Reason-4-Smile Group Writing Contest! I’m holding a group writing project on friendship, with free ads and Entrecard credits as the prizes. Please check the details below.

Do you have living saints in your life?

I have been tagged by Evan for a meme project, it’s called “The 10 Saints”. I was honored to get a title of patron saint of personal development from him. Yet, it comes with a price =), I was tagged to follow the same project, writing the 10 saints in my life as well.

The Saints (or the X-Men)…

I really enjoyed the process of finding the 10 saints, even to the point that I find 10 is not enough. There are 12 saints that I would like to share through this project. All of those 12 are friends that I know personally, the people around me who have touched my life in a special and unique way.

If you don’t like the word “saint”, you can think of them as your X-Men. I like watching X-Men, partly because I’m excited with the variety of talents and skills that each individual has, but somehow they can work together to complete their mission. Similarly, these 12 saints, 12 real friends in my life will share with you their unique talents, their 12 ways how you can become a special friend to someone. So… let’s get started!

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I guess I’ve been pretty serious with all my articles before. So let’s have some fun. I’ve been tagged by Cherryl from ButWhatNow.com and I’ll share more trivia facts about me.The rules of the meme project are following

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share 4 things in these themes.
4. Tag 4 random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

As it’s for fun, and fun does not follow all the rules (am I right?). I’ll skip the rules number 5. I guess the bloggers I tag will know with when they get my trackback =)

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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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Does introversion label you?

One thing I want to consult you. I’m an introvert like you. I found that sometimes it is really hard for me to make friend with others or we usually call it “networking”. Do you have any suggestion for me?

The question was asked by one of my readers, Harrison from Finandom.com. He blogs on pursuing financial freedom, and I believe that networking is extremely important to achieve them as well. Why does introvert think that making friends or “networking” sometimes difficult?

I have ever posted a short post on networking for introvert before. It was inspired by an article from BusinessPundit.com: Networking for introvert. I found the article when I google for some tips on networking that I am about to do at that time. The article has a good position on the search engine. The author and the former owner of the blog, Rob May, even admit that the article is the most popular article of all time on BusinessPundit.com. That really shows how introverts really struggle and need helps on networking.

Before I’m sharing my answers and insights on networking, I will share with you some tips from my friend cum financial advisor, Lim Chih-Yang.

In our last meeting, I shared about my blog to him. His reply surprised me, he confessed that he is also an introvert. It was hard to believe that. He is a full-time financial advisor and practically his work is all about networking, meeting up new people and building relationship with them. I believe that he must have challenge to decide on taking this career path, but the courage is inspiring. He is one of the persons that come to my mind when it talks about networking for introvert. He is an introvert and he is full-time networker. So… I’ll pass the mike keyboard to him… and here are the tips from him…

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Do you need others to achieve your vision?

If your answer is NO, that means your vision is not big enough. If your answer is YES, that means you will need to have relationships with other people. Not only a common relationship, but a winning relationship. That is about how you can win with people.

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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.

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Do you embrace disagreement?

If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, then both are useless.
~Darryl F. Zanuck

The quote above is taken from the book Winning with People by John C. Maxwell. The book is sharing on how to find agreement in the middle of disagreement but I’m not going to talk about agreement here. I’m interested to share more about the first part of the quote. It’s about disagreement, why it is important and how to handle them.

Inspiration

Last week I had a chat with one of my “apprentice”. I am leading a small bible study group, and I was asking one of them for some feedback on the articles I have written. The feedback again was not satisfying. He mentioned that he disagreed on some of my points though he could not remember them. My first reaction: I was disappointed. Subsequently, I was reminded on the quote above. That reminded me that I should have embraced disagreement. The disagreement proves that my “apprentice” is not useless. And I should be grateful that he can express his disagreement.

So here are some lessons on disagreement I would like to share:
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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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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 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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