way that the topic becomes very interesting and easier for readers to understand.

Some of the things I learned from the author of the books that I find it might be useful for us to become more interesting:

• Clear about your goal and your audiences’ purpose.
  • The authors make it very clear that the book was made to help readers pass the certification exam

• Research about your audiences, helping them to reach their purpose.
  • The authors have done research on how the brain works, to enable reader to learn and memorize better

• Media to grab attention
  • The authors use a lot of pictures, some even made in a comical way to grab the readers’ attention

• Relating topics, communicate complex concepts to become much simpler
  • The authors relate the difficult topics with something closer to the readers’ world, such as everyday life, poem, movies and acting, story-telling, bar conversation, etc

• Repetition of the concepts
  • The same concepts was repeated over and over again to emphasize the importance

For more resources on being interesting, you can read the book from Edward de Bono, How to Be More Interesting, available @ Amazon.com here. It has a lot of different techniques and exercises to relate topics to make conversation more interesting.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Head First EJB by Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates

You may think, what is this book doing in a personal development site? Even though it is an IT technical book, I’m quite amazed on how the authors write and organize the book. This book is made in such a way to make technical info into a topic that can interest anyone. Not only this book makes learning interesting, it makes memorizing easier as well.

Popularity: 11% [?]

How to be More Interesting by Edward de Bono

This book discuss a lot on how you can relate topics to become a more interesting person, a lot of techniques are introduced, such as finding association and relationship between topics, even between those that are very different in nature. In this book, you will be given a lot of exercises to practice the techniques being introduced.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Only The World

Another favorite song of mine, from Mandisa, “Only The World”
Remember that whatever problem we have in this world, it’s only temporary and it can’t be compared to what God has promised us in heaven!

To listen the song, click here.

Verse 1:
Been a hard one, Been a bad one
Been a tough one, Been a sad one
It’s been one of those days that keeps chipping away at my heart
Nothing new here, It’s what I do here
its a stereotypical day, in the life
I’m surrounded by all of the pain and the strife
but I know it’s alright, woah oh

Chorus:
Cause it’s only the world i’m living in
It’s only today i’ve been given
There ain’t no way i’m giving in
Cause it’s only the world (only the world)
I know the best is still yet to come
Cause even when my days in the world are done
There’s gonna be so much more than only the world for me
do do do do do do do do do, yeah its only the world

 

Verse 2:
Anybody can you hear me?
Do you feel me? I mean, do you feel me?
I know I’m not the only one wearing the weight in this world
We got problems (said it’s alright)
Just remember (yeah, it’s alright)
Take a good look around we’re just stuck on the ground for a little while
Don’t it make you smile

Chorus:
Cause it’s only the world i’m living in (Yeah)
It’s only today i’ve been given(Yeah)
There ain’t no way i’m giving in
Cause it’s only the world (only the world)
I know the best is still yet to come
Cause even when my days in the world are done
There’s gonna be so much more than only the world for me
do do do do do do do do do, yeah its only the world

do do do do do do do do do, yeah its only the world

Bridge:
Heaven is a place where the tears on every face will be wiped away
And I can’t wait to go, but for now it’s enoughto know
This is only temporary this is only, Yeah, Alright!

Chorus:
Cause it’s only the world i’m living in
It’s only the day i’ve been given
There ain’t no way i’m giving in
Cause it’s only the world (only the world)
I know the best is still yet to come
Cause even when my days in the world are done
There’s gonna be so much more than only the world for me

Cause it’s only the world i’m living in
It’s only tod i’ve been given
There ain’t no way i’m giving in
Cause it’s only the world (only the world)
I know the best is still yet to come
Cause even when my days in the world are done
There’s gonna be so much more than only the world for me
(So much more than only the world, yeah)

do do do do do do do do do, yeah its only the world

do do do do do do do do do, yeah its only the world

Popularity: 34% [?]

Keep Ticking

“Don’t think hierarchy, think journey”
Brian Kim

Many wise people think that life is a journey, what characterized a life as a journey?
Joyce Meyer mentioned about enjoying your journey as you enjoy every day of your life,
Anthony Robbins mentioned about his term CANI (Constant And Never-ending Improvement) think that each day is our chance to grow.

Somewhere in the world (I can’t remember where) when you were in a travelator, some sound will keep on telling you, “keep walking, keep walking…”. Why is that so, because the travelator is very long, and it tells you to keep on walking, otherwise it will take you very long to reach the end.

Similarly, my sister mentioned today about an illustration about the second hand of a clock, each time it makes a very small movement, a move that represents only a second, its life seems very insignificant. But wondering about that, it’s that move that give us a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, and the list goes on…

It’s the small step that counts big eventually. Choose to do your best today, choose to grow better today, that’s a small step that you can choose today.

Keep growing! Keep walking! Keep ticking!

Popularity: 31% [?]

Yours is A+

If your life is to be evaluated, who will be giving the grade? And how is your grade?

It was 3 years ago, I was studying for my final year at NTU Singapore. I took a course on game development, it was very time consuming where we have to submit 5 assignments, including a complete game for the final assignment. It was a struggle for each assignment, and I submitted each with some ‘imperfection’, some mistakes and incompleteness here and there. No more time, so I just submitted my assignment.

The last 4 assignments’ grade are given only at the end of the semester. On the day where the grade is just released, I bumped into my lecturer before the class. I asked him, what is my grade, and he said, “it’s very good”. Eventually, I checked the net and surprised with the line of A+ that I got for all 5 assignments.

“Hey sir, so generous of you, but don’t you know I made so many mistakes, my submission is very simple, with many errors or bugs here and there, don’t you see that, it’s very obvious?” How would he answer if I asked that to my lecturer? Maybe he will answer “Mmmm, who is the one judging here? it’s not you, it’s me, and I’m giving you A+!”

Similarly, in our life, the one valuing our life is our God, not ourselves nor others. We may see mistake and imperfection in our life, but God’s view will be very different. He values our life despite of our weaknesses. God sees the progress, your love for Him and your willingness to repent and change, not all your mistakes.

And you’re an A+ in front of Him.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Honesty vs. Integrity

Most people think of integrity as being the same thing as honesty. Is the person telling the truth, can they be trusted etc. But if you think of integrity as consistency, where your actions, values, thoughts, and feelings all line up would you consider yourself to have integrity?

John (SuccessBeginsToday.org)

Some people like me, really have difficulty in telling lies, I prefer to tell the truth, even when I’m lying, all the actual facts can be seen on my face. Is that the desired honesty in leadership?

 

Reading the post from SuccessBeginsToday.org, I realized that integrity is much more than honesty, integrity deals with consistency, it’s not only about telling the truth in front of people, but will you even behave consistently with what you share and open in public. The best question to ask is, “Will you still behave consistently even when nobody is seeing you?”

Pursue integrity not only to get things done, but also to gain trust from other people. Not for us to procrastinate and making excuse. Will you still do your best or perform beyond expectation even when nobody is seeing you?

One tips on the time management that John shared is on coming early in every appointment we have scheduled. That’s a very practical tips for us to build our consistency and trust from others. Lifehack.org gives us more benefits of coming early in its article, 6 Reasons Why it Makes Sense to Arrive Early.

To get some other tips in building integrity, please check the full article from John here

Popularity: 24% [?]

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