What I learn from messing up with mashing up
May 15, 2008
Messing up or mashing up?
Robert Hruzek has initiated projects title “What I Learn From” or WILF, it’s a group writing project where you are given a challenge about what you have learned from a certain topic. The topic is changed every month, and this month’s is “What I Learn from… Mashing It Up!”
Mashing it up!? It’s a new word for me too. Initially I was just reminded of mashed potato as well, wondering if it’s the same thing. And strange… it’s not! Here is Robert’s definition on mashing it up…
It’s where somebody combines two or more things together and produces something really really good.
~Robert Hruzek
What have I mashed up? Or maybe messed up?
I guess I have mashed up or maybe messed around with this blog. You may notice that I have been experimenting the past 1 month. I started guest post exchange, group writing project, marketing review, and the latest is the product review. Supposedly, I wanted to increase my traffic and subscribers. On the other hand, my subscription is more or less the same for the past 1 month, few people unsubscribe, none participates in the project, and emotionally I’m very disappointed as well.
The lesson
Stay to the course, young man!
~Donald Miller (Making Sales Making Money)
Popularity: 13% [?]
Money and blogging, the opportunity and the dilemma
May 5, 2008
You may have noticed in my last post; Reason-4-Smile got its first sponsored review. That means a paid review, and that is the real first opportunity of monetization (besides earning from Adsense that I can’t even cashed it yet).
It was a surprise to me. Denise Adams contacted me in the middle of April. She prompted that she enjoyed my article and how I write. She commented on my About page, and she is interested in a paid review for her website. I hope you do not take it as if I’m boasting. The money is not much worth boasting for, but the lesson is much more worthy. It is what I wanted to share with you, the opportunity and the dilemma that comes with this offer.
Popularity: 29% [?]
How to be successful, uniquely yours
April 10, 2008
How do you define success?
That question has been in my mind since I’m putting “Helping introverts to be successful” in my tag line. I was fortunate that nobody asked me what I mean to be successful until now; otherwise I would not be able to give a strong answer.
Sadly, many relate success with what they have and achieve, that can be money, material things, positions, titles, responsibilities or even friends and families. But how about relating success with our potential? That is relating success with who we are instead of what we have.
Craig Harper, in his article Potential for Greatness shares a definition of success that relates very much to the potential.
…successful person (success of course being different things for different people) is not necessarily the one with all the talent but rather the one who simply uses more of what he/she has been given when compared to what the bulk of the population does (or doesn’t do) with their potential.
~Craig Harper (Potential for Greatness)
When success is related with who we are, that will be a success custom-made for each of us. Certainly, that success will not come overnight, that success requires a process. This article will share the process of manufacturing your custom-made success, a success uniquely yours.
Popularity: 52% [?]
Ten symptoms of having vision beyond yourself
March 31, 2008
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.
Read more
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What is your motivation?
March 27, 2008
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…
Popularity: 59% [?]
What you have to do with your decision
January 22, 2008
I’ve written a series of post on decision making. In concluding the series, I would like to share more about the important thing after you make your decision.
You’ve got your decision made, you’ve chosen to go, against the storms outside to pursue your dream, purpose and passion, so what’s next?
In short, be thankful with your decision! Gratitude is especially important for us to not staying in the past, moving forward and making another decision to pursue our dream.
This post is posted as a part of the Gratitude Project, initiated by Akemi Gaines from Gratitude Magic.
I’ve been sharing the series on decision making, being a leader or being successful you will need to do a lot of decision making, and for many of us, decision making is not easy. And even after we made our decision, being confident about our decision is not an easy task as well. Here is what I learn about the decision we made…
Learn to get stuck with your decision…
I watch a very good video from Dan Gilbert, when he shared his idea in TEDTalk. His presentation talks about the synthetic happiness, the happiness that we made even when we don’t get what we want. It’s said about the joy of being stuck.
"How to make better decisions" articles:
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Dream as if you will live forever!
January 3, 2008
Dream as if you will live forever, live as if you will die tomorrow!
James Dean
Do you know who is James Dean? I searched through Wikipedia to find out that he was an American film actor, and he is dead only at the age of 24, by a car accident.
It’s tragic, isn’t it? Someone who’s having a dream as if living forever, yet died in such a young age! But despite of his tragic end of his life, let’s looking at how his dream has made his achievement, at a such young age, he has filmed 8 movies and playing several times on the broadway stage and TV shows. That’s really an achievement that we can learn from, the power of dream and actions! I’ll let Wikipedia to summarize his achievement…
He was the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two such nominations posthumously.
James Dean also has a bad beginning in life, he has got “moodiness and antisocial” during his childhood due to the death of his mom. Again, a story of limitation turned into advantages, he’s got a dream of acting very early in his life, dreaming big and aiming as he will live forever.
Here are 5 things to check if you’ve got a dream as if you will live forever:
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Leader under construction (Tips not to beat yourself)
December 18, 2007
Men at work, building under construction, infrastructure cannot be used, that’s what the signboard is trying to tell us.
Today, I’d like to talk about disappointments with ourselves.
Does this statement sounds familiar? “I should not do that”, “I have got that experience before, why didn’t I learn”, “why am I so stupid?”, “every thing’s messed up now”, “I should have said no”. It’s what normally happens when we have disappointments.
You made a mistake, you supposed to learn from it, you made promise to yourself not to do it again, but again you do it again!!! How can’t you say that you’re stupid?
You perform your best, putting all your heart, energy, and even money to something, yet things result in ridicule and mockery!!! How can’t you say that you’re lousy?
Facing disappointments, it’s vulnerable for us to let go our dream, first we are no longer confident that we can achieve the goal and second, we’re afraid of further disappointments. Do not ever let go of dream because of disappointments. Possible with other reasons and enough assessment, but never with disappointments.
Facing disappointments, instead of declaring a war against yourself, rebuking and insult yourself for the mistakes you made, let’s try to visualize the dream under-construction signboard when you’re faced with disappointments. For me, it’s “Leader under construction”, for you, try “[your dream] under construction”.
That means…
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A leader gonna-be
November 23, 2007
This post is a copy of my new About page, it’s about renewing the blog with a focus for more specific reader, the introverts, shy and naive, the person who is reflective and deep thinker, but someone who is aspired to become a leader, a better person.
Me myself started as an introvert, shy and naive person, but aspired to become a leader, not an easy dream with such characteristics, of course. But that’s what this blog is all about, a journey of overcoming weaknesses, accepting our current limitation and courage to change. It’s all about growing! And especially, the introvert way!
Why am I inspired to become a leader?
Simply because I want to shine, bring creativity into reality, helping more people and bring them to achieve their dream. This is a very good quote about not to play small:
You’re a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Marianne Williamson (A Return To Love)
What will a leader take?
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Getting into the ‘corridor’
November 12, 2007
photo by Stefan Arni and Siggi Kinski
This is about getting into the ‘corridor’ as I put it in my post few days ago. Getting into the ‘corridor’ …
It means entering the arena where you want to be in the future, in any capacity, to get started.
T. Harv Eker
Today, officially =) I moved my blog from reason2smile.wordpress.com to here. Blogging with WordPress.com is simple and enjoyable, but many things are limited, such as plugins addition, themes, and opportunity for blog monetization. It does limit my creativity on what I can do with this blog.
Initially I thought of waiting for few more months before getting my own domain, prepare more, to get more readers and subscribers. Yet, some statements that Harv Eker mentioned in his book, Secrets of The Millionaire Mind woke me up:
Rich people get started. They trust that once they get in the game, they can make intelligent decisions in the present moment, make corrections, and adjust their sails along the way.
…
Rich people see an opportunity, jump on it, and get even richer. As for poor people? They’re still “preparing”!T. Harv Eker
What Eker emphasizes always in his book was that everything start with your mindset. What he means by the rich people here are not necessarily those rich financially but they’re rich in their mindset, even when they are in the middle of struggle. Rich financially, not everyone has right now, but everyone can start with having rich mindset.
I believe you have dreams and desires, and what you have to do is to get started, wherever you are, get into the ‘corridor’. What does it mean by getting into the ‘corridor’?
- You’ll start learning about the industry where you dream about, start network with the people, and it will be able to give you invaluable insights that you can apply.
- You can start investing on yourself, learn more, take some courses, be prepared to equip yourself to achieve your dream.
- You will see challenges and obstacles, getting into the ‘corridor’ takes courage, and you should always look at the challenges as opportunities to be overcame not as obstacles.
The point is that you will grow even more and faster once you get into the corridor, start and get into the ‘corridor’! Wherever you are with whatever you have right now!
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