It’s not about how good you are, it’s about how good you want to be!

October 19th, 2007

Dreams and Success

Do you have dreams?

I think most people have dreams. We dream about our future, our success and our career, and we work towards our dreams to make our dreams come true.

But, do we dream about ourselves?

Dreams about Ourselves

We seldom dream about ourselves.

Even we have some big figures and big names in our minds, like Richard Brandson, Steve Job, Bill Gates, etc., we dream about their success, but seldom dream about their personal qualities.

This is too true that every one of us could dream, but only a few of us could ever try the taste of success. What is the magic behind all the big figures and big names?

When talking about dreams and success, it is always the personal qualities, the characters, the inner strengths, which make the great differences, and eventually bring the success.

So, why don’t we dream about our personal qualities and work towards it? Why don’t we think one step forward? Maybe it’s the trick of our everyday thinking and logic.

For our common logic of thinking, we tend to think and try to figure out who we are, how good or how bad we are, our strengths and weaknesses, etc. But our logic seldom draws us to think “how good we want to be? “.

Of course knowing ourselves better and figuring our strengths and weaknesses are important for our self improvements. It is even more important for us to think and work out “how good we want to be”, which would give us drive for improvements.

We could never be successful if we have never dreamt of our success. We could never be a successful and admirable person if we have never dreamt about ourselves, dreamt about how good we want to be.

Let’s start working on our dreams for ourselves today, let’s start thinking “how good we want to be”. Very soon, I am sure that you would tell the differences.

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The Magic of Feeling Good!

September 24th, 2007

I woke up this morning, feeling very refreshed and delighted, and I just wonder what’s the magic of feeling good.

For me, I would admit that I am a bit workaholic type and I like getting my job done well in all aspects. So, accomplishment would be a neccessary element in my list of feeling good items. However, only accomplishment is not enough, there should be other things which are also important for contributing to our “feeling good”.

What would these items be?

To answer the question, I have come up with a “feeling good” list:

having a good sleep
doing exercise and taking a hot bath afterwards
having some quiet moments in the outdoor environment, like beaches and seaside
going home and staying with my parents peacefully
chatting with friends and having some chill-out drinks
sharing dreams and plans with friends
discussing new projects and ideas with partners
completing all my tasks in time and in the most pofessional manners
meeting new people with similar wave lenghts, especially people far away from my own culture
building up my own brand and reputation
staying in good mood and keeping my smiles even under tremendous pressure
being nice to others and being less critical
……

Of course the list is in no way exhausive. And every one of us would have different items filed under our feeling good lists. However, there are basic elements which are common for us all, and these basic elements are the magic of feeling good:

physical wellness
emotionally balanced and stable
love and support
social networking
feeling of success
accomplishment
self esteem
self actualisation

When we get frustrated in our daily life, it is always useful to refer back to our own “feeling good lists” and try to figure out / identify what we have neglected or overlooked or not satisfied. There is in fact no magic of feeling good, the magic is in fact realisation and action.

Illustration adopted from: esttibalys (the illustration looks like me!)

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The like attracts the like

September 9th, 2007

(”Birthday Greetings to Xonti”,herbert bayer, 1930)

Some days ago, Armand wrote about:

“… I was telling you that the whole universe is made of energy. Everything is energy in different frequencies.

Your thoughts, emotions, feelings all are energies ……

Your thoughts are energies and you are the master of your own thoughts. Some thoughts come as a result of interactions with other energy fields, but it is you who create your thoughts and it is you, who control them.

Now if we take into consideration the fact that like energy attracted like energy, the implications are enormous……”

It has taken me several days to re-think about this concept and logic.

Thanks Armand for your sharing, which helps me to review the basic concept of “new age”, i.e. we select the lessons to be learnt in “this life”, we design the energies we have or we don’t have in this life in order to learn those lessons we selected, we write our own scripts, we even choose our own parents and select our own birth days, etc.

Our lives could be prescribed as the flow of energies. ”Like energies attracks like energies”, ”like thoughts attract like thoughts”, and here forms the basis of “self fulfilling prophecy”.

Don’t under estimate the power of our thoughts. What we think, what we believe, would eventually come true. We think we are poor, we think we are unlucky, we think we are miserable, we eventually should become poor, unlucky and miserable. We think we are not good enough, we are incapable, we are not worthy, then we become so. We think we are not beloved, then we have no love. These negative thoughts would do us no good but to make us negative.

We are our own director, we are our own architecture, we paint our own lives. Take up the responsibilities now and stop blaming like:

I should certainly be more successful, but it was the overall environment that I cant achieve more.
The university life wasted all my time, I gained nothing from it.
I don’t like my work, it’s a waste of my life.
My life is so poor, everybody I love, they left me.

The actual cause is ourselves. It is us who don’t believe ourselves and don’t work hard for success; it is us who don’t make sense from anything; it is us who drive our beloved ones away.

It is not fate, it is how we think and the thinking comes true. Self fulfilling prophecy, it is what we have to learn and understand. Start thinking positive and believing ourselves today and we would notice for a change in our lives.

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Blogging as Branding

August 30th, 2007

I have been thinking of branding myself for a long time, not until I’ve found out this blogosphere, or what I call “serious blogging”, I do not have a single clue on it.

What is “Personal Branding”?

Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marketed as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. The term is thought to have been first used and discussed in an 1997 article by Tom Peters.

The makeup of a personal brand has four main elements: personality, appearance, competencies, and differentiation. An individuals total perceived value takes into account these elements and is considered to be his or her core message or elevator pitch to an audience.

It is common to divide branding into tangible and intangible. Tangible branding involves associating an individual’s name with some specific advantage that they are presumed to offer, while intangible branding involves creating a more general positive feeling about them.” - Wikipedia on Personal Branding

What we talk, how we behave, how we dress, how we interact with our friends and colleagues and customers, etc., all constitute to our branding. We are building up our own brand everyday no matter you are aware of it or not, and no matter you like such activity or not.

Why ”Personal Branding”?

We are not “selling” ourselves, we are not doing any business, why we care about branding? The answer rests with whether you have something in mind you would like to promote? Whether there is something you are good at and you would like to show to the world?

By doing personal branding, we could establish our fame and reputation in the aspects we are good at and for the things we are interested in. With our own brand, we could attract and meet more friends who have similar interests and thoughts as we do and build up our network in a particular aspect. We would be able to expand our opputunities for achievement.

Blogging as Branding

We want to brand ourselves, we know that there are some aspects in us worth presenting to the world, we want to build up our fame and reputations, what are we going to do? Opening a shop and put ourselves inside the show window? Printing ourselves some leaflets and distribute them on the street? Hiring a commercial time on the TV to speak to the audience?

In the past, writing a book and knock on the publishers’ door would be an good idea. But this process requires lots of strength and patience. We could also write some articles and try to submit to the newpapers’ editor. If we are lucky enough, we could meet some editors who like our writing and let us write for the newspaper as freelance writers.

With the growing popularity of blogosphere and that more and more serious and professional bloggers have emerged and there are more and more blog readers, it is now possible for us to brand ourselves, to set up a shop for us, to place ourselves in our own show window, to display and present any articles, thoughts, work of ourselves totally out of no cost (or at the minimum cost of getting a host).

This little on-line shop for ourselves could be reached by all international readers 24 hours throughout the day. We could manage the shop and keep contacts with our readers everywhere everytime whenever we have the internet connections. What can be more easy than setting up a shop of ourselves by creating a blog? What can be more achievable than branding ourselves by becoming a serious blogger?

To brand your thoughts, to brand your characters, to brand your interests, to brand your lifestyle, etc., there is always something good in you that worth branding. Branding ourselvse, by way of blogging, is a way to build up our fame and reputation.

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From Casual to Serious Blogging - what makes the differences and what does it mean?

August 19th, 2007

I have been writing my personal blogs for years, if it was not my good friend shine (this talent and pretty lady has become a serious blogger in 2 months time, starting from ground zero) who had introduced this world of blogging to me, I would have no idea of what serious and professional blogging could be.

“You rent a server to write diaries?”
“Why are you doing blogging?”
“What do you want to achieve?”
“What do you want to earn?”

These are the most common questions I have come across when my friends know about my new started blogging life.

In fact, blogging is very popular nowadays, and many people are owning and writing their blogs, some even own more than one blog at the same time. There are tones of service providers out there for us to create our blogs to share our thoughts. However, most of the bloggers, including me before, are casual bloggers only. What makes the differences between casual blogging and serious and even professional blogging? What could be achieved through blogging? Why are some people doing so seriously? These would be some common questions that casual bloggers would pretty much like to know.

Casual vs Serious Bloggers

What are the differences between casual bloggers and serious bloggers?

For serious bloggers, they may not yet or they may not target to become professional bloggers, who could earn substantial incomes based on blogging. If it is not for / not yet for money / income, what is the difference between a casual blogger and a serious one?

The answer lies on the attitudes of the bloggers. For casual bloggers, most of us, are writing our dairies, our own stories, our own feelings, what ever we want to write, etc. We don’t care whether we have reader or not. The posts so written are circulated and read by our own friends. What most, in fact, we are our own readers. So, to a certain extend, casual bloggers write for themselves, and not the readers.

The story is quite different for a serious blogger. For serious blogger, they write for their readers. Their readers may or may not know themselves, or maybe even international and have different cultural backgrounds. It is what they write that have attracted and retained the readers. Therefore, what they write should not be related to themselves only, but to the readers at large. Posts by serious bloggers would be meaningful to their readers and their readers would find it worthwhile to read the posts.

For casual bloggers who write for themselves and not their readers, they may not write their posts regularly. Sometimes, they may write several articles a day, sometimes, they may not have any post for a whole month. They never think of their readers’ expectations nor habits. While for serious bloggers, they would write regularly on their own pace. Through regular posts, the serious bloggers are able to manage their readers’ expectations and habits. This is the basic but the most important effective way to build up readership, for the readers know what to expect and would not get frustrated.

It is also important for any serious blogger to identify their niche, areas in which they are interested and good at, and it would be a pleasure for them to share such experiences and knowledge with their readers.

Serious bloggers tend to plan for their posts, normally over a week. For sure that we would write according to our instincts or some new experiences, serious bloggers still have a plan to follow somehow. Well planned posts would garantee consistent quality, that is the magic.

Why become a serious blogger?

Every thing has a reason, blogging should have no exception.

By creating a website / blog, we in fact have created a platform, “an online shop”, which operates 24 hours around the clock and could be accessible from every corner of the world and we don’t need shop assistant.

On this platform, we could sell and diplay things which we want to. And what is most important, is to sell and advertise “ourselves”. We could form our community and networking through this platform. We could find someone who are with similar wave lengths as ourselves from everywhere on earth. This is the most important thing we could “earn” or “gain” through blogging.

Some important notes for new bloggers

To become serious bloggers, we would need to write regularly, even daily. This may be the most difficult part for a casual blogger to become a serious blogger. However, once you start writing and try to work on this, it may become your habits to write regularly.

Don’t hesitate that you may not have topic to share with your readers. Topics come from our everyday lives and we would build up our own habits to write when we do it day by day. You would find it more easily to write your posts after practising it for some time.

Quality posts are important to retain your readers. Never scrafice your writing quality in order to get your website updated everyday. Readers are able to tell whether you have hearts in your posts.

Identifying suitable readers is also important for serious bloggers. Joining forums and blog communities would be necessary activities for serious bloggers to build up the readership.

Want to create your platform? Want to build up your readership and community? Start as a serious blogger today and you would find out more fun and rewards.

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