The article today is a contribution from a friend, Lim Chih-Yang. He works in the financial industry as a Financial Planner. He was previously a Project Manager in the Telco industry where he regularly clock 14 – hr/days. In his spare time he loves to read, write and engage in various sports like running marathon, scuba diving and football. He is also a writer with The Online Citizen, www.theonlinecitizen.com.
Nobody in this world is perfect. We are all imperfect or inadequate in some areas. It is said that self – confidence does not arise as a result of our strength but as a result of our weaknesses. It is about how comfortable we are with our weaknesses that we are most self – confident and secure.
The advent of the printing press and in recent decades, the internet, has resulted in a boom of reading materials made easily accessible by the masses. No longer is knowledge confine within the premises of dark dinghy library accessible only by the ruling elites. Today anyone can pop by a bookshop or a library and pick up the latest book on offer. Take a walk down any bookshop and one can easily find a huge section dedicated to this topic – Self – Help.
Self – Help is a very popular field in the literary world with thousands of writers devoting their time and energy to this topic all with this very base of value; to enable all of us to overcome our very own limitations. Today, I do not seek to present the holistic look at this topic but to look at the elements necessary in each of us that will enable us to be conducive to receive the help we require to assist us to not just overcome our limitations but to surpass our expectations. It is about living an extraordinary life.
Before we look at the elements necessary to help oneself to overcome limitations, let us look at the “why” before the “how”.
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Do you have problem with focus? Are you influenced by others easily?
Focus is a problem for me as what I have ever shared here. My experience recently has led me to learn one mindset to help me overcoming the flaw. It is a mindset of becoming a people-collector.
I met up with several friends the past few weeks that got me influenced. Each of them is different. They have different stage of life, different focus, values and priorities in life. Instead of enjoying the conversation, I was feeling overwhelmed with all their priorities that they want to share and teach me with.
I know that they meant it for my good; it worked for them so they tried to impart their value to me. They have good intentions, yet that made me confused. It’s the time where I learn some important lessons, that I don’t have to be anyone else, and I can learn to become a people collector.
What is a “people collector”?
Imagine yourself as a collector! One that relates to woman might be a shoe collection. Men might consider themselves as wine collector, or maybe, tie collector. But now, it’s not about collecting material, it’s about collecting people.
Collecting people?
Please don’t get me wrong. It’s not about owning them, neither making them servants or slaves. It’s about the things that you can collect from them. It can be their story, beliefs or values. You can refer to their pasts and how it shapes them, or maybe their talents and how they develop them. You can also consider collecting their success and how they achieve them or their failure and what it costs them. You can collect many things about people, and there is something good about becoming a people collector.
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What do you understand about health?
Health doesn’t only consist of physical. It consists of much more than that. It relates with your spiritual, emotional, mental, and social well-being.
For more understanding on how to improve your well-rounded health, I’d like to recommend a newsletter from Evan Hadkins, my blogger friend. The title is “Designing a Long and Healthy Life: making small changes to your lifestyle for big health benefits” It consists of 12 emails that will be sent to your inbox.
And these are the topics for each email… Continue Reading →
Do you enjoy where you are right now? Even when you are far from reaching your dream?
Few days ago, my COO brought me to a networking event. It was quite a surprise for me. He didn’t mention that it is a networking event until I was there. It is held by another company who invited many of their potential partners including mine.
That was my first experience and I was speechless. I met many people from Europe and they spoke very fluent in English. Lots of them are people with high position. I met people with big titles such as Senior Manager, Vice President, and General Manager. I felt as if I’m a fish out of its aquarium, went to the sea and meet all the big fish.
Do you know something? I am tempted very much to feel insecure, lousy or even overwhelmed by the event. But I choose not to do so; in fact I am very excited with the event. I took it as an exposure and opportunity to learn. I might have no idea what to talk to them, but I decided to relax, listen and observe them. And these are the lessons I want to share with you, five things that you should never ever postpone, something that you can start right where you are and right now!
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Have you watched the recent animation movie from Dreamworks, Kung Fu Panda?
I watched the movie recently. It is very entertaining, but more than that, the movie taught me a number of lessons on success journey.
It shares a story of a Panda named Po in his journey of becoming a kung fu master. Despite of all the inadequacy and limitations, he does not give up.
Robert Hruzek from Middle Zone Musings has got another group writing project in his WILF (What I Learned From…) series. This month’s topic is all about animal, what we can learn from animals.
This movie may not reflect the real panda, but I will try to combine on the things that we can learn from both the giant panda and the movie.
The first lesson
In the movie, Po is a big fat panda, his belly and everything about his look can’t justify why he will become a kung fu master. If he is willing to look an honest look at himself, he will easily judge himself to stop following his dream and selling noodle just like his father.
No one believes that he can become a kung fu master, except one person. That’s his great master, Master Oogway who has chosen him to become a dragon warrior. He believes in him despite of all his non-affirming looks.
Checking the Wikipedia page on the real Giant Panda, I learned one more thing about doing the impossible. It is the giant panda’s strange diet. Here’s from the article…
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“I want pay increase!” I was asking for some pay increment. The statement is not that direct, but I did request that from my boss. I am confident enough on the experience that I have gained from the past one year on my previous job. I have also taken few IT certifications that I thought will give me the right to get the increment. I have learned a lot… so I believed I am eligible for that.
I was wrong…
Yes, I was wrong. My request was rejected. Or rather, it was postponed for further evaluation. I have told the story before that the process taught me about patience. But more than that, the process taught me about learning.
This blog has shared a lot about being teachable, to learn and to have an open-mind attitude. It is important topic to talk about. Each of us has to be a learner throughout our life. Learning is like climbing the stairs. Learning allows you to go to the top, to see and to know more things. But unfortunately, some made mistakes with learning, they forgot that it’s the means rather than the destination. Those are the lies of learning that are able to endanger you.
And those are the mindset that I wanted to share in this article…
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Are you feeling like quitting after failure?
Failure happens to all of us, no one is an exception. It’s not a mater of whether you will fail or not, it’s a matter of what you’re going to do with your failure. Quitting is not always the right answer… Here is a post that I write to encourage you facing your failure and soar above them.
What is failure?
Failure is an event, not a person.
~Zig Ziglar
Zig Ziglar got it right, failure is just an event, yet many generalized it as if it is the person. How many times do people say, “I am a failure”, or judging others “he/she is useless”? Looking deeper, failure is only a part of the time you spend on earth. You can choose to look into the successes and great things that have happened in your life. As Joel Osteen’s analogy, we can look at the donut instead of the hole within. We can look at our strengths and successes instead of our weaknesses and failures.
I’m tempted to quit
Juggling personal commitment, work and career, social life and leisure, while continuing this blog is not easy. There are so many things in mind that I have no time to start, not counting the mistakes that I have made. The slowness of how my readership is growing can easily discourage me. Yes, it does tempt me to quit and stop working on this blog.
As I write this post, it encourages me to continue on, to persist, and look beyond the failure. If I want, I can choose to look into 100 over readers that have subscribed and I can be thankful for that. I can consider it as a success instead of failure. Why then giving up? As one saying has ever stated, winners are not those who never fail but those who never quit.
I hope this post will encourage you too, to see what lies beyond failure and more…
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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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Last month I started a project called Reason-4-Smile Our Friends. It is a project where you got to mention at least 7 of your friends, and each of their unique attribute. It also requests you to assign a title for each one of them as well; it can be saint, heroes, X-Men, or many others.
The project gets only one person participating, Romele; so… all the prizes will go to him.
Here is his post at his blog, mentioning the 7 friends he has:
My patron saints and villains
Quoted from his post…
No man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend till he is unhappy.
~Thomas Fuller
My related articles:
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Hello and welcome! I am Robert, sharing with you articles in personal management and personal development. Check out the 
