Ten symptoms of having vision beyond yourself

Which one comes first? Helping ourselves or helping others?

Do you know the chicken and egg dilemma? Which one comes first, chicken or egg? That is a dilemma that has never been solved. And I find some similarity with our self-improvement process. Helping ourselves and helping others, which one comes first?

Should we help others in order to help ourselves?
The statement that Chris Melton from soupornuts.com shared, “In order to help yourself, you must help others. There’s no better long-term strategy to achieving your success.” That statement sounds like the “helping others” comes before “helping ourselves.”

But… shouldn’t we help ourselves before helping others?
The other quote that sounds to be contradicting, comes from Jack Welch, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” Now it sounds as if the helping ourselves comes first before helping others.

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A blogger that helps bloggers

What is so special about bloggers?

First they are learners and second they are teachers. They do not want to keep the information by themselves, they want to share their knowledge to others. That is what very special about them. Don’t you think that each of us has a unique story? Unique knowledge and experience? No other person in this wiorld has exactly the same experience with us. And that means we have something interesting to share with others. And bloggers invest their time, money, and energy to provide that.

This post is dedicated to Mert Erkal from SearchForBlogging.com. He is the blogger that helps other bloggers. He initiated a project called Bloghology to help bloggers all around the world. I really admire his vision because I do believe that bloggers deserve some support. Many of them are great thinkers, they have great message and knowledge, but many have difficulty to gain readership and market themselves. And here comes a project he created, it is a regular e-book to be distributed across blogosphere, to help market bloggers all around the world. And this post I hope will be able to support him and his vision.

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What is your motivation?

What is your motivation in life?

I read Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs on Wikipedia while preparing for my last message, “When it comes to relationship, limitation sells“. There is one statement that caught my attention there…

Once an individual has moved upwards to the next level, needs in the lower level will no longer be prioritized.

One day I was sharing my new hobby to one of my friend. I shared my enthusiasm on blogging to him. And then I shared how I got to know many people through my blog. His reply is not as what I expected, it was a critical statement. In summary, he said that I will not find satisfaction there, as I will not know the people who I am relating to with my blog.

I believe many people has negative impression on befriending a person over the web, first reason is the vulnerability for not knowing who is the other person, and the second one is the lack of return, it seems impossible for the other person in helping/loving you back. These reasons are valid reasons, and that made me wonder for quite a while, “what if he is right?”, “what if nobody will help me because I no longer have any friend that is next to me?”, “what if one time all I have is only friends contactable by emails?”

His statement bugged me for quite a while, until one day I came to realization on how selfish that motive is. If the thing that takes me away from my passion in blogging is the fear of not having friends, then that will be a very selfish ambition!

Reflecting on my life, I got more understanding on how my motivation has changed over the past two years. The path that leads me to blogging, how I take a step over another step following the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs…

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When it comes to relationship, limitation “sells”

Does limitation “sell”?

This is the last article on this “Limitation & Advantages” series (check the previous articles at the bottom of the article). This time I’m going to share more about how limitation can “sell”.

Nowadays, selling is too much associated with things related to money; somehow “selling” is associated with an action of taking money from the other person. I’d like to introduce a better word that I found more accurate to be associated with “selling”, it’s called “relationship“.

In a relationship, we’re all selling. Lovers sell their rights to love and to be loved. Friends sell their time to care and help one another. Mentors sell their influence, while mentees sell their potential to be nurtured. Salaried employees sell their time, energy and intellectual property to the company they worked for. Bosses sell their company and vision to their staff. Entrepreneurs undoubtedly sell their products and services in the marketplace, while customers sell their money for the service and products they need. We’re basically selling whenever we deal with at least one person.

Selling does not have to include money; selling without money is called giving.
Selling is not all about our benefit as well, it is also about the others’ benefit.

The only nice thing about being imperfect is the joy it brings to others.

Doug Larson

The first question comes to my mind when I’m reading the quote, “Why does it bring joy to others?” My next thought: “Is it the joy of taking advantage of the others’ imperfection?” A narrow-minded person will think that others’ imperfection is an advantage; imperfection of others will make them looks better, or maybe a way to manipulate, deceive or win over the person. Yes, it is a sort of joy that others’ imperfection can bring for us, but it is a joy for a wrong reason, and hardly people will be really happy and successful with that kind of attitude, jealous and deceitful.

How does our imperfection become a joy for others, then? Here are the answers I found from various sources…

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4×4 lists of my writing inspiration

One group writing project has caught my attention again. This time, it comes from Joanna Young from ConfidentWriting.com. The project is requesting 4 lists of 4 items and all have to be about writing inspiration. So here is my contribution to the project…

4 sources of inspiration:

1. Conversation. Here is an article, “Dinner with Dreamers“, inspired by my conversation with friends. All of them are dreamers, and I had a great dinner and special meal with them.
2. Books & Magazines. I like reading, I always carry a book with me, and I spent much of my travelling and waiting time reading. An article that combines my inspiration from both book and magazine is “The lazy man’s guide to decision making“.
3. Movie & TV Shows. A statement by one of the actors or the presenters can trigger my inspiration. My article, “Naive’s guide to happiness” is inspired the movie Enchanted. Here is another article inspired by a TV show, “Five steps to win with your limitation.“
4. Other blogs. Since I started blogging, I read many blogs, and a lot of statements there inspire me to write something. Here is one of them, “Mindset to win sales trick.“

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Now you can consider your limitation as advantages

Have you ever considered your limitation as advantages?

This is the third message in the “Limitation & Advantages” series. The first message shared with you the big picture, the five steps how you can win with your limitations. In the message, I am not suggesting us to ignore our limitation. None of us is perfect and instead of resisting our limitation, we should be able to acknowledge and befriend them, that is the beginning of how we can overcome and stretch them.

You should notice that the tag line of this blog is “Turning limitation into advantages, helping introverts to be successful.” That message will be empty without any examples. The second message in this series, the 7 interesting (and useful) facts about my flaws, will help you to know me better, the struggle and limitations I have. Hopefully this message will also become an inspiration on how you can turn limitation into advantages.

This article will share with you the reasons why you can consider your limitation as advantages. I have divided them into two, this part will share their benefits for you and the next one will share their benefits in the relationships you have.

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First meme, first award, first review

This post is especially for the people that have tagged me and linked into my blog. Some have been there for quite awhile, leave off ago and I have not done any part to reply to them…

First is the first meme project with which I’m involved, “7 interesting things about you”. I am tagged by David and Amy. Thanks to them, I revealed so much of my “dirty laundry” =). Now I’d like to tag several other bloggers to share theirs…

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The 7 interesting (and useful) facts about my flaws

Can you laugh over your flaws? How about considering them as your friend, interesting and helpful?

[This article is edited and republished for better clarity and structure, together with additional links and resources]

Two bloggers, David and Amy tagged me to share 7 strange/interesting facts about me. At first, I planned to put random facts, but eventually I wanted to write more, my story on turning limitation into advantages.

Mastery is attained by understanding our vulnerability and working with our situation.

Evan Hadkins (That Which Doesn’t Kill Us . . . Can Leave Us Maimed)

This is the second part of my series on turning limitation into advantages. The first part shared with you the five steps to win with your limitation, in short we have to acknowledge our limitations, own them, express them, turn them into advantages, and stretch them.

In this article, I will share my 7 flaws that many consider as limitations, but those are the ones that made our life interesting, not perfect but interesting.

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Winning by Jack Welch

Jack Welch, once the CEO of GE, sharing insights on winning in career and life. Many insights that he shared touched a lot on being a leader, top executive or manager. One of the core values that he shared often is candor and authenticity, he value those attributes very much in how he has managed GE into as successful as it is right now.

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The most important skill you need to learn

Do you know the most important skill you need to learn?

If someone has the opportunity to learn that they can learn, the rest of life is a cinch.

Dr. Henry Cloud

Dr. Henry Cloud is a psychologist who has shared a lot on issues on emotional growth. His book on my hand right now is the “Changes That Heal”, sharing great insights on understanding our past, understanding what makes us who we are today, how to heal our emotional wound and what is needed to lead us having a better and healthier future.

He was explaining the adulthood process when that quote catch my attention, he was sharing about expertise in adulthood, and learning is extremely needed for that.

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