How can you turn your work into calling?

Yes, this book is targeted to help certain category of people, which is called the Highly Sensitive Person, or referred as HSP. Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D. has written another book that describes fully on the definition. On the contrary, this book shares the perspective of working to the HSP. Continue Reading →

Greedy as a pig… I read that metaphor while preparing this message. You may wonder why pigs are used to represent gluttony a lot of times. Here is the explanation taken from Wikipedia…

Pigs are omnivores, which mean that they consume both plants and animals. Pigs will scavenge and have been known to eat any kind of food, including dead insects, worms, tree bark, rotting carcasses, garbage, and even other pigs. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves and grasses, roots, fruits and flowers. Occasionally, in captivity, pigs may eat their own young, often if they become severely stressed.
~Pig @ Wikipedia

Scary, isn’t it? Not only plants and animals, pig eats everything, even carcasses and garbage, not to mention the other pigs and even their own young. Isn’t it scary how greediness can bring you?…

The “greedy” within me
I shared before in one of my 7 flaws, one of them is this greedy. Recently, I’m tempted very much with this greedy personality again, let’s call it the “greedy”. This “greedy” wanted to do everything. He wanted to be everything that catches his attention.  This “greedy” dream big, but this “greedy” is not patient. This “greedy” does not appreciate the limitation he has right now. The “greedy” desires to have more time, more money, more knowledge, and many more other things. That is the only condition that he thought how his dream can be achieved.

The “greedy” is also insecure, it consistently comparing himself to the friends he meet. He wanted to be anyone that he sees, and that is why he is overloaded with dreams. The “greedy” is not happy when the people around him advanced beyond him. He is worried when others start living his dream and he is worried that his life will be left behind. He secretly desired for others to fail so he can look good. Isn’t it scary when we consider the evil within us?….

Do you have the “greedy” as well?

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Open-minded: Is it useful or dangerous?

Religious attitudes: those are the critical, judgmental, and close-minded attitude. Each person has belief and values that they have created over the years, this can be a good principle, yet sometimes that caused them to close their mind to learn from anyone. They limit their learning only from those with the same belief and perspective.

The lessons for the “naives”

Lessons from Eckhart Tolle
Recently I listened a lot from Eckhart Tolle on Oprah book club, a discussion on his recent book, A New Earth. He is from a very different belief than I am, especially in our concept about God and consciousness. He believes more on consciousness rather than God. Those are the values that I won’t compromise, yet I am still able to learn a lot from him. Many of his teachings are eye-openers, lots of “Aha” moments in many of his insights. The last article I shared is one of them; it is inspired by his quote on uncertainty and possibilities.

I am so excited that I wanted to share these insights. I’m recommending the Podcast to one of my Christian friends. He is working in US right now, and it’s not a surprise that he has known about this podcast from Eckhart and Oprah. I didn’t realize that when I was recommending the podcast to him. He was replying me with some interesting video…

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HELP! Are you feeling tired of networking?

Network, network and network! Your career needs networking, your business needs networking, your daily social life needs networking, and finding your life partner also needs networking. When should you take a break from networking?

Yesterday, my very first guest post has just published. It is titled “The Trap of Networking” and it is posted in Jason Jacobsohn’s blog: NetworkingInsight.com. It also talks about networking, but the trap that it might have. What I am emphasizing there is networking with the focus on the result and not the activity. It’s not the issue of how many people you’ve got to know or how many networking event you have attended. It’s the matter of how many win-win relationship you have formed. Check out the article to know what the trap is.

While some suggested practicing networking to become better at it, I find that taking a break from networking is equally important. And even more, it’s actually advantageous to your networking. Let’s find out why:

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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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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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Do you have limitation?

I watched a TV program few weeks ago, it’s called I Journalist, an opportunity for amateur journalist to practice their journalism skill. The episode I watched that time is the struggle of someone with some kind of physical disability that troubled him to walk properly and to live a normal life. I can’t remember most parts of the show; but there is a statement that caught my attention while watching the show…

Everyone is disabled in a way, only that the physically disabled is more visible.

Sometimes I envy disabled person…

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Dr. Henry Cloud shares about grow and changes, emphasizing on how we can understand our past to ensure a healthier future. Besides knowing the truth and grace, he also emphasize that we need time to change, nothing comes instantly. We need relationship and bonding, as well as boundary to be a mature person. Really a recommended book for people who want to grow and have healthier future as a better person.

I’m sure that you have heard a lot about decision making by considering alternatives, listing down pros and cons, writing them down, etc. But I don’t think lazy person will do that, that’s too troublesome, isn’t it?

What I’m going to share in this article is more about the attitude you need to watch out when making the decision, it’s all in your mind and you too can make better decision if you look out for the warnings and mindset I’m going to share.

The easiest and laziest way to make decision is following our gut! I’ve shared about this in the first part of the series on decision making I have created. As what I have shared in the first part of the series, following our gut can give us better as we have no time to splash it with our doubt, fear or worry, but sometimes it will take consideration, check and re-check a lot of things before we can truly make a better decision.

Tina Su from ThinkSimpleNow.com gave me a comment in the first part of the series as below…

Learn to recognize when your gut is speaking out of fear and when it is speaking out of infinite intelligence.

Tina Su @ ThinkSimpleNow.com

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Do you dare to say NO!?

This article is part of “How to make better decisions” series, following the first two articles that I have written.

The first part of this series, I’m writing more of how to say YES! We need to say YES for opportunity to be a better person, to be able to give our best for others, and to obey and glorify God. However, we are not supposed to say YES! for every option that comes into our way, we need to be able to say NO! as well.

Why we need to say NO?

My second part in the series talk about things to be aware of in decision-making, that is the anchor or point of reference we’re taking, the social pressure, and the emotion. All of them are not a good indicator or reasons for a good decision making. We better say NO! than taking decision that is influenced by them. We need to say “NO” so that we are not being taken advantage by other people.

I believe many of us having a hard time to say NO! trying to be nice, out of naiveness, or maybe out of desire to be accepted and loved, we give out, pour out of ourselves a lot, and unable to say NO! We are afraid of hurting the other people, we wondered if we will break the relationship, we are afraid to miss out the opportunities and we are obliged to do more and give out of ourselves more than we can.

So here is the reason why we should say NO in our relationship!

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