I talked to one of my colleague this morning. To make things easier, let’s call him Peter. Peter is an acting manager to an estate here but he’s going to retire next year. I actually asked him whether he will apply for extension and maybe then he will be confirmed as a manager. He simply answered “No, I don’t need the “Manager” title to become successful. I am already successful by my own definition.”

That simple sentence had left me speechless (For a few seconds of course).

I then continued to ask him what he meant by that. He spent the next 30 minutes telling me how he had managed to send his son and daughter to do medicine. He told me how hard it was for him to find almost $100K to ensure his children get the best from him.

Truly inspiring.

However this entry is not about the sacrifice made by parents for their children.

It is about how the word “Success” is defined differently from one person to another. Some may consider becoming a manager is a success. Another will consider bringing up successful children as their success.

Personally, I think Peter’s ultimate success is when he had figured out his personal definition of success. He defined the word success for him to strive. He knows that money and ranks are not success (at least not to him). That is why he didn’t bother to ask for extension and strive for that “Manager” title.

I find this very interesting. Don’t you?

If I can ask you one question, what’s your definition of success?

Peter did give me one tip to help me answer that question. If you answer “Becoming a millionaire” as your definition of success, and you have made it as a millionaire, can you still smile and say “my life is complete” knowing that today is your last day of your life.

———— Personal Note ————-
Let say the world has a king. He is so powerful that nobody can disagree with him. Everybody is so afraid of him, the world is at peace.

The king’s barber.

Photo Credit – Nattu

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Close your eyes

This is an imagination exercise. Of course in order for you to read this you will have to open your eyes. My mistake.. Imagine you are a bank robber and you are planning to rob a bank this afternoon.

The bank has the most sophisticated security in the world. The vault is about a meter thick, the security guards are experienced marines, Safe to say that if there is one bank in the world which is the most secured, this would be it.

How do you plan to empty the vault?

(I’m going to assume you are taking 5 minutes of your time thinking about a plan)

This is what I will do. I will attack the weakest link of the security defense, which is the manager of the bank. Easy, just kidnap his family and demand him to clear the vault for you. He will be able to bypass any security and even come up with a solution to how you can escape. Why? Because he is the weakest link. He will do anything to keep his family safe. Mission accomplished.

Now whether or not you will successfully enjoy the money is a different thing. I just want you to empty the vault. And that’s the best and easiest way to do it. I must put a disclaimer that this article is never intended to promote bank robbery.

The Actual Message of the Article

In everything you do, always address the weakest link. You fortify this link, you are actually fortifying the whole system.

The Application in Security

1) Car
The easiest method to steal a car is to grab the key from the driver while he is trying to open the door.

• When you are walking towards your parked car, look around for suspicious people walking.
• Only use your key when you are very near to the car and are sure nobody else is around.

2) Pin number or password
Your computer maybe password protected, but it will be of no use if your password is actually written on the monitor.

• Use three passwords your entire life. One super password for anything related to money, another is for your other important matters (email on the business card etc), and another for everything else.
• Don’t use password that is related to you (your name, DOB etc), or in the dictionary. This should already be the one universal advice when it comes to choice of password.

3) Online banking
Believe it or not, your bank actually has geniuses on their payroll to ensure the bank’s online security is top notch. This will all be useless if you have no idea what is phishing and believe an email that looks like they are sent from your bank is from your bank.

• Never click on links in an email. It is always better to type in your bank url on your browser.
• If you are unsure of the email, just call your bank’s call center and ask. That’s why they are there.

Conclusion – Any system is usually solidly secured. However, there will always be the weakest link in the system. Determine this first and act accordingly, you may have avoided becoming another victim in the local newspaper.

p.s. This doesn’t only apply to security. You can also use the same concept to fortify your human resources, your business etc.

- I wonder -
Any other security tips you might want to share?

———— Personal Note ————
I remember the night my mother was robbed back in 2002. She was waiting for the bus alone when two guys on a motorcycle approached her asking for direction. She knew something was wrong and tried to avoid them. Suddenly one of the guys snatched her handbag and when she didn’t let go, he hit her with his helmet. She was bleeding and was sent to the hospital by a passerby.

Everytime I think of this incident, only one thing comes to mind – “How grateful I am that she is safe.” Remember guys.. when you are robbed and all they want is the wallet, give it to them. Nothing worth risking your life.

Photo Credit – Richt

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Summary – Lesson learnt from a dream about being a ninja

I’m going to share you a dream I had the other day. Be warned, that it is a dream. And dreams are known to be very ridiculous. This one’s too. But I discovered one thing about myself in this dream, and that is what I want to share with you. Don’t worry, the dream is only 3 paragraphs long.

I had a colleague in the dream. I don’t know who he is in real life but in the dream we were very close friend. He and I were supposed to do one very important presentation to the CEO of my company. I was totally convinced that if I didn’t make it to the presentation, I will be fired.

We are doing our work in our office, and all of a sudden there are ninjas everywhere appearing and they seemed to want to catch us. Just like the movie Matrix, I suddenly possessed all the skills of a ninja, the agility, the ability to hide in the corner of the ceiling. It was amazing and I was actually having fun.

We were running and hiding from the ninjas until suddenly I realized that the ninjas had had plenty of chance to catch us but they didn’t. It’s as if they were humoring us. Giving us a chance to enjoy being a ninja. And then I remember my presentation and how all this hiding and running had deter me from going to the presentation. I then told my colleague that I’ve had enough of this, and even though there were ninjas surrounding us, we just walked out the front door to go to the presentation. My assumption was correct. The ninjas had no intention of catching us. They were also not trying to delay us from the presentation. They just did what they were supposed to do.

/end dream

I thought it was such a cool dream, I was having second thought about waking up. I learnt a few lesson though from the dream.

• Distraction is like a ninja. Television is created to be watched, internet to be surfed etc. Whether or not they are a distraction will entirely be up to you. If you watch television while you are working, obviously it will be a distraction.

• Stop blaming distraction. They were not created solely for the purpose of distracting me. They were just doing their job. Just like I am supposed to do my job.

• No weight is impossibly heavy. Certain things felt like they are a matter of life and death. However, if you really stop thinking about it, take a step back and observe, these problems are really not that difficult to deal with.

• Other things are usually more fun. Doing other things which is not related to your goals is always more fun than working on your goals. It is very difficult to differentiate the two. And it will be hundreds times more difficult to choose between the two.

- I wonder -
Any interesting dreams you would like to share? I’m in the mood of intrepreting dreams

————- Personal Note ————
I once read that life is supposed to be hard. When you are feeling very relaxed all year long, that is a sign that something is not right somewhere. I have a mixed reaction (between agreeing and disagreing) to this, what do you think?

Photo Credit – Lachlan Hardy

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It has been about a year and a half since I started blogging. At first I was merely trying what this blogging is about. After about 20 articles later, I started to enjoy sharing ideas on self improvement. Why? Because the more I share, the more ideas seemed to pour in. It’s still a mystery but I think the best explanation for it is that if you really want something, just work on it and enjoy. The mind will automatically do the rest of the job for you.

Compiled below are some of the most basic blogging tips I learnt. The best thing about the tips is that if you take the time to look at them, you will notice that they can also be applied to real life. I’m sure you will find the blog tips really basic. But the idea of this article is really on how to apply it to both your blog and your life. To make this slightly more fun, I will let you figure out how to apply them in real life.

1) When People Comment, Reply

This has always been my policy. There are now about 1500 comments altogether since I started, and I have replied to each and every one of them. It takes quite an effort for any readers to write their opinion on an article. They are taking some time of their life to do this. The least you can do is to reply to the comment. Personally, comments are the best motivation for me to keep on writing. So if you do comment on this blog, rest assured I will reply them however busy I am as a token of appreciation.

I have also been commenting in others’ blogs. And nothing’s more demotivating than to see that my comments remained unanswered. It’s as if I am commenting to a wall. I know for a site that has hundreds of comments, it’s going to be hard to reply to all of them. I guess in the end, it will be all up to you to define your number.

Appreciate readers, they are the ones we actually write to.

2) Do Not Be Afraid To Change

If you have been following the blog, you will know how many times I have overhauled the whole blog with new themes, articles formatting etc. There was even a time when the blog is gloomy looking with a child-like theme (Yes, you guessed it right. It’s the image above). The articles were also different back then. I even wrote a piece on forcasting weather and ghost theories. It’s really an experiment that continues until today to see what work and what doesn’t work.

There is no such thing as perfection. Everything will have a flaw to it. If you started off something with the idea that it’s perfect, you will soon be disappointed. The best way is always to just start with an idea and perfect it along the way.

If I were too arrogant or lazy to make the change, I don’t think I will still be here writing.

3) Blogging is all about networking

If you want to blog about something but you don’t want anybody to read them, there is always an option to make it private. Or just write in a diary.

Blogging will be useless if you are all alone. Go out there, find new friends and network. That is the most basic foundation of blogging. Without it, a blog will be nothing more than just a paper with some noun and verb written on it.

4) Find the 200 from the 1000 visitors.

Now that you are out there networking. You should know that there are millions of blog readers everyday. There is absolutely nothing you can write that will appeal to all of them. Your mission should you choose to accept it, is to find the readers that will be interested to read what you wrote.

If you write about cars, don’t join a forum about relationship and promote your blog there. That will be a waste of time and energy. Strategize where is the best place to introduce your blog.

5) Be prepared for disagreement

People rejecting each other’s idea all the time. Of course there will be some group of readers who will hate what you write or at least disagree with it. Don’t be alarmed if suddenly there’s a comment which gives you 100 reasons why you should quit blogging.

Reacting to this positively is very hard to do. I know, I’ve been there. And as a human, it is very normal to feel down after a bash like that. What you have to do is to shake it off and take a step up. Try to find any positive side of the comment and work on that. At least, you should feel appreciated that there is one person who care enough about you and write an article with 100 points.

/end

Very basic, don’t you think? But as basic as they are, these are five of the most important lessons I learnt in blogging. Can you see the message hidden in them? Apply them in your life and you will be good to go.

- I wonder -
Do you have any other tips on blogging based on your personal experience?

————– Personal Note —————
BloggingTips.com is currently running a post asking their readers to give critiques on Lesson In Life. I invite you all to join the discussion there. If you have any comment on this blog in term of design, contents or anything under the sun. Post them there. You will stand a chance to win USD10 for the most helpful and constructive comment.

You can also post the comments here.

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A charity organization discovered that within their city live a very rich person who has not donated even a single cent to charity. The person in charge of contributions called him to persuade him to contribute.

“Our research shows that out of a yearly income of at least $500,000, you have never given out a penny to charity. Wouldn’t you like to give back to the community in some way?”

The man mulled this over for a moment and replied, “First, did your research also show that my mother is dying after a long illness, and has medical bills that are several times her annual income?”

Embarrassed, the charity organization rep mumbled, “Um … no.”

The man interrupts, “or that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair?”

The stricken rep began to stammer out an apology, but was interrupted again.

“or that my sister’s husband died in a traffic accident,” the man’s voice rising in indignation, “leaving her penniless with three children?!”

The now humiliated rep, completely beaten, said simply, “I had no idea…”

On a roll, the man cut him off once again, “So if I don’t give any money to them, why should I give any to you?”

/end

Lesson learnt

• Don’t abandon your family just to avoid donating money. That’s just wrong
• If family do not help family, who will?
• It is almost sinful to justify your wrongdoings simply because you had done worse

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Why I’m writing about football, when I am actually not a good player to boast? I watched a match yesterday on TV and these ideas just hit me. There’s so many things we can learn from football.

1) Only one aim – The Goal
Each team has only one aim in mind, which is to move the ball to the oposing team’s goal area.

Everything the player did from the start of the game to the end is aimed to do this. You will not find a player just squat down and admire the ball’s roundness.

We should follow this example. Figure out our goals in life. And make sure everything we do will get us closer to that goal

2) Own goal happened – life goes on
Sometimes the player accidentally kicks the ball into his own goal. A lot of people will be frustrated especially his team. Does the game stop to give time for the player to mourn? No

In our life, we are bound to make mistakes here and there. Some mistakes maybe critical and some may not. What ever it is, don’t spend too much time mourning it, shake it off and move on. Time waits for no one.

3) Referee solves issues
Just imagine a match without the referee. I don’t think the game will last 2 minutes without a fight. In a case of foul play, both team will never admit their team is wrong. They will fight and in the end, nobody will win the game.

Sometimes, we also will face crisis. A problem where each party will have different opinion. Neither opinion is wrong but still we insist that everyone follows our opinion. In these cases, it is better to assign a third party decider. Everyone must agree to follow what that referee decide. This is because having a decision is always better than no decision at all.

4) The tougher the opponent, the sweeter the victory
Assuming you are a national player, would you play against the kindergarten football team? No? Me too. The victory if any, will be meaningless. unless of course you are playing with your children

Never expect life to be easy. It’s not. It is full of difficulties and problems any way you look at it. However it is these difficulties and problems that will make life worth living. When you know you earn your life

So whenever you are stuck with a problem. face it like a warrior and if you survive, enjoy your victory

- I wonder -
Any other lesson we can extract from the game?

———— Personal Note ————
I am not very good at playing football. That fact had been tested many times and it always end with the same result. One of the game that I am good with is Sepakraga. Apparently there is no Wikipedia explanation of Sepakraga, however you can watch the video of the game.

can I ask what game you are good at?

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Guess what, when I was at the toll in Senawang, a car rammed into my car’s rear bumper. That car’s driver pleaded to me that he only has RM100 (equivalent of USD$33). A mistake done, I, in the rush of going to work, decided to trust the guy when he said that he will repay the balance of the cost of repair later in the evening. We switched phone number, and as predicted, that guy just won’t answer my call until now.

It was still an exciting morning. Just after the guy drove away, I drove my car for about 2 or 3 minutes when suddenly I saw smoke coming out from my car. The temperature indicator had also shoot out to the maximum. It’s still very early in the morning, 6.30 am to be exact.. I was thinking to myself, “that’s another RM300 – 400 gone”.

To cut things short, I let the engine cool down, and went to the nearest petrol station to fill up my bottles of water. Fill up the dried radiator with water and drove to a car workshop. The foreman checked and found out that my radiator was actually fine. It’s only the hose that was leaking. Fixed that at RM50 only. And off I went to work. I arrived at the mill at about 9.30am.

Lesson Learnt From Yesterday

• You abide with traffic rules doesn’t mean you can’t get into an accident.
• In the case of car accident, try to ask for Identity Card number or name. (I don’t even think the name given to me is real)
• Don’t trust people easily. If you’re not at fault, just go together to a police station.
• Always check water in the radiator before travelling
• The hose leak probably a sign that other part of the radiator will leak too. It has been about 8 years since the last change. Change a complete set. (Preventive maintenance)
• Always have spare bottles of water in the car.
• Try to know where the nearest workshop in places in your travelling path. Fortunately I know, and I can go there fast before any damages done.
• Be active. The workshop actually opened at 8.30 am, I however called the owner and he helped by opening it early at 8am.
• Always be thankful..

- I wonder -
Ever been in  a similar situation

—— Personal Note ——–
Somehow I feel very fortunate that the accident happened. I learnt what to do in the case of accident. The car also overheated at the city area which make it easy to find water and workshop. Imagine I got stranded in the remote area.

When bad things happened to you, all you can do is try to look at it in the more positive way. It helps..

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So my last piece of advice would be to remember that to err is human. I’ll start the entry with a beautiful story on how we should treat this “err” in life.

There was a boy, about two years old. He had been trying to remove a bottle of milk from the refrigerator when he lost his grip on the slippery bottle and it fell, spilling its contents all over the kitchen floor—a veritable sea of milk!

When his mother came into the kitchen, instead of yelling at him, giving him a lecture, or punishing him, she said, “what a great and wonderful mess you have made! I have rarely seen such a huge puddle of milk. Well, the damage has already been done. Would you like to get down and play in the milk for a few minutes before we clean it up?”

Indeed, he did. After a few minutes, his mother said, “You know, whenever you make a mess like this, eventually you have to clean it up and restore everything to its proper order. So, how would you like to do that? We could use a sponge, a towel, or a mop. Which do you prefer?” He chose the sponge and together they cleaned up the spilled milk.

His mother then said, “You know, what we have here is a failed experiment in how to effectively carry a big milk bottle with two tiny hands. Let’s go out in the back yard and fill the bottle with water and see if you can discover a way to carry it without dropping it.” The little boy learned that if he grasped the bottle at the top near the lip with both hands, he
could carry it without dropping it. What a wonderful lesson!

Lesson learnt

• Mistakes will happen.. There’s no need to be afraid of it, instead, be prepared and handle it maturely.
• The same goes to marriage, there’s bound to be some mistakes from the both of  you. Instead of going the path of anger and hurtful words, learn from them, discuss them. Everything will be fine

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I started my day yesterday lazily. Very tyical routine, when suddenly a woman stopped me while I was riding my motorcycle to work. She is the teacher of the local kindergarten here.

Not that she is interested to know me, she actually wanted to tell me that there is a breaking and entering at the kindergarten last night.

I was shocked. What could the culprit possibly assume to find in a kindergarten? Money? Computer? guess what, the only thing missing were the stationery of the children – pencils, eraser, color pencils etc.. I’m not even sure if they can make money from that.

Another guess would be that they just feel like terrorizing someplace. And the kindergarten is unfortunately that someplace for the night. Can you believe this… people damaging other’s property simply because they feel like terrorizing?

Believe me, things will only get worse. The cuplrit possibly will upgrade their vandalism to other object, house or vehicles maybe.. and later on maybe on people and hence the raping or the mugging.

Now, we can’t change other people. But we can change ourselves. Make a conscious decision to avoid doing anything immoral, however little it is. All things bad started that way. An example, You make a habit of throwing rubbish everywhere. Soon, you will start thinking that the rubbish bin is of no use. It is better used as a mean of communication, and so you use that talent of yours to draw cryptic messages on the bin.

After a while, it seems that the cryptic message is just too cryptic, nobody understands it. So you changed them to a more familiar language, insult or cursing words.

That will lead to an angrier you, always cursing and swearing, and the thing you are most angry about is the rubbish bin. So you vandalise it, thinking that you are just making a good use to an unused bin.

You now eyed at other things… hm that kindergarten look interesting to vandalize, nobody will be harm, right?

/end example

It ALWAYs start with the most ridiculously small thing. What we can do is to stop right there. Stop throwing rubbish everywhere, Flush your toilet after use, Say thank you to the waitress attending to you etc.

It starts here

- I wonder -
What other small habits can we start right now?

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I played a classic game of PACMAN today. Can I assume you are familiar with the game. It is a very complex (NOT) game of run and eat. I’m not even sure we are allowed to eat while running.

That is a very bad example and lesson to follow from the game. However there are some others that maybe useful to us. Lessons like -

1) Pacman’s mission are only two; to eat all the white dots and avoiding the chasing ghost. The same goes to us. In life there are generally only two ways to motivate people. The old stick and carrot. The bad things that may happen to us if we didn’t do, and the good things that happen if we did do.

So if you are searching for motivation, those two are definitely the first place to look for.

2) Running from the ghost is important, but the most important is to finish up the white dots. If not, pacman will only be running round and round endlessly.

We have a lot of goals in life, most of them are important. But there will always be one that is the most important. Identify this, and we will complete our life’s mission

3) Pacman is a very easy game. You should be able to remember the steps after a few try. And after a while, most probably you will be able to finish the game just by following your steps.

Some things in life, and I have to stress the word “SOME”, are very repetitive. After a while, you should be able to know the steps and whenever you meet the same condition, you will know what to do instantly.

Typical examples are like, how to do your job, or which attitude that you have which is not likable by people etc

4) Pacman is just a dot with a mouth, because that’s what he’s supposed to do, eat the white dot. The ghosts are given scary clothes and a pair of eye, because they need to follow pacman and scare him.

What we were given (the knowledge, experience, friends, jobs, whatever) are there for a reason. They are our assets. And assets must be cherished and used properly. How to use it properly.. that would be the one of the biggest question in life.

- I wonder -
I’m sure you played some computer games. Any lesson learnt from them?

————- Personal Note ———–
I used to be addicted to games. But I’m not into those first person game, (counterstrike etc). They make me dizzy. I prefer the adventure and RPG type . One of my favorite all time game would be Planescape TormentAn RPG/adventure game about an immortal who had to find his identity and the true reason why he was being made an immortal

What’s your favorite computer game?

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