Thoughts

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

Respect

Every once in awhile you’ll come across a new boss, someone brought in from some big corporation who refuses to accept a change in corporate culture, always referring to “how it used to be done” in the old place. It’s as though they were moved out “screaming and kicking” to the new company which in most cases they jumped into because of the money.

So, they’ll go on and on and on about how they used to run several hundred other divisions or so “back then”.

Honestly, if you asked me, I do not have a good impression of fellas from big corporations simply because they’ll all about image and less so about getting any job done. Huge corporations always have places to hide and I have seen how buckets of responsibility is shifted from one to the other without ever having to answer for not completing them.

Almost always, someone will be made the scapegoat so that the rest of the pack can stay bundled up in safety.

Then there are the ones that will be hired to run smaller companies. Overnight, they’ll make a psychological change to become an emperor or empress since they’ll be given a free reign to mould the company. However, the biggest folly is that their minds are still very much conditioned to how things are run in a large organization and this actually makes them quite ineffective in smaller ones.

The wielding of the rod to “demand respect”, that is, to ensure that everyone is kept into a formation “just like how it used to be done” can have a very adverse effect.

First off, these new so-called generals cannot hope to gain the respect of his/her subordinates without having first to earn them. Just because one is put in a place of command doesn’t mean that he/she will be able to play the tyrant role without dire consequences.

They will demand for absolute respect while showing utmost contempt for the staff that they command. This is about the most stupid and lethal ideology I’ve come across.

Make not mistakes about it. Respect cannot be demanded. It has to be earned, both ways.

That is the difference between a Napoleon and a King Louis 16. One rule by first gaining the respect of his men while the other ruled, well… as an emperor who did not bother to obtain their respect.

The winners' circle

At times I get asked how one can be successful? Or at least find the contentment element in life. Hahaha… as if I know everything. Well, I don’t. All I know is that if you busy yourself living a successful life, you’d spend less time thinking how to go about getting one.

Now, let me make this clear. Success is NOT measured by the amount of money you’ve managed to horde or make through the years, because if it did, even USD100 billion would be too little a price to put on a human life. The odds of one being born into this world far outnumber that those odds.

Yes it does when you consider we live on the only planet in the entire universe of trillions with all that’s needed to sustain human life, and then, there’s the fight for you to be conceived… the odds are almost infinite to one!

So, how do you find contentment in being a success? Well here’s a little 101 secret:

If you think like a pauper, you will live like a pauper. But if you think like a success, you will live like a success.

See, when you retreat at each instance to your little (and often diminishing!) comfort corner whenever a problem comes up, you will begin to play the cards you’re dealt with on defense. You will begin cutting corners and edges because you’re more afraid of the possibility of loss than loss itself.

Ever heard of the line: “The best defense is offence”?

This, my friend, is VERY TRUE.

When you begin playing your cards like a winner on the poker table of life, you will begin to win on a momentum. See, the psychology and play of a winner far differs from that who’s losing. The focus level and thought will be different.

So, how does one recognize the difference?

Well, if you’ve ever gambled in a casino, you’ll know the feeling. When you’re winning, you “command” the play, sharpen your focus and define the pace. But when you’re losing, you become desperate and resort either to one extreme of defensive play or just giving up by shoving the remainder of your chips onto one final hand – the make or break leap.

But here’s the good news.

You can decide on how you will play your cards anytime by determining how you will think and what grounds you will allow your mind to graze on. Learn to control your mind and you will learn to succeed. And no, I’m not talking about transcendental meditation, yoga and all that feng shui stuff since I do not believe in them… at all.

You cannot hope for an external solution for problems that affect you internally.

Start thinking good things for yourself and you will see good things happen for you.

Lemons and lemonade

I know you’ve heard it probably a million times already about how any change is stressful.

And the unwillingness of people to “face another failure” has often resulted in stunted growth and aggravation just thinking about “having to move on” with their lives. Yes, the fear of “another failure”, “another rejection” or “another boo-boo” is very real and very crippling.

Yet at the same time, you yourself know it deep within that your life must carry on. And yes, it is very true too, that life’s too short to play it on the reserve bench. If you go through the many autobiographies of almost all great personalities, you can see a thread that emerges, one that’s common to all.

They’ve all failed miserably, screwed up big time and heck, owed hundreds of millions of dollars at some point in their lives. Can you imagine owning that much? That’s worse than being broke.

However, they’ve never stopped taking chances even if it had meant them failing or losing again. It’s a little like going for broke – with the only difference being having to do it over and over and over again.

See, every possibility or opportunity presents a two-edged sword and it only depends on which side’s sharper. And while you may be sitting on the sharper side of it now, there’s no stopping you from blunting the other side… but it’ll be a waste if we keep on sharpening the one side that we’re sitting on… asking why life keeps on giving us lemons.

Hmm… remember the phrase with lemons? Lemonade anyone?

Live life today

Time and again, I keep on hearing how everyone’s saving up for the future… about how they will begin to live their lives once they’ve made the money. For them, it’s always a vision of what their future will hold.

Yet it’s just a total waste of one’s life when you consider that more than three quarters of it will be spent in pursuit of future bliss while they forgo living for the present. Some would even “pay it forward” to their children and their children’s children.

Honestly, I have seen many too, that having made all the money in the world, find out that they don’t know how to enjoy it after. That is, they’ve been caught up so much in the day to day task of striving everything for the future that when they do get there, don’t know how to reap and enjoy the fruit of their labour. So what do they do then? Well, they simply go back into the daily grind because it has become about the only thing they are familiar with.

And for them, it may or may not be about the money after all because regardless of how much money one can possibly make in a lifetime, it will never be enough. The depth of human greed knows no limit.

But what is perhaps even more sorry is that they waive away the most precious commodity which all the money in the world cannot purchase – time.

See, while everyone goes about chasing after fortune to have a better life or time at the end of it all, they’ve forgotten that they are actually losing life and time in the pursuit. Ironic, isn’t it. It’s quite like getting back to square one.

Hence, if you fail to live and have the life you envision TODAY, your tomorrows will be meaningless when you get there.

So, start living today and do so despite the circumstances you’re in today. Success is about making everyday that dream day, regardless. Why? Because you’ll never be able to live those moments again.

Sins of the past

What does it mean when someone like the Pope apologizes for the past misgivings and sins of the Catholic church? In all honesty, does it really affect the integrity and compromise the sanctity of the church that has existed through the ages?

Let’s make one thing clear. No, I’m not a Catholic. But I do have high regards for the Catholic church as well as its countless missionaries and priests that have traversed the world since Christianity begun to set up hospitals, schools and orphanages in addition to churches.

So here’s “the thing”.

While it may not be of any real significance to the individual, it is important that the collective organization (ie the Catholic church) comes to terms with what it has done wrong in the past.

Admitting to such instances is a sign of morale maturity. It is a sign that dirt isn’t just swept under the carpet so that the church will remain “sacredly pure” in the eyes of the world. I have much more respect for persons or organizations that do admit to their previous mistakes than one that refuses to even acknowledge them as though doing so would compromise their character.

As if these people or organizations can be so pure as not to have made mistakes. Who do they really think themselves to be… God?

Building anthills

Wahoo! It’s rather amazing how one can create anthills from an idea over time. Just when I’d thought that I wouldn’t know where to start with getting a website online, much less all that HTML gibberish and internet jargon, we now have more than 10 sites! (Well to be precise, 8 public sites, and 3 private sites).

Interestingly, we’ve managed to put up these sites while holding regular 9-5 jobs. Even more interesting is the fact that only 1 of these sites was set up with a pre-packaged turnkey provider. Hmm, perhaps it was nothing more than us just being a little too cheap to wan t to pay premium price. Hehe…

Anyways, here’s a rundown on what we now have and I’d like to invite you to check them out. Give us your comments and ideas on how to improve them. Once again, we’re too cheap to pay and can only offer our gratitude.

Cheers!

Visit www.MustardSeedAgency.com

Visit www.Googlings.com

Visit www.InsiderHolidays.com

Visit www.LoveDojo.com

Visit www.SyndicatedDomains.com

Visit www.InsideLangkawi.com

Visit www.InsideKL.com

Visit www.DropshipHub.com