Summary - It’s not luck

Believe it or not, there’s actually a secret. How often do we read in the newspaper of people winning $1 Million, Some win cars and others win houses and more cash.

Are they just lucky?

Of course they are… But luck alone will never help anyone to win a contest. The actual secret that help them win is actually the fact that they participate in the contest

I’ve seen many times in the internet when a contest was announced with very attractive prize, cash up to hundreds of dollars, and when asked how many participate, there are only about 20 readers. And guess what, that blog actually receive hundreds of visitors everyday with 1000 over RSS readers.

We can be a genius with words, or we can design the most beautiful art but if we didn’t make the first move of joining a contest, we will never win anything.

Forget everything about being shy, or procrastinate joining to another time or that wait and see attitude. If you see an opportunity, just grab it.

True, I may have a hidden agenda in this post to promote LessonInLife’s First Lucky Draw announced yesterday. The lucky draw is still open until the 27th March of 2008. And you can easily participate by posting a comment at the contest post..

But the truth is, we always do the same thing to other opportunities in life. If for example, the girl of our dream sits alone in the cafe, most of the time, we will just avoid from introducing ourselves to her. This is the wrong attitude. There’s no way she can know you if you didn’t introduce yourself to her.

Or sometimes we were presented with a business opportunity. And everything about the business are convincing. Still we take our time and take that wait and see attitude. Most of the time, the opportunity will just pass us by leaving us regretting not doing anything then.

So guys, let’s try to change this attitude. It’s very simple actually.. You see an opportunity, you grab it.

- Disclaimer -
I’m totally against gambling. And this post is never meant to promote gambling. Also, when you are deciding on your business investment, be sure to do research first. In this specific case, research fast

- I wonder -
Have you ever won anything before? Tell us the story.

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We are going to have a lucky draw this week. This is the first time a contest ever be held here in LessonInLife, so I’m really excited and hope that everyone reading will participate.

The prize
There will be 3 winners and the prizes are 3 license keys to FruitfulTime TaskManager and 3 spots for Premium 125X125 Advertisement here in LessonInLife for one whole month. The total prize worth is USD $150 or equivalent to RM450.

About FruitfulTime TaskManager - I have tried the software on their 10 day trial offer. It basically a to do list software that helps you get things done in a more organized way while keeping track of your long to do list. You will have to download the software at their website and if you win, you can use the key to continue use the software. Personal review - definitely worth more than USD $30, and you will be getting this impressive taskmanager software free here if you win

Tell me about the contest
There are three ways to participate - Leave comment, subscribe via email or post about the contest in your blog. Each participation will give you entries. The more entries you have, the more chances your name will be picked.

The winner will be selected randomly. And by random I mean, like picking a name from a jar of names (literally).

The contest will start from 16th March 2008 to 27th March 2008 (Malaysia Time). The winners will be announced on the 28th March 2008

Winners must reply the email sent to you in 48 hours after the announcement, or the winning will be forfeited and another lucky winner drawn.

How to participate
There are three ways to participate. You can choose one, or do all three.

1) Leaving comment to this contest post.
Just leave your comment to this post. I will count each comment as 2 entries.

What to comment about? You can comment on these items

• How to further improve LessonInLife
• Or just introduce yourself
• Or ask me questions..
• Or a simple “Hi banji, I’m in!”

2) Subscription via email
Click Here. A new page in your browser will direct you to the form. Enter your email address in the form. You will receive an email immediately asking you to confirm. Logon to your email and confirm. Once you had confirmed, I will count that participation as 10 entries. The more entries you have, the better chances for you to win the lucky draw.

For those who may not be familiar with subscription. By subscribing, you will receive LessonInLife’s article automatically via email everyday. This will not only save you time, it will also guarantee you that no articles are missed. You will also be able to read them at your convenient time.

No string attached, you can unsubscribe anytime you want and rest assured, that your email address will not be used for other purposes. You have my word.

3) Posting about this contest in your blog,
All you need to do, is to put up a post in your blog about this contest / this blog with at least one link to this post, inform me via the comment section for me to verify and you will earn yourself 20 entries.

That’s 10 times more chance of winning!

The entries can be about anything, the contest, the blog etc. And I will reciprocate by linking back (dofollow) to you in this post.

For those who may not comfortable with subscribing or posting about this contest in yuor blog, you can enter by leaving comments. However, bear in mind, participant that do all which subscribe, post and leave a comment will have 16 times more chance of winning than those who just comment.

Still, it’s a lucky draw.. Anyone can win.

Terms & Condition

• In addition to the announcement of the winners in the blog, winners will be sent an email informing him/her of the winning. He/she must reply the email in 48 hours or his/her winning will be forfeited and the prize be given to another lucky winner.
• Readers who already subscribe to email, automatically receive 10 entries. Still, You must leave a comment to participate
• My general policy on commenting applies as stated in the Disclaimer.
• I reserve the right to modify any terms & condition as I see fit. And all results are final.

Remember, it’s a lucky draw, anyone can win, but you can only win if you participate

Blog Post Promoting The Contest

• Qemmal -  Semalam Dan Hari Ini
• Wilda - Cabutan Bertuah Anyone?
• God’s Slave

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Summary - Help balance between achieving life’s goal and having fun

If you read blogs on how to get things done, almost all of them will stress that to succeed you must plan and follow your plan. That you should never do other thing besides achieving your goals.

While there maybe some truth to that, don’t you think life will be very boring if you just read books, or work the whole time?

I mean, there are always other insignificant but nice things to do. They may not be contributing to your life goal, but there are what makes living feel like living. Typical examples are like playing guitar, or cleaning the house, or laughing at jokes read etc.

But how to balance the time between working on our goals and doing these trivia stuff?

I recommend The Great Jar of Life (Yes I made that name up.. but the concept is as old as the first jar created). What you should do is to get an empty jar, preferably made of glass so that you can see the content anytime.

The next step is to sit down and write a list of all things you want to do. Put down playing guitar, dancing with the mrs, watch one movie, etc. After you finish with the list, tear each items on the list so that you will have a paper for each items. Finally fold and put them in the jar.

The list can be anything your heart desire, but you will have to abide to these rules

• No heavy stuff - there shouldn’t be “Solve world hunger in there”.
• The things to do must be easy to do. Do not put “investigate a murder case” on the list
• It can be done in less than an hour. Some exception maybe for things like watching movie, but you will have to pay back the extra time by not doing anything from the jar tomorrow.

Now everyday, fix one time (preferably in the evening) to pick one paper and just do what ever written on it.

The whole idea is to make some time for our personal pleasure or interest. If you spend your whole day doing everything inside the jar, then your whole day will serve no purpose to your ultimate life goal.

Be frugal with your time, but don’t forget to have fun a little

- I wonder -
What do you like to do when you have free time

———- Personal Note ———–
I used to love playing computer games. My all time favorite game is Planescape Torment. One of the reason I bought this laptop is to play games. My old pc just cannot support the new games requirements. However, until now I still haven’t had the time to install any games.

I guess, blogging is more fun

Photo Credit - Indigo Goat<p

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Summary - Top 5 skills all students must have to survive the world

Thinking back when I was studying, nobody had actually told me what to expect and what exactly I’m supposed to do. The truth is, once you started studying at tertiary level, you were expected to be independent and figure this out yourself.

There are actually a lot of skills you must master during your studying. And you will notice how useful these skills are immediately after you finish studying

Allow me to list the top 5 skills you will need and how to nurture them..

1) Stress Management
The world is cruel out there. People screaming at you all the time, impossible deadline, back-stabbing etc. Believe me the time will come when you are so stressed that you get up and start walking very fast without realizing it. That is the early sign you are under stress.

• Learn to be ignorant. Learn to listen with one ear and let it pass by out of the second ear. Somehow we can do that perfectly in a lecture, why not try it somewhere else? Of course this is specifically for stress related talks.

• Find your inner peace. I personally walk or run to calm myself. Find yours.

• Learn to file the stress away. Set another time to worry about it. For example, you heard the news of computers being hacked, just worry about it when you are in front of the computer. Why worry now when you can’t do anything about it.

• Start meditation. Meditation doesn’t have to be a complicated thing. You can actually just do the basic of meditation.

• Apply the Donkey’s Famous Lesson. Read the story here

2) Leadership
Everyone will be a leader in one way or another. Actually for you to be promoted, people will be looking for this quality in you.

• Be a good follower first. Join clubs if you can. There, observe the leader of the club and see how effective he is. Learn from him.

• Be charismatic. Would you like to be led by someone who look like an addict? Behave like a leader. That means well dressed, confident and charming.

• Decide confidently. Practise this, but remember.. the key to good decision is firm, fast and justifiable. Now decide on your choice of dinner for the night.

• Learn to identify strength and weakness. Pick 10 friends of yours at random. Secretly identify what are their strength and weaknesses. Maybe Ali is good with grammar but are to shy to give presentation.

3) Lifelong Learning
If you think all the learning stop with your graduation, think again? It’s a typical wrong assumption made by students. Learning never stop.

• Start with one. Choose one subject that you love the most. It must be something you really love. Go to the library or surf the internet and research everything there is to know about the subject.

• Learn to speed reading. You will learn and focus better with this technique. One method is to scan the articles for points like what I’m doing here.

4) People Skill
Communicating with people may be one of the hardest thing to do. Everyone is unpredictable and to make sure everything is going according to plan requires specific skill when it comes to people.

• Plain talk. When you are on a bus, try to talk to the stranger besides you. But please don’t just talk to only those of opposite gender to you. That would be unfair Here’s some tips to avoid being clueless in a conversation

• Plain listen. Once a week, make time to listen to your friends talking. They may be sharing their problem. just listen. You don’t even need to give your suggestion.

• Public speaking. I’ve actually wrote an articles on some personal tips to be better public speaker.

• Haggle / Arguing Skill. For a start, always try to haggle when you buy something. You may not get that price you want, but at least you will get the experience. Not haggling is one of the 5 mistakes we did unknowingly while shopping

5) Self Motivation
The time will come when you are down from failure etc. Who will you call? You can’t expect your parents or lecturers to motivate you. Pick yourself up.

• List down your three motivation keys. Everyone has their own method to get motivated. Maybe a quote or a story. Establish these and remind yourself of them everytime you’re down. My personal key is the quote “Shake it off and take a step up”.

• Bookmark motivational websites. A shameless promotion would be bookmarking LessonInLife.com

• Achieve mini success everyday. Nothing more motivating that success. So set easy goal to achieve everyday. Once you succeeded, it will give a positive remark on you. Maybe aim to save $200 every month for 3 months. That should be easy.

• Get up from your mini failure. Remember those easy goals you set? If you fail to achieve them, I would call it mini failure. Get up from those failure. Start again if you must. But remember to write down in writing every details about your come back. When you need motivation, you can always refer back to that record.

- I wonder -
Anything else you might want to add?

——- Personal Note ——–
Speaking of finding my inner peace to calm my stress level, I first noticed that I need to walk it off when Filantera (my younger brother) had an accident back in 1990, if I’m not mistaken. I automatically walked around my house again and again while praying for his safety. Alhamdulillah, he’s safe

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Summary - Only do one task at a time

Today I took medical leave. Actually I was given after I went to the dentist and had one of my tooth pulled out. Just can’t stand the pain.

Having a day off from work, I planned to clean up the house, blog maintenance, maybe start a new exercise routine, watching movie with the mrs etc etc.

That’s where I made a mistake. There’s too many things to do, and I end up just half cleaning the house and watching the movie the rest of the day:)

We always think that we have the time to do 1000 things in our days. Everything is equally important and we have no choice but to do it all. In the end, other urgent things may come or more popularly, we just do what we like, and in my case watching the movie.

How can we fix this?

If we can’t shoot for the stars, aim lower. I should have just list one thing I will definitely do today. What ever happened, this one thing must be done. In 7 days, there will be at least 7 things done. Instead of trying to do it all, I may end up NOT finishing anything at all.

However, this should not be my permanent resolution. Once I have get used to this habit, I will need to increase the number of things must be done per day. The most important thing is still to be consistent with the habit and as long as I strive to be consistent with this, I’m already on the right track.

Why I’m telling you this? Well, I too am still in the journey to better myself, and by publicly sharing this, I am committing myself to the program.

Care to join me?

- I wonder -
What one thing do you want to do tomorrow?

———– Personal Note ———–
I heard somewhere that toothache is the second most painful thing in the world. The most painful thing is delivering baby. I wonder if it is true?

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