Archive for the ‘Idea / Mind Hack’ Category

Trust

Summary – Help me derive the golden rules of trusting people

A quick recap, yesterday I wrote about how I was cheated because I trust people. In short, A guy drove into my car’s rear bumper and damage it. When asked for repair money, he just said that he didn’t have the money. So I just accept that RM100 (USD33) he offered and believe him that he will pay the remainder that evening. He never answered my phone call.

I kept replaying the whole scenario in my mind, and one thing I noticed is that I will most probably be doing the same mistake again. Yes, I will trust him again.

I guess that’s my fatal flaw. Even though I know that trusting people should be exercised with great caution, I still can’t help but giving people the chance to be trusted. I’ve always felt that if trusting each other no longer exist in the world, it will be like sleeping over at your enemy’s house. You just can’t go to sleep. No.. I don’t want that.

Today, I would like to ask you guys a very important question. What’s your golden rule when it comes to trusting people? What’s your criteria to decide whether or not to trust a person.

At the moment, here’s mine :

1) Always trust the family
I’m sure everyone will have different opinion on this. My family however are very very close. And even though we may have different of opinion, in the end, I can always count on them for anything.

2) Never trust anyone when it comes to money
This rule is just established immediately after the incident. Money, unfortunately can cloud our judgment and most of the time brings out the worst of us.

/end

As you can see, it’s not very well developed yet. But I’m hoping your feedback will help. I’d like to know what’s your golden rules on trusting people. Care to share?

Photo credit : Makelessnoise

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Opportunity

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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Advice

Summary – An experiment on giving advice with a twist

It’s time for another experiment. Hm I guess I should create another category just for some of the experiments I proposed here.

The objective of this experiment to bring up the hidden life-consultant in you. I bet, there must be once in your life that another person came to you and asked for your advice. The advice may be about career, relationship or just plain stress relieving talk.

Some people argue that they just don’t know how to give advice to people. I will have to disagree. Advice is simply our personal opinion on a matter and whether or not the advice will do more harm than good is really beyond our knowledge. Although please refrain from giving really bad advice like commit suicide etc. Here goes –

The Victim
Think about a friend of yours. Of all your friends, choose the most problematic. He may be on the verge to commit suicide due to stress, or maybe is convinced that he is alone in the world and that nobody really cares about him. These are just examples of how problematic the friend is. Feel free to choose any friend with any problems.

A reminder, don’t call him up just yet 🙂 We are just going to brainstorm some advice for him,

The Analysis
Now try to analyze him. What do you think his REAL problem is? if he is thinking about committing suicide due to stress, then stress is the root of the problem. Again, redefine this problem. What’s causing him the stress? Repeat the redefining process until you have identified the REAL root of problem.

The Advice
Based on your experience and knowledge, how do you advise this friend of yours. It is important that you write those advice on a paper. Just pour it all in. Be as simple and frank as you can be.

The REAL Experiment
Guess what, advising your friend is only the introduction of the experiment. The actual message in this entry is for you to take your own advice. For example, you advise your friend to be more appreciative of his life and what he was given. Redirect that advice to you. Figure out how to be more appreciative of your life and what you were given.

It is almost a fact that we are so much better at criticizing other people than we are at looking at ourselves.

Practise this once a week and we might finally be able to see our own self from other’s point of view.

– I wonder –
Anyone actually do this experiment?

———- Personal Note ———-
This is a totally unrelated personal note. Today after work, I will be heading back to my hometown in Kedah (about 500 km drive). There will be an election this 8th and I’m casting my vote there.

It is so tempting to write a political post here, with all the heated discussion on the matter. But, rest assured, if I will ever do that.. it will be posted on another blog, not here. See you guys tomorrow 🙂

Photo credit – Laughlin

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Summary – Trying Out New Option Requires Responsibility

One of the most frequently used word of advice from my manager is the words “You Never Know Unless You Try”. This is actually one of the oldest advice in the world, and maybe one of the wisest. But like all powerful things, if not used right, it will become a danger. Please allow me to elaborate on this.

First of all, why is the advice useful? It is because, sometimes we are given a choice like whether to pursue a dream that may not have a future, or do something we despise but guaranteed a future. The keyword is the word “MAY”. We can never know exactly that our dream will have no future. So unless we try, we will just never know.

This is where the danger lies. We can and should never try out everything. Life is full of option. If we want to try out everything, for the sake of “trying itout first then we will know”, we will have a very unstable life. Imagine a student studying mathematics. He actually love everything about the subject, but in the spirit of trying, he drop the subject and start his own business. This may be a good thing, but it turns out, he really dislike doing business in the first place. So that is an example of why sometimes we shouldn’t try everything

Trying in another word is making a decision to do the thing. You will have to be very sure that whether or not you are successful, the choice made is worth doing before you make the leap. You don’t have to be 100% sure. The question you really need to ask is whether that choice is really worth it. If it is, by all means, try it.

you will never know unless you tried, but.. use your wisdom wisely

– I Wonder –
Have you ever made any regretable choice?

———- Personal Note ————
Again, I must stress that it is not my intention to discourage you from trying things out. This is the very foundation of living life.

The article is just to highlight the other side of the equation, to never be stupidly brave to try everything

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