Be a Love Cat

Transferring of blog post to Wordpress

2010-03-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

Dear all visitors,

Thanks for visiting http://bealovecat.blogspot.com/ for the past 2 years. I am in the midst of transferring all future blog spots to my new Wordpress blog. All the articles will be transferred to

http://dailytools.wordpress.com/

Please kindly visit the above website instead.

thank you

Best wishes
Blogger - M. Chew

How the Paper Fish Learned to Swim

2010-01-03T18:07:00.000-08:00

By Jonathon A.Flaum

In a remote fishing village in Japan, an origami master named Daishinji creates a beautiful fish from one flat sheet of paper. But the fish says he is lonely, so Daishinji creates a whole paper world for him--ocean, seaweed, an octopus, and many other creatures. Still, the paper fish begs to be set free in a real ocean, to know the feel of water and understand the mysteries of the deep.

How the Paper Fish Learned to Swim presents this beautiful and unique fable as a springboard to unlocking creativity and innovation in the workplace. Illustrating the point that what's created on paper, if authentic enough, can never just stay on paper--it has to go out and be tested in the real world.

1. Magnanimous Mind : Infinite Possibility in the Workplace

The "Paper Fish Process" begins with Daishinji or a "magnanimous mind temple". The manager is charged with creating an atmosphere geared to big open thinking rather than administrative efficiency. People must perform their daily functions, but if that is all they do, new ideas to grow the company will not magically appear.

For the Paper Fish Process to remain a living thing, you must make a daily practice of it. To do this, there must be silence for the first fifteen minutes of each workday. For that early period of the day people are doing nothing but cultivating their magnanimous mind.

They are charged with thinking big about the business and the team's role in it and recoding those ideas as they develop in their "Daishinji Journal."

2. Autonomy : Allowing creative talent to "be" at work

Creative people need space and time. A walk, a bike ride, an hour in the garden, or even a half hour working with clay can unlock a complicated issue at work in a way that staring at a computer screen in the office never could.

Psychologist Jung Zhou, Ph.D of Rice University found that "the presence of creative co-workers can foster employee innovation, but only when supervisors do not engage in close monitoring". Zhou defines "close monitoring" as "frequent and intrusive check-ups by supervisors"

In the autonomy stage, this means protecting the creative space. In this phrase, a director gives the actor the script and says : " Create this character." The director may not see the actor again for some time, but when he does he will be confident that the actor returns to the set prepared with a fully formed character.

Think of the preparation Robert De Niro put in to bring Jake LaMotta to life in Raging Bull or how Anthony Hopkins created Hannibal Lecter for The Silence of the Lambs. No director, no matter how good, could have dictated those performances. Those performances are remembered so many years later and will continue to be referenced in the annals of film history because the directors gave the performers the time to create the unexpected.

3. Letting Go : Sending ideas into the real world

For a person to let go of having singular control over how his work is understood and interpreted is a movement from security to insecurity - from comfort to the unknown. Letting go for Daishinji becomes important as the act of creating itself. The activity is one in which a mature person, slowly, over time, disappears into her work in a way that there is no separation between work and worker.

A group of talented people who consent to reqlinquish their individual preferences in favor of creating something bigger is what makes a film, a dance, a play, a concert, and a company possible. The individual talent is not lost but is assigned a purpose - this is what differentiates an audition from a performance. An audition shows us how good an artist is ; a performance shows us how true an idea is.

Problems in companies come when management fails to make a person sufficiently comfortable to let go. The result is that the person continues to audition (show off his talent) when he should be performing (expressing the group's mission with universal precision).

The first thing to do is to demostratively honour each member's autonomy. Let each one of them first discuss the creative process without talking yet about the product. Example an individual who became inspired by spending his mornings working in a pottery studio may bring one of the pots he fired. What is vital is that after each object is described and honoured it is placed in a large wooden box in the center of the group. The group is then given the task of working together with all of these objects to create a single object.

The first day back after the intense autonomous period is treated as a transition from self to group. It is a transformation akin to a caterpillar about to undergo a metamorphosis into a butterfly - try to open the cocoon a day early and you will defile the entire natural process.

4. Exchange : The Art of Nurturing a "Work in progress"

The center spot is the place of letting go - where things open up and ideas become real. To meet at the center spot is not just to meet the creation as it is, but also to meet the creator as she is .

The apprentice wants to learn how imaginary things are made real in the world. But Daishinji, now a master, knows that you cannot teach that to another person; you can only show that person how that experience has manifested in your own life. The exchange is complete because the apprentice wants to know how the magic is done and Daishinji says essentially, "I don't know how it is done, but it is done nonetheless."

A person does not have to rationally explain how an idea come to life; he or she simply has to show it, to make the other person feel its presence, not the reason for its presence. Like the fish that no longer fits in the box, there is nothing to hold on to, only an experience to share.

As a manager, you must provide clear instructions on how individuals are to listen in this stage. The listener's job is not to lament or praise; it is to ask the kind of queries that lead the presenter to clarity of intent. Dialogue should be in the form of open-ended questions rather than critical statements. The key is curiosity, not criticism.

5. Collaboration : Marrying Creativity with Practical Application

The focus here is on discovering the merits of an idea and working diligently to see if this thing on paper can possibly live in reality. In the collaborative phrase, the manager behaves as an external stimulus providing the brain's collaborative potential with an objective function.

Like Daishinji herself, the manager must be content to have "nothing" to show for his labour, to be a person not in serach of the award but rather one in search of the idea's lifeblood. He must be as motivated by the creative process of his team - even more so if the collaborative process is to be an enriching experience for everyone.

The Daishinji manager knows that leadership is the ability to disappear so completely into the purpose of the activity that the team being led sees no personal subjective leader, only the direction inside them being urged to find a place in the world. The collaborative phrase of the Paper Fish Process involves the manager having the individuals on the team draw members from a hat on the given day of presentation. Each individual presentation is allotted a total of 2 hours. One hour is for the presenter and one hour is for the group to question, probe and try to make the idea work as best as they can. No criticism is allowed. The entire process of the exercise is to see if the idea can work realistically.

6. Innovation : From Paper to Flesh

Creativity is a process and innovation is a result. While creative process is extraordinarily fun, playful, malleable and flowing, the metamorphosis into innovation is as dangerous as it is thrilling. Innovation is what turns the wheels of the future. Its ripples cannot be seen by the original innovator, but they will surely be felt by her descendents.

For too long, managers have been relegated to the role of bureaucrat driving voicemail, and email and meetings with the posture of generic corporate representation. Daishinji managers are not interested in that role, they instead step out from the bureaucratic pose and use their minds and guts to think through complex problems. They fail or succeed based on the content of their analysis and are ready to accept the consequences openly.

The Daishinji manager converts process to product. During that time, he does not respond to emails or phone calls; he is engaged in the most important job he was hired to do - to transform human talent into fuel for the company's growth and imporvement. The maanger should take as much time as he needs to execute this process, but he must act.

Crash Proof - How to profit from the coming economic collapse

2009-12-03T16:36:00.000-08:00

By Peter D.Schiff with John Downes

This book is more catered for US citizens living in USA. In a relatively short period of time, the country has gone from the world's largest creditor to its greatest debtor; the value of the dollar has declined; and manufacturing has given way to non-exportable services

Schiff outlines a specific three-step plan that will allow listeners to preserve wealth and protect the purchasing power of their savings :

1) Re-think your stock portfolio
Setting some cash aside is always common sense, so why not put the part you don't need for emergencies in foreign currency where its value won't collapse? Financial planners usually advise a cash fund equal to 6 months of income, but this will vary depending on your circumstances.

Decide which markets to invest into. In North America, the action is in Canda, which has one of the best-positioned economies in the world. Other natural resources blocks include Australia, New Zealand etc. Electric, oil and gas utilities are attractive equity investments because they have a captive audience and enjoy constant high demand, their earnings are predictable because they can raise their rates and pay consistently high dividends.

2) Gold Rush - Be the first person on your block to stake a claim Examines the various ways to capitalize on the bull market in gold, and silver, and explains how they can add both safety and exciting growth potential to a conservative foreign stock portfolio.

3) Stay Liquid : In bad times, cash is king. In times of financial uncertainty, it is important to have enough money for living expenses to keeping a reserve of uncommitted cash that can be used to acquire assets at bargain prices

The Top 10 Investments For the Next 10 Years

2009-12-02T04:20:00.001-08:00

By Jim Mellon & Al Chalabi

Big Idea #1 : Invest in something that almost all old people use at some point in their life - example nursing homes. Some of the affluent retirees are opting for a more up-market environment by choosing to live in retirement communities instead.

Invest in a basket of companies that are well-established in this field and offer considerable growth opportunities.

Big Idea #2 :Invest in companies that have the most to gain financially from serving or selling products and services to retirees and the older generation. Put yourself in a retiree's shoes.

Big Idea #3 : To create a solid investment strategy that will withstand the test of time and provide you with some flexibility, we recommend that you structure your investments around your home, which should serve as your core asset. You can then allocate your investments around this based on the amount of funds you have available to invest.

1. Stocks and Mutual Funds - 30%
2. Commodities - 15%
3. Bonds - 10%
4. Real Estate - 15%
5. Cash/Currencies - 10%
6. Green Investments - 20%

Big Idea #4 : Invest in German residential property. Have a mix of 2/3 residential and 1/3 commencial. Other areas of investment opportunity in real estate can be summarized as
1. Macau
2. Brazil
3. Japan

Big Idea #5 : Invest in Japanese Yen. Japan has been through a long period of poor economic performance and deflation. But Japan remains a formidably strong economy; its savings pool, both at the individual and corporate level is vast, and the government has accumulated enourmous foreign exchange reserves.

We believe that Japanese yen will rise in value against other developed world currencies in response to :

1. Diversification away from the US dollar by central banks, leading to purchases of yen.

2. The beginning of rising interest rates in Japan - may be good for its economy - as people have such large personal deposits that an increase in interest income may spur consumption.

3. The continued accumulation of reserves by Japan as a result of current account surpluses.

Big Idea #6 : "Play" the growth of prepaid cards.
Watch out for companies in this dynamic and exciting area : ConisterTrust, C-SAM, MasterCard, Sony and TxtTrans Ltd.

Big Idea #7 : Attractive investment opportunities in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economies. We do not believe that the breakdown of the BRIC investment should be evenly weighted across all 4 countries.

Our view is that Brazil still faces some reform problems that will hold it back somewhat; Russian politics threatens to hamper its future economic success ; and India suffers from a poor business infrastructure, escalating wages and a difficult business environment that is deterring the next wave of foreign investors. Furthermore, India's trade deficit is not conducive to the country's long term growth prospects, so this needs to be watched carefully.

Readers need to be careful when investing in China's stock market because local retail investors have become seriously addicted to it. The Chinese gambling psyche has unfortunately mistaken the stock market for Macau. Another factor to consider before investing in China is its currency, the Renminbi (also called Yuen) is not tradable outside China yet. A Chinese person living in China wishing to invest in stock market only has access to the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. These shares that are only accessible to domestic investors are referred to as A-shares, which are listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen.

For foreign investors wishing to invest in Chinese listed companies, they can access them through a different category of shares known as B shares. There is also a category of Chinese listed companies known as H-shares (red chips), listed in Hong Kong. For example, ICBC or Bank of China both list A-shares, H-shares in China nd Hong Kong. As illogical as this may sound, the price of a company's H shares typically trades at a discount to its A-share price, even though they are on a par with each other.

Big Idea #8 : Our next big Idea is WATER. Without water, no forms of life can exist on earth. Climate change is accelerating the "drying" of large parts of the world, as is the relatively inefficient use of water in agriculture since the 'green' revolution started in the 1960s.

The key areas in water technology for us to research are :
1. Desalination
2. Water treatment plants and technology
3. Water leak prevention technology
4. Increased efficiencies in the use of water

Investors should look at the website of teh AWWA Research Foundation www.awwarf.org for a good deal of useful information on what is happening in the world of water technology.

Big Idea #9 : Commodity price usually cycle in 20-30 years intervals, the reason being that there is a long lead time involved in sourcing new supply to the market. Most commodities are only recently coming out of rock-bottom prices, there has been no incentive for the industry to invest in new technologies or to source new supplies. Invest in extractive metals such as copper and zinc.

Further industralization of commodity-poor China and to a lesser extent, the other emerging markets of India, South America and South East Asia will continue to drive demand for these metals for the next decade and their supply is very limited.

Big Idea #10 : Invest in solar power. This is because the factors that will drive its growth as an industry are those that we look for in the very best business opportunities, that is : lower prices = expanded demand = Money Fountain

Bank on Yourself by Pamela G. Yellen

2009-11-25T23:54:00.000-08:00

Published in 2009.

Here is a little interesting conersation between the couple Paul and Katie and their advisor Jack.

"Frankly," Paul said, " I've been a little uncomfortable about this insurance business ever since Rob mentioned it. A lot of people said that life insurance is a bad investment."

Jack explained, "A B.O.Y life insurance policy isn't an investment at all, thankfully. If it was, you'd have to worry about whether your money was even going to be there when you needed it. You made it clear to me that you feel you already have enough of your money at risk in investments you can't count on.

"Let me ask you both a question : if you were buying a life insurance policy for the reasons most people buy them - the death benefit, in case something happens to you - and you wanted to get $250K worth of coverage, for example, you'd want to pay the lowest premium possible for it, right?"

Paul spoke up," Yeah. Why would we pay any more than we had to?"

"That's exactly how almost everybody thinks about life insurance - they want the maximum death benefit for the least amount of money. But I'll bet you didn't know that buying a policy that way causes your equity or "cash value" in the policy to grow at the slowest possible rate."

"When you borrow against your cash value, the money doesn't acually come out of your policy. It comes out of the company's general fund. Life insurance is a kind of group effort- all the money is pooled together. The difference is that when you borrow against your cash value in your policy, you're the place where the money is being loaned. Loans the insurance companies make to any source will ultimately increase the cash value of all policies, including yours. Either way, your cash value will continue to grow at the same preset and guaranteed amount every year.

Katie chimed in, "Suze Orman says the same thing on TV. She says that you should buy term insurance because it is cheaper and if you invest the difference in the stock market, you'll come out ahead."

"Most of these gurus including Suze and Dave, say you shouldn't buy whole life insurance because it is more expensive than term life insurance. But Suze admits in her books that the reason term policies are so much "cheaper" than whole life policies is that the insurance companies know there's very little chance you'll ever receive any benefit from them. In fact, a study done by a professor of insurance at Penn State University showed that fewer than 1% of term policies ever pay a claim. Is there anything more expensive than paying for something you most likely won't get benefit from?

If you look at it this way, no financial expert I've ever read or heard tells people to rent their home if they can afford to buy one, because every penny you pay for rent is money out of the window. Yet buying a term insurance is just like "renting" insurance and 99% of the time, you'll have to zip to show for it.

The type of term policies most experts typically recommend don't even come with any protection against inflation. This could result in a fianncial suicide. Let's say you buy a 20 year term policy at 40 years old, with a $250K death benefit. If inflation averaged only 4% a year in that time, how much of that $250K do you think you'd lose?

Paul ventured a guess. "Maybe 30%?"

"Actually the term policy would lose 56% of its value. More than half! So you might not end up getting anything close to the financial security you signed on for. And what happens if you outlive the 20 years term of the policy, as the insurance company knows you most likely will? "Then every penny you paid is down the drain," Katie answered. "But that's the point of insurance, isn't it? You spend money for protection that you hope you'll never need.

Suze's solution is to get a term policy that guarantees you'll be able to continue renewing it, even if your health has slipped. What she doesn't mention is that the premiums for those kind of policies get so high that most people in that situation are forced to drop the policy, just when they need the protection the most.

Katie laughed, "It sounds like they call it "term insurance" because it is really designed to terminate before you do!

Time Power by Brian Tracy

2009-11-25T18:06:00.000-08:00

Plan your life for the long term.

Ask yourself, "What time period do I take into consideration when I set my goals and make important decisions for my life?" Your answer to this question largely shapes your entire future.

Long term perspective improves short term decision making. Many years ago, I worked for a wealthy man who started with nothing and build a fortune worth more than $500 million in real estate. He taught me to think always of owning a piece of property for 20 years when I was considering buying it. He said that if you think about owning the property for 20 years, you will be much more alert to the strengths and weaknesses of the investment in the moment.

On the same street living in 2 houses of similar value will be 2 different families. Each family earns approximately the same amount of money. But one family has a 20 years time perspective and the other family has little or no time perspective at all.

Over the years, the family with long time perspective will carefully save, invest and accumulate an estate that will eventually enable them to retire in comfort. The other family, earning approximately the same amount of money, perhaps doing the same kind of work, but lacking time perspective will spend everything they make and a little bit more besides. They will end their working days with little or no money put aside.

If you were told today that unless you made some dramatic changes in the way you earn and spend, you were going to be penniless when you reached retirement, how would that affect your attitude towards your money? Because of limited time perspective, 95% of people working today will end up either broke, dependent on pensions or still working when they reach the age of 65. Don't let this happen to you.

Take your whole life into consideration

Most people have never decided upon exactly how long they intend to live. They say, "I am going to live to be a hundred." But they are really not serious because they have no definite plans to get to that age.

The formula that insurance companies use to predict your age is to take 2/3 of the number of years between your current age and 100, and then add to your current age. This will estimate your average life expectancy for acturial and insurance purposes. If you are age 40, then 2/3 * (100-40) = 40. Therefore, your calculated age or life expectancy is 80 years. The big insurance companies write insurance policies on these projections all day long, and they are seldom wrong.

People don't change

"People don't change" - this is a basic rule in relationships. Both you and every person you meet are products of their entire lives. Starting in infancy and early childhood, people are exposed to influences that shape their behaviors. By the late teens, their values and personalities are largely fixed. If you ever attend a 10,20 or 30 year high school reunion, you will be amazed to see that, aside from the signs of aging, the people you grew up with are very much the same decades later.

You have not changed in your entire life. If is not realistic to expect that others might change, even if they want to, or if they promise to. In fact, not only do people not change, but under pressure, they go from bad to worse. They become even more of what they already are.

One of the marks of the "fully functioning person" is as defined by psychologist Carl Rogers is that he is not unduly influenced by the opinions of others. A fully mature, fully functioning adult takes the likes, dislikes, and the opinions of others into consideration, but then makes his own decisions and goes his own way. If others do not like or approve of his course of action, he ignores it and carries on regardless.

Hire and Keep the Best People Part 2

2009-11-12T19:01:00.001-08:00

By Brian Tracy

11. Negotiate the Right Salary
Good people are free in that they contribute more in dollar value than you pay them in salary and bonuses. Every good person that you add to your payroll increases your bottom line.

The fact is that today you have to pay talented people whatever it takes to hire them in comparison with what they could get working somewhere else. At the same time, you are buying a service for your company and you are duty bound to purchase this quantity and quality of service at the very best price.

Do your homework. Ask around to determine what the job is worth in the current market. Consider how much you are currently paying people in similar positions. Second, think through and determine how much you can afford to pay for someone in this position. But remember that whatever the market is paying is the minimum that you will have to pay as well. People may not be motivated solely by money, but money is a key consideration when it comes to taking a job.

If you are hiring someone away from another company, you will have to pay at least 10% more than he or she is currently receiving. 10% seems to be the psychological point at which people will consider moving from one company to another. This is especially true for younger workers with shallow loyalties to their current employers.

12. Start them off right
Good people are too valuable and scarce today for the old "sink or swim" method of hiring and starting new employees. To ramp up quickly and get right into their new jobs, the employees require a "hands-on" approach from the first day. Sell the employee on the importance and value of his job and explain how it fits in with the activities of the company.

13. Start them off strong
The key is to start off with lots of work to do. People love to be busy and never so much as when they are nervous and unsure at the beginning of a new job. A full workload from the first day makes the job challenging and exciting.

14. Solve problems quickly
Two key problems cause most difficulties in the workplace. Both of these are the fault of managers. They are 1) Lack of direction and 2) Lack of feedback.
The most powerful single motivator in the world of work is being told exactly what one is expected to do. When people are absolutely clear about what the boss wants, and when and to what standard, they feel more competent and confident. They feel more focused and directed.

15. Improve performance professionally
A) Sit down with each employee and explain clearly what he or she is expected to do.

B) Set measurable standards of performance for the job you want done.

C) Never assume understanding. When you have delegated an assignment, ask the employee to repeat it back to you in his or her own words.

D) Give regular feedback on performance.

E) Inspect what you expect. When you delegate a job, you assign responsibility but you still remain accountable.

16. Assume the best of intentions
Misunderstandings, conflict and friction are normal and natural elements of the human condition, especially when very different people, with extremely complex lives, are working together for many hours in a small space, like an office environment.

Never allow yourself to become stressed out because of dissatisfaction with the performance and behavior of someone who reports to you. You should never go home with a problem left unresolved or a difficulty that you have not confronted and dealt with in some way.

17. Satisfy their deepest needs
To keep the very best people, you need to satisfy their emotional needs as well as their financial and physical needs. Each person has 3 major emotional needs in the world of work. These are for dependence, independence and interdependence.

Dependence needs deals with the desire that everyone has to be part of something bigger than himself or herself. People want to belong to an organization or support a cause. They want to feel that what they are doing makes a difference in the world. People want the security, comfort and satisfaction of being protected under the umbrella of a company or greater authority.

Each person has needs for independence as well. This is the need to stand out from the crowd, to be recognized as a special and important person in the eyes of others. Whenever you say or do anything that makes a person feel more valuable, you satisfy the need for independence and the feeling of importance that goes with it.

The third type of need that each person has is for interdependence, to be part of a team, to work effectively and cooperatively with others. Human beings are social animals, and they are happy only when they are working with other people in a harmonious and productive environment.

The very best companies and the very best managers are always looking for ways to create a greater sense of happiness and cooperation among their people. This is a chief role of management and leadership.

18. Practice Participatory Management
One of the most valuable contributions you can make to your organization is to create an environment where people enjoy working and feel motivated to perform at higher and higher levels.

The president of a large distribution company learned about the importance of weekly meetings among the staff at all levels. His company had not held regular meetings for years, so he decided to give it a try. When he called his managers together for the first weekly meeting, they were extremely suspicious. They sat with their arms folded and contributed little. But after 2-3 weeks of open meetings, the barriers began to come down. The managers began making suggestions to increase sales, cut costs, and improve profits. Within 6 months, the entire company had turned around.

Each manager began holding meetings with his or her staff every week as well. The psychological climate in the company went from one of fear and distrust to one of openness and high energy in a very short period of time. Losses turned to profits and the company began to grow.

These regular meetings build stronger bonds of friendship and cooperation among your staff. All kinds of problems are ironed out quickly. People began to share their own personal experiences. And best of all, they begin to laugh together and see themselves as important parts of a team and of the company as a whole.

19. Make them feel important
Imagine that every person in your company is wearing a sign around his or her neck, all day long, that says "Make me feel important". In every interaction with every single person, you should response to this basic human request. You should always bee looking for ways to make people feel important and valuable as parts of your team.

20. Create a Great Place to Work
Employee retention is vital to business success in our current job market. The high costs of employee turnover can be enough, all by themselves, to put a company under water. You must create a great place to work, and the first way to do that is, as W.Edwards Deming said, "Drive out fear"

Your job is to create a high-trust environment where people feel terrific about themselves. They feel positive and happy. They feel protected and secure. They feel comfortable in your presence.

21. Focus on your people continually
If you focus on your people, your people will focus on the business and on making it a success. If you focus on your energies on making people feel great about themselves, you will bring out of them the highest level of creativity, positive energy, cooperation, commitment and dedication to getting the job done and getting it done well.

Because so many jobs are available today, each person who works for you is, in effect, a volunteer. Each person can go somewhere else. Each person who works for you has lots of other opportunities. And the more competent your employees, the more opportunities they have. The more valuable they are to to your company, the easier it is for them to go somewhere else if they are not happy where they are.

When you treat each person like a volunteer and continually express your appreciation to him or her for working with you and helping you to achieve your goals, your attitude will be more positive and considerate. You will be far more polite and courteous to each person. You will be more suportive and encouraging. You will be friendlier and more sympathetic. You will not criticize, complain, or get angry when things go wrong. After all, you may remind yourself, these people are volunteers and they can leave any time if they are not happy.

Hire and Keep the Best People Part 1

2009-11-12T17:32:00.000-08:00

By Brian Tracy

The critical constraint on the growth and success of your business, or any business, is the ability to attract and keep good people. All other resources are freely available and can be acquired with relative ease.

What makes productivity and profitability is the quality of the people behind them, and there has never been such a shortage of high-quality people as we are experiencing today. Brian Tracy found that attacting good people and getting them to stay is a key business skill, perhaps the key business skill. If an incompetent or inappropriate person is hired, it is the manager who is incompetent, not the employee. The fact is that hiring is a key managerial skill.

1. Make Selection Your Top Priority
If you select in haste, you will repent at leisure. One of the rules for good hiring is this : " Hire slowly and fire fast." Take your time to make the right decision prior to hiring in the first place. But if it becomes clear that you have made a mistake, move quickly to reassign or get rid of the person before he or she does any more harm.

Cost of hiring a wrong person involves loss of time, money and productivity. Various people in your organization get together and talk about the mis-hire. They rehash what happened and feed the rumor mill. Often, they become demoralized when they see people being hired and fired around them and wonder if they might be next. Their productivity suffers as a result.

2. Think through the job
Determine the results required from the job, identify the exact skills that the ideal candidate will need to have in order to get those results. Hire people for what they have already done successfully rather than for what they think they can do if given a chance on the payroll.

The mark of a superior executive is thoughtfulness. The very best managers and executives are far more thoughtful when it comes to personnel decisions than the average managers.

3. Write out the Job Description
The skill or proven ability to achieve the most important result of the job goes to the top of the list. Think about the people with whom the person will be working. Everyone has to fit into a team of some kind, and it is absolutely essential that whomever you hire gets along well with his or her coworkers and is accepted by them. A mistake in this area alone can be fatal to the selection process.

4. Cast a Wide Net

5. Interview effectively
Always look for and hire nice people. A pleasant personality is perhaps as important as any other quality you can find in a good job candidate. An optimistic person is generally warm and friendly throughout the interview and is comfortable with himself or herself with you. Look for this attitude in every interview. Start selling your company only when you have decided to buy.

6. Look for the best predictor of success
The one predictor of long term job success that seems to be more powerful than any other single factor is called "self-selection". After 30 years of research into career paths of many thousands of employees, experts found that an intense desire to work for their particular company, expressed during the initial job interviews, seemed to be common among most of the best managers and staff over the long term.

7. Probe past performance
Past performance is the only truly accurate predictor of future performance. It is the only measure that can be proven. All else is arguable, based on hope and conjecture and often, exaggeration. Ask detailed questions about his or her previous work experiences and successes.

Especially, ask about his or her greatest achievements in a previous job. Probe the answer you're given. Ask the candidate to elaborate and explain exactly what he or she did, what happened as a result, and how he or she felt about that accomplishment.

8. Check Resumes and References Carefully
The most expensive mistakes you will ever make in hiring will be as a result of not properly checking and confirming the truth and validity of the hired person's background. An omission in this area can cost you thousands of dollars and many months of aggravation and frustration.

You will come across a special breed of job hunter in your career. These people are called "articulate incompetents" They seem to be everywhere. You must watch out for them. These people have only one skill : the ability to interview well for a job. Beyond that, they are incapable of doing anything of value. They are extremely creative at making plausible excuses for nonperformance. They are usually charming and friendly, with good sense of humor. Everyone likes them, which is why you find yourself questioning your own judgement when they don't do the job you hired them for.

9. Practice the Law of Three
Using the Law of Three, you interview at least 3 times for any position. You can use the Law of Three in several ways. The first application requires that you interview at least 3 candidates for any position. Second, interview the candidate you like the most at least 3 times.

A candidate who looks great at the first interview might look average at your second meeting and completely unacceptable at your third meeting. Hiring decisions that you make solely by intuition or impulse can often turn out to be mistakes.

10. Make the decision properly
Before you make a final hiring decision, take some time to review what you know about the candidate and company. First of all, consider the corporate climate and the people mix in your company. This will play a vital part in the new employee's future performance. Will he or she fit into your corporate culture and climate?

Use the "family member" method of selection. Ask yourself, " Would I feel comfortable inviting this person to my home to have dinner with my family on Sunday night?" This is a great question to ask because it gives you a better intuitive sense for whether or not this person will fit in with you and the other people on your team.

Invest Like a Dealmaker

2009-11-09T17:19:00.001-08:00

Secrets from a Former Banking Insider
By Christopher W. Mayer

Enterprise value of company

The average investor has the wrong idea about how the stock market works, Mayer says. "He thinks about the price of his stock in terms of its quoted stock price. But even then… he often misunderstands what that price represents."

Think of when you buy a house. You don't ask, " What's the value of equity in the house?" Nobody cares about that. The price of the house has 2 components : the value of the equity and value of the debt. You pay off the debt first. Equity is the residual. It's the same with companies. You have 2 components : equity and debt. The combination of debt and equity gives you the total worth of the company – its enterprise value, as stock experts like to call it.

Difference between earnings and cash flow

Most investors focus on a company’s P/E ratio – the relationship between the stock’s market price and its earnings per share. But a better way to make investment decisions is to invest like a professional trader.

A dealmaker will always want to compare earnings to enterprise value, because this gives him the bigger picture – the kind of picture you’d have if you were investing personally in a company.

Earnings don't repay loans - cash flow does. It is a reminder to always look beyond earnings and figure out the cash flow - the cycle of collections and disbursements. At times those cycles can vary very widely; in fact a company that otherwise appears profitable can suddenly find itself in a cash crunch.

Worse, you could end up like Lucent Technologies. Lucent made lots of sales and gave generous terms so it could keep booking those profits for Wall Street's benefits. It kept meeting earnings targets and showing nice growth, but meanwhile its accounts receivable were ballooning. Lucent wasn't collecting the cash nearly so well as it was booking sales!

So what happens? At some point you have to write off the uncollectible receivables. Lucent's customers started to get trouble themselves and stopped paying their bills. Some went out of business entirely. All those pretty earnings had to be reversed out. That means the company reported losses. Suddenly, those earnnigs per share target went out of the window. THe market took down the stock. It went from from under $80 to under $5.

That is why you must pay attention to cash flow. But paying attention to cash flow is more than just a protective measure - it is a way of finding gems.

You care less about dividends

The key question is this : How well is management allocating its resources? A company that borrows money to meet its dividend payment is probably not making a wise decision. Dividends are best paid with surplus cash flow that the business cannot put to good economic use.

Is management reinvesting in good projects or in good business that is likely to create more cash for shareholders and for the business in the future? In other words, are they making good use of precious resources?

Two Simple Clues to Stock Market Success

According to Mayer, Joel Greenblatt is one of his favourite investors. In Greenblatt's book titled "The little book that beats the market". In it, Greenblatt divulges his magic formula - a strategy that returned 30.8% vs 12.4% for S&P500 over that time. The basic goal of Greenblatt's screen is to find good companies at bargain prices. To do that, he relies on two simple clues.

The 2 clues are :
1) Return on invested capital (ROIC) = Net income - Dividends / Total Capital
2) Earnings Yield (EY) = take the inverse of PE ratio and turn it into a percentage.

So for example a stock with P/E ratio of 5 which has a earning yields of 1/5 =0.2 or 20%

ROIC is a measure of quality. When comparing businesses, all other things being equal, the higher the return on invested capital, the better. So that's the first measure. Greenblatt puts his screen to thousands of stocks on the maret today and rank them, highest to lowest.

Second, we need something else to measure cheapness. Just beacuse a business is great doesn't mean its stock price will rise. That is where earnings yield come in. The basic idea is to compare what a business earns to what its price is in the market. Therefore, the higher the earnings yield the better. It means more earnings for your dollar.

Graham still has a Net-Net idea. Most of the net-nets were troubled companies. Investors hated these companies, which is why they were trading where they were. A lot of the companies you'll find on the list are not popular names, and indeed many of them have short-term clouds hanging over their heads. This makes sense, since it explains why they are so cheap. Still these are tough buy for the average investor.

And it requires patience to stick with Greenblatt's idea, something else the average investor doesn't have a lot of - and that's being charitable. The magic formula doesn't work every year. There are times when it will lag the market. But this is a good thing, in a way, because such underperformance will tax most investors' patience and they will abandon it before the idea really has a chance to work its magic.

The Art of Happiness at Work

2009-11-06T18:05:00.000-08:00

By His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Howard C.Cutler, M.D

Dr. Cutler questions His Holiness about the nature of work. In psychiatry and according to the Dalai Lama, our motivation for working determines our level of satisfaction. The book explores these three levels of focus:"Survival": focus on salary, stability, food and clothing"Career": focus on advancement"Calling": focus on work as a higher purpose.

There is greater potential for dissatisfaction at work if you are doing your job only for money, only to receive a paycheck and nothing else. And even with the view of work as a career, that could still potentially lead to dissatisfaction. If one is only concerned with career advancement, promotion, job titles and designations, there would be danger of excessive competitiveness, frustration when you don't advance and jealousy when others advance and so on. That would not lead to an optimal state of work satisfaction And there would be further danger of even making enemies.

Inflated self image can be devastating, as the individual is constantly at odds with a world that refuses to see them as they see themselves - at the center of the universe - an unappreciated genuis in a world of morons. Those with low self-esteem suffer from a tendency to blame themselves for everything, so at least they often recognize that they have a problem that needs to be addressed.

Those on the opposite end of the spectrum, however, those with an exaggerated sense of their accomplishments and talents, tend to blame the world for their problems. After all, they are perfect, so it must be others who are at fault. They often fail to recognize how their arrogance and sense of entitlement drive others away, and may wonder why they have few close friends. While their actual achievements may be modest, when they fail to get the immediate recognition they feel they so justly deserve, they are quick to drop a project and fail to pursue their goals.

I once asked the Dalai Lama how individuals could tell if they were being arrogant or merely self confident. He replied that those with self-confidence have a valid basis for their confidence, they have skills and abilities to back it up; wheras arrogant people are not grounded in reality - they have no valid basis for their inflated opinion of themselves.

The Master of Petersburg

2009-11-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

By J.M. Coetzee

The Master of Petersburg is a 1994 novel by South African writer J.M.Coetzee. The novel is a work of fiction but features the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky as its protagonist.

In real life, there is a Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoyevsky's literary output explores human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russian society.

"The Master of Petersburg" is a deep, complex work that draws on the life of Dostoevsky, the life of the author and the history of Russia to produce profoundly disturbing results. It won the 1995 Irish Times International Fiction Prize.

Frankly speaking, though it is written by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, I was quite bored by the book until the ending. Probably because I don't really know how to appreciate the Russian's history and connections of the famous writer with some real life settings. Overall, the story is a dark one.

Set in 1869, when Dostoevsky was summoned to St Petersburg by the sudden death of his stepson Pavel. Dostoevsky is seen obsessively following his stepson's ghost, trying to ascertain whether he was a suicide or a murder victim and whether he loved or despised his stepfather.

As if to conjure up the spirit of the dead man, he moves into Pavel’s room, dons his clothing, and pores over his diary. He becomes sexually involved with Pavel’s landlady, Anna Sergeyevna Kolenkina, and attempts to learn from her young daughter, Matryona, exactly how his stepson died, and lived.

In the final chapter, more is revealed of his stepson died...

Pavel is enrolled as a student at the university but he attends no lectures. He joins a kruzhok, a circle whose members experiment with free love. One afternoon he brings a girl back to his room. It occurs to him that he ought to lock the door but he does not. He and the girl make love ; they fall asleep. A noise wakes him and he knows they are being watched by his landlady's daughter Matryona.

Later, it was revealed to Dostoevsky by Matryona that Pavel his stepson had given himself up so that he could be one of the martyrs.

For the first time, it occurs to his stepfather that Pavel might be better dead. He recalls a similar incident by his stepson Pavel that he assault the innocence of a simple child in the village.

Tomorrow's Gold

2009-10-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

By Marc Faber

Renowned investment advisor Marc Faber sets out to find tomorrow's gold - the outperforming asset classes of the future. Far from being a sensational reading of the runes, this book delves deep into the past, to chart how old investor trends developed and assess how new patterns might emerge.

One problem that he foresee is that China will grow out of proportion for harmonious balance of power in Asia. When China becomes Asia's largest trading partner in both exports and imports, it will not only be an economic hegemon but also replace the US as Asia's most influential political power. This transition will lead to some serious tension between US and Japan on one side, and China on the other is obvious - the trend is there and unstoppable.

In the 1990s, it was highly favourable for companies such as Coco-Cola, Nike, McDonald's, Starbucks, Gillette, Procter & Gamble etc. However Mr Marc Faber sees that vengeance coming from companies based in emerging economies. In the 1990s, the learned their foreign competitors' methods for successfully running businesses, since many foreigners formed joint ventures that transferred knowledge, skills and manufacturing technology to the local partners. Therefore, there will be more and more Chinese and other brands gaining market share in their local markets and coming onto the world's markets to compete with the established brands.

Catching the Wolf of Wall Street

2009-10-27T00:15:00.000-07:00

By Jordan Belfort

This book is sequel to "The Wolf of Wall Street". I find it quite disappointing in the sense that the storyline does not seem so interesting as compared to the first book.

In this book, Belfort leads us through a drama, from is early rise to power, FBI raid on his estate, his arrest, his deal with a bloodthirsty prosecutor to rat out his oldest friends and colleagues. With his kingdom in ruin, not to mention his marriage, the Wolf faces the great challenge of navigating through the judges and lawyers, hold on to his children and his enraged wife and possibly to salvage his self respect.

The Wolf of Wall Street

2009-10-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

By Jordan Belfort

Jordan Belfort, who founded one of the first and largest chop shop brokerage firms in 1987, was banned from the securities business for life by 1994, and later went to jail for fraud and money-laundering, delivers a memoir that reads like fiction.

It covers his decade of success with straightforward accounts of how he worked with managers of obscure companies to acquire large amounts of stock with minimal public disclosure, then pumped up the price and sold it, so he and the insiders made large profits while public investors usually lost. Profits were laundered through purchase of legitimate businesses and cash deposits in Swiss banks.

As might be expected in the autobiography of a veteran con man with movie rights already sold, it's hard to know how much to believe. The story is told mostly in dialogue, with allegedly contemporaneous mental asides by the author, reported verbatim. But it reports only surface events, never revealing what motivates Belfort or any of the other characters.

Some interesting areas of humanity that I learn from his book : -> here are some extracts

Part 1 : About Steve
And there were other things about Steve that bothered me, things that I couldn't share with Danny - namely, that Steve had made subtle intimations to me that he would prefer to deal directly with me than through Danny. And while I had no doubt that Steve was trying to earn brownie points with me, his strategy couldn't have been more off the mark. What it proved was that Steve was cunning and manipulative - and most importantly in search of the Bigger Better Deal. If somewhere down the line he found a Bigger Better Deal than me, all bets would be off.

Part 2 : About the Swiss banks
Before Hitler was able to sweep through Europe and round up 6 million Jews and exterminate them in the gas chambers, many were able to move their money into Switzerland. They had seen the handwriting on the wall back in the early 30s, when the Nazis were first coming to power. But smuggling out their money had proved to be much easier than smuggling out themselves.

Virtually every country in Europe with the exception of Denmark, denied millions of desperate Jews safe haven within their borders. Most of these countries had cut secret deals with Hitler, agreeing to turn over the Jewish populations if Hitler agreed not to attack. These were agreements that Hitler quickly reneged on, once he had all the Jews safely tucked away in concentration camps. And as country after country fell to the Nazis, the Jews ran out of places to hide. How very ironic it was that Switzerland had been so quick to accept Jewish money yet so reluctant to accept Jewish soulds.

After the Nazis were finally defeated, many of the surviving children had come to Switzerland to search their family's secret accounts. But they had no way to prove they had any rights to them. After all, there were no names tied to the accounts, only numbers. Unless the surviving children knew exactly in which bank their parents had kept their money and precisely which banker they had been doing business with, there was no possible way for them to lay claim to the money. To this very day, billions upon billions of dollars were still unaccounted for.

And all that Jewish money had been lost forever, absorbed in the very Swiss banking system itself, enriching this tiny country beyond imagination, which probably accounted for the lack of beggars in the streets.

How I raised myself from failure to success in selling Part 1

2009-09-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

By Frank Bettger

I think this is one of the best sales book that I have ever read. It is a rare book that can stand the test of time. Ever though the book was published in 1947.

Even though this book was published in 1947, it is based on timeless principles that are just as effective today as the day they were written. I borrowed this book from the library, however after reading it, I bought the book online to keep a copy myself.

Extracts from the book

During my 32 years of selling, I have seen enthusiasm double and treble the income of dozens of salesmen, and I have seen the lack of it cause hundreds of salesmen to fail.

I firmly believe enthusiasm is, by far, the biggest single factor in successful selling. For example, I know a man who is an authority on insurance - he could even write a book on the subject - and yet, he can't make a decent living selling it. Why? Largely because of his lack of enthusiasm.

I know another salesman who didn't know one-tenth as much about insurance, yet he made a fortune selling it, and retired in twenty years. His name is Stanley Gettis. The reason for his outstanding success was not knowledge, it was enthusiasm.

Can you acquire enthusiasm - or must you be born with it? Certainly, you can acquire it! Stanley Gettis acquired it. He became a human dynamo. How? Just by forcing himself each day to act enthusiastic. As a part of his plan, Stanley Gettis repeated a poem almost every morning for 20 years.

Poem written by Herbert Kauffman and has a good title:

Victory

You are the man who used to boast
That you'd achieve uttermost,

Some day.

You merely wished a show,

To demostrate how much you know

And prove the distance you can go...

Another year we've just passed through,

What new ideas come to you?

How many big things did you do?

Time ... left twelve fresh months in your care.

How many of them did you share

With opportunity and dare

Again where you so often missed?

We do not find you on the list of Makers Good.

Explain the fact!

Ah no, 'twas not the chance you lacked !

As usual - you failed to act !

1) Force yourself to act enthusiastic, and you'll become enthusiastic. "Make a high and holy resolve that you will double the amount of enthusiasm that you have been putting into your work and into your life. If you carry out that resolve, you will probably double your income, and double your happiness."

How can you begin? There is just one rule : "To become enthusiastic, act enthusiastic"

2) Remember the one sentence uttered by Walter LeMar Talbort. "After all, this business of selling narrows down to one thing, just one thing, seeing the people. Show me any man of ordinary ability who will go out and earnestly tell his story to four or five people every day, and I will show you a man who just can't help making good!"

3) If you want to overcome fear and rapidly develop courage and self-confidence, join a good course in public speaking - not just a lecture course. Join only a course where you make a talk at every meeting. When you lose your fear of speaking to an audience, you lose you fear of talking to individuals, no matter how big and important they are.

4) One of the greatest satisfactions in life comes from getting things done and knowing you have done them to the best of your ability. If you are having trouble getting yourself organized, if you want to increase your ability to think, and do things in the order of their importance, remember there is only one way : Take more time to think and do things in the order of their importance. Set aside one day as self-organization day, or a definite period each week.

The whole secret of freedom from anxiety over not having enough time lies not in working more hours, but in the proper planning of hours.

10 Principles of Universal Wisdom

2009-09-27T05:13:00.000-07:00

By Ryuho Okawa

The Principle of Progress

1st Step : Self-reflection as a prerequisite for progress

First, refine yourself. When you preach to others, make sure that you are not conceited. Never forget to reflect on yourself ; it is when you forget to do this that you start to go astray.

2nd Step: Progress through the Middle Way

This means never to hurt yourself or others. You must overcome extreme emotions such as jealousy. Those who are jealous tend to attribute the cause of their problems to others instead of reflecting on themselves. However, the cause of the problem lies with themselves; they are not generous enough to accept others who are held in higher regard. These people know only too well they have not achieved anything worthy of others' recognition.

3rd Step : Starting from the Ordinary

In this world there are many gifted people. You may know someone in your office who seems to be without faults, someone whose conversation is clever and witty, good at everything. In reality, at heart a person like this is lonely.

While it is important to have a broad perspective and a wide range of experience, those who are good at everything seem to lead rather lonely lives later on.

The Principle of Wisdom

There are stages in the development of wisdom.

Stage 1 : Period of intellectual struggle

The first stage of wisdom is the period when you collect materials with which to think; this is a way of increasing your awareness. The effort to attain as much knowlege as possible is essential in the first stage. If you do not pass through this stage, you will only be swayed by the opinions of others, and every time you encounter a problem you will be at a loss as to what to do.

Those who have struggled to establish themselves in this first stage can use their knowledge and experience to build and increase their awareness. With a higher level of awareness, they can quite easily solve most of the usual problems in life, problems that might keep ordinary people worrying for years. So the benefits that accrue even at this stage are considerable.

Intellectual effort means continuing to learn, absorbing higher knowledge, and gaining the confidence to feel that you have assimilated sufficient knowledge. This self-confidence is essential in becoming established in the first stage of wisdom. If you seek knowledge simply as a means to an end, you will not be able to pass beyond this first stage of wisdom. When you want to achieve knowledge as an aim in itself, gradually you will come to receive inspiration and experience moments of bliss, or extreme happiness quite often.

Stage 2 : Establish unshakeable confidence in your wisdom

To reach Stage 2, you need to keep making a steady, diligent effort to study and learn. You need constantly to make a sincere effort to accumulate knowledge, and not put any kind of limits to this effort.

Second stage of wisdom is a period of endurance, and steadily building true self-confidence. When you are constantly and steadfastly absorbed improving yourself, your mind will not be swayed by the successes or failures of others. If you build strong confidence in your own wisdom, you will be free of jealousy.

If you want to assess someone's true nature, you need only observe that person on 2 occasions - at a high point of success and in the depths of disappointment. In these 2 sets of circumstances, a person's true nature will be revealed. Those who become conceited following small successes will not achieve great success; they are quickly satisfied and as soon as they begin to attract the attention of others and are regarded as important, they begin to boast. On the other hand, those who give in to despair when faced with failure, who only complain and grumble, will not achieve success either. In times of despair, the length of time ou are able to withstand hardship while continuing to refine yourself and continuing to make an effort to strengthen yourself- this is the test of your true stature.

Stage 3: the wisdom to serve others

In the first 2 stages, the development of wisdom is confined to the individual. At the third stage, however, wisdom reaches beyond individual boundaries, wisdom serves something higher.

This level of wisdom is not simply a collection of information or skills, but knowledge that is transformed into love. As knowledge is transformed into love, it becomes established as a fine philosophy to be shared with others. This transformation requires many spiritual experiences, either of your own, or through an encounter with someone who has had these sorts of experiences, or through a major shift in your perceptions of life. Thinkers who present original ideas to the world through their writings or lectures are often at the third stage of wisdom.

Only when you explore knowledge with the strong desire to be of service to many, and actually translate this into action can you say your knowledge has reached he Bodhisattva level.

Stage 4: fundamental thought

In this fourth stage, wisdom becomes fundamental thought, like the wisdom of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Greece etc. Through introducing original thought, these great people changed trends not only of people, but also of eras, cultures and entire civilizations. They attain such great wisdom thorugh numerous incarnations and continuous effort.

Warren Buffet Speaks

2009-09-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

Wit and Wisdom from the World's Greatest Investor
By Janet Lowe

If we find a company we like, the level of the market will not really impact our decisions. We will decide company by company. We spend essentially no time thinking about macroeconomic factors. In other words, if somebody handed us a prediction by the most revered intellectual on the subject, with figures for unemployment or interest rates or whatever it might be for the next 2 years, we would not pay any attention to it.

We simply try to focus on the businesses that we understand and where we like the price and management. If we see anything that relates to what's going to happen in Congress, we don't even read it. We just don't think it's helpful to have a view on these matters.

It doesn't have to be rock bottom to buy it. It has to be selling for less than you think the value of the business is, and it has to be run by honest and able people. But if you can buy into a business for less than it's worth today and you're confident of the management, and you buy into a group of businesses like that, you're going to make money.

When Warren Buffet was asked how he and Munger perform "due diligence" on companies they buy, Buffet said:
"If you have to go through too much investigation, something is wrong."

According to Buffet, gold is nonproductive.

You should invest in a business that even a fool can run, because someday a fool will.Warren Buffet never starts new companies, he either invests in stock of existing ventures or buys successful companies outright.

The Mirror Crack'd

2009-09-10T02:13:00.000-07:00

By Agatha Christie

Miss Marple investigates the murder of Heather Badcock, who consumed a poisoned cocktail apparently meant for American film actress Marina Gregg, Heather's idol. As Marple investigates, she discovers dark secrets in Marina's past, secrets which also link to other seemingly innocent citizens of St. Mary Mead.

At first, detecting the murderer is extremely difficult because there seems to be no motive. Because Marina Gregg had given Heather Badcock her own drink shortly after meeting her it is assumed that Marina Gregg must have been the intended victim.

Also Marina is much more famous and correspondingly more likely to be a target. However, it eventually becomes apparent that Marina herself poisoned the drink and intended to kill Heather Badcock. Discovering the murderer is complicated because the motive is so obscure.

It is known that when Heather Badcock encountered Marina Gregg at the party where she is murdered, she had told her her favourite anecdote about how, years before, she had been ill, but had sneaked out to meet Marina and get her autograph. A terrible expression appeared on Marina's face as she heard this story, reminding a witness of the line from Tennyson's poem.

Marina had always desperately wanted children but had found it difficult to conceive. However, after adopting three children, she had finally become pregnant. But when her baby was born it was found to be mentally retarded and was abandoned to a lifetime of institutions, leaving Marina emotionally scarred.

Miss Marple later deduces what Marina had instantly realised. Heather's minor illness was German measles; she had infected Marina and caused the mental retardation, and effectively the 'loss', of her only child. Marina murdered Heather for revenge.

There can be little doubt that Christie used the real-life tragedy of American film and stage actress Gene Tierney as the basis of her plot.[7] [8] [9]Tierney described the event in her autobiography (Self-Portrait, New York: Wyden, 1979), but it had been well publicized for years previously.

Automatic Wealth for Grads .. and anyone else just starting out

2009-09-06T06:47:00.000-07:00

by Michael Masterson

Income "acceleration" were occurred in two phrases. The first phrase was in trasforming myself from an ordinary to an extraordinary worker. The second phase was in moving up from extraordinary to invaluable.

In most businesses, only a very few people get in early and stay focused on what really matters. Many employment experts explain that workers fall somewhere on a bell-shaped curve when it comes to diligence and follow-through. At the bottom of the curve are the loafers and goof-offs. In the middle is the silent majority that does just enough to get by. At the top are the relative few who are motivated to achieve.

Hence a modest amount of hard work will put you beyond both the terminally slothful and the lump-along middle crowd. Just by being modestly ambitious, you will rise to the top third of almost any organization. But getting to the top 20% will be tough, because the few you are competing against are competing hard.

If you can use your time more effively than they use theirs, you will move ahead of them. Hard workers eventually succeed even against those who have advantages. People who rise to the top work long hours, but not excessively long. They are at their desks early -at least an hour before others - and they stay later .

If you are not sure which financially valued skill to target, I recommend becoming a n expert in the kind of sales that make your company profitable.

The Map of Innovation - creating something out of nothing

2009-09-05T02:29:00.000-07:00

By Kevin O'Connor with Paul B. Brown

The Map of Innovation is O'Connor's step-by-step approach to devising lucrative new products and services and bringing them to market, through a process that has proven itself time and again in many different industries.

Whether you are trying to create something new or innovate within an existing company, the steps are the same - and there is a process that will allow you to do it faster, cheaper and better.

In every start-up or attempt to invoate within an existing organization, these are the fundamental issues that deservce your full attention :

1) Creating a large number of viable ideas

2) Picking up the right idea to purse

3) Creating a highly focused strategy to bring the idea to market

4) Getting the money to fund the strategy

5) Hiring great people to implement the strategy

Customers want to do business with a stable company, so your office should give the air of stability. But nobody likes to do business with a company whose office space is too lavish. It gives customers the impression that you might be charging too much for your products.

Think of waste as a disease that will spread through your company. When the office space is lavish, employees will think it's okay to check in to lavish hotels and throw lavish parties. If a prospective new employee doesn't want to join because the office space isn't nice enough then consider yourself lucky to have avoided contact with Typhoid Mary. Remember, the point of raising money is not to spend it. It is to build the business.

You need people who can figure out solutions to all the problems you are going to face. You need smart people. If a person fails all the tests below, or even a majority of them, beware!

1. Did he attend a good school? The harsh reality is that our university system does a reasonable job of screening people. In general, highly intelligent people from any socioeconomic background can graduate from a competitive university. I have yet to meet a stupid person with a Harvard or Standford MBA.

2. How did she do at school; what did she do?

Their performance at the university might not be a very good indicator of intelligence. In fact, it might even be inversely correlated. Bookworms tend not to be street-smart, even if they are grade-smart.

3. Have him explain your business.

Smart people have the uncanny ability to pick out essential elements of what you do. They might get a few things wrong, but if they are smart, they'll at least be thinking in the right direction. They will have a solid handle on what your firm does, who it competes with, and what the business landscape looks like.

4. Pose simple logic questions to her. Example : How many people die in New York City each day?

The biggest variables are overall life expectancy and population. If you know roughly how many people live in the city, say eight million, and you have a handle on how long people live on average, example 75 years old, you can make a reasonable guess at how many people die each day. Again, you aren't looking ofr an exact answer. You are looking for the way people approach problems.

For most business problems, there are no right answers with 100% certainty. When it comes to major decisions, you never have all the data you need. You have to take incomplete information and come up with the best answer you can, and that requires sound thinking and common sense.

The New Millionaire$

2009-08-23T03:18:00.000-07:00

By Gobala Krishnan

This book is considered quite in-depth. The author is very generous about the ideas and experiences that he mentioned in the book. You can check out his website at http://www.gobalakrishnan.com/

The variety of business ideas (example he listed over 10 internet business models example affiliate marketing, ebay etc) may overwhelm one especially if you are new and just testing the water. Gobala explained that the problem starts when someone starts researching into hundreds of different ways of making money online. First they read about eBay and they dream of becoming an eBay powerseller, then they came across this thing called blogging, and they want to become a successful blogger making tons of money from it. They spend all their time learning but still fail because they never really put what they’ve learned into practice.

There’s one element that must absolutely present if you want to make money on the Internet – that is to identify things that you are passionate about and these are things that should be the foundation of your online business. As they said, find your passion and the money will follow.

Gobala explained his passion is in reading and he gain knowledge from them. His personal preference is to write and sell e-books using the mini site model which is easy to set up. It's direct-to-the-point information about the e-books or services that he has to offer.

How I made RM$31,500 with a 12 page e-book.

Gobala used a tool called ASKDatabase (http://www.askdatabasesystem.com/), a survery software that allows him to get questions and inquiries from the list (or website) and analyze results for trends. By using the survey, he is able to get a vision of what he had to do. He realized what are the problems faced by most people taking the survey.

Example he realized that most Malaysians had a major disadvantage in Internet marketing. They could not withdraw money from Paypal, could not register for Clickbank and some Malaysians have no credit cards. Gobala was able to get a Clickbank account and found a way to withdraw money from Paypal. So he solved the "3 big Malaysian Headaches" himself and he document them into an e-book.

The question was : "Would someone buy an e-book that was only 12 pages long, and covered such a narrow topic?" To learn more, you can read an incredible e-book called Desperate Buyers only by Alexis Dawes (http://www.desperatebuyersguide.com/). The main points is that if your topic focused on a desperate need; and showed others how to solve it based on your own experience, it will sell beyond your wildest expectations. Plus, you can charge a premium for it and people would gladly pay.

If you want to sell almost any kind of product on the internet, or even start your own blog and make money off advertising, you must first find a market. Hence you must do some reserach first - in the form of keyword search example use Google or keyword country (http://www.keywordcountry.com/)

Step 1 : Find a general market. You must know the general keyword for your blog or website . Your website cannot be about everything. It must be about something.

Step 2: Find a niche keyword. To see if a niche is profitable see (1) how many affiliate programs you can find and (2) how many people are using Google Adwords to advertise those affiliate programs. But this keyword is still highly competitive, and while it's not impossible to rank highly for this search term, it's just not feasible if you're just getting started in your own Internet home business.

Step 3: Find your primary keyword, secondary keywords and long tail.
Example the author clicked on guitar > electric guitar > cheap electric guitar. This is the primary keyword, and is the main keyword that he will target on the blog. All other keywords contained under these keywords are secondary keywords.

If you click further from cheap electric guitar or any of the contained keywords, you'll find lesser keywords, usually ranging from 5-500 searches per month, called the long tail keywords. These long tail keywords are usually too small to become the main keyword for your blog, but when you add them up they usually become bigger than your primary keyword.

Primary keyword : use as main title of the blog, domain name etc.
Secondary keyword : use as optional tagline for blog, category name, create new pages with secondary keyword.
Long tail keyword : use to create individual posts example I create a new post called "cheap gibson les paul electric guitar"

Keywords are just numbers; they tell you how much search traffic you can get, but they don't tell you how to turn that traffic intro cash.

It's a poor artist who borrows - a good artist steals" - Picasso
Once in a blue moon you may come up with something totally original, but mostly anything you want to say has already been said before. Now if you copy word for word, that is called pirary. But if you copy many people and paraphrase them, it's called research. So how can you write a good article on a topic you just discovered yesterday?

How can you do it?
1) Research. Type in a few keywords in Google.com and see what results come up. Collect about 10-20 URLs of the articles that you want to use and write them down / save it.

2) Paraphrase sentences. Take one line from the first article that you like and paraphrase it. You can change the actual words without changing the meaning of the sentence.

3) Divide content. Divide your content into logical paragraphs. If possible, talk about one idea in one paragraph. Dividing the content will establish a flow of ideas that keep the visitor reading for more.

4) Quote the source.

5) Write an introduction.

6) Write conclusion.

Rich Dad's The Business School - For people who like helping people (2nd reading)

2009-08-22T19:32:00.000-07:00

By Robert Kiyosaki

In this book, Robert talks about network marketing, the potential and its attractiveness. However I am not really keen in it, but I will summarise some of the main points that I like and gather from it.

If you want to be rich, you need to be a business owner and an investor. The richest people in the world build networks. Everyone else is trained to look for work. Building your own business is the best way to become rich. After you have built your business and you have strong cash flow, then you can begin investing in other assets.

Skills make you rich, not theories. Building a worldwide business and losing a worldwide business was definitely not an education based on business theory. For me, it was a priceless education that ultimately made me rich, but more importantly it was an education that set me free.

Money and success make you arrogant and stupid. Now with some poverty and humility you can become a student again. For a true life-changing education to be effective, it must affect all 4 points of the learning pyramid : mental, emotional, physical and spiritual education.

1) Mental education
Traditional education focuses primarily on mental education example reading, writing, arithmetic. These are often called cognitive skills.

2) Emotional education
One of the complaints about traditional education is that it preys on the emotion of fear. Making mistakes is how we are designed to learn. We live in a world of fear of failing, not learning. That is why so many people live in the corporate world remain caterpillars. How can a person fly when they live in a corporate cocoon wrapped tightly with the fear of failing?

3) Physical education
Go out and face your fears by taking action, make mistakes and learn from it. Grow mentally, emotionally and physically stronger from the process.

4) Spiritual education
Take note there are good network marketing companies, there are also bad ones. But a good one must strengthen a person spiritually.

Rejection and Correction =Education and Acceleration

People wo avoid rejection are in the long run, less successful in life than those who face rejection. Most people are not successful because they have not been rejected enough.

In growing a business, leadership skills are a necessity. In doing my research, I went to many meetings and large events. At the event, I heard some of the best business leaders speak... speaking to inspire others to find their own personal greatness. There is a difference between someone who use emotion to motivate a person in to something physically, and someone who inspires another's spirit.

Big people have big dreams, and small people have small dreams. If you want to change who you are, begin by changing the size of your dream. When I was broke and lost most of my money, my rich dad said " Never let this temporary financial setback diminish the size of your period of life." He also said, " Broke is temporary and poor is eternal. Even if you are broke, it does not cost you anything to dream of being rich. Many poor people are poor because they have given up on dreaming.

The Secret to Riches

2009-08-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

21 Distinctions of Wealth

2009-08-16T03:56:00.000-07:00

Attract the Abundance you deserve
By Peggy McColl

Reading the book is not enough. Peggy McColl believes you have to work out the 21 Distinctions Program. It takes 3 weeks to establish a habit, so to begin attracting the wealth you deserve, you'll need to focus on each of the 21 Distinctions for 21 Days.

The great news is that you only need to spend a few minutes daily working the program : in the morning when you first wake up, once during the day, and in the evening just before bedtime. However, it is very important that you do not rush through the list of affirmations at the end of each chapter, reciting them quickly. You must devote whatever time it takes to genunely believe them as you're speaking them. For some, it may take only a minute to create powerful emotions of abundance and gratitude; for others it may take several minutes.

You can download the affirmations checklist at
http://www.destinies.com/en/index.php?category=8&title=21+Distinctions+of+Wealth

Seven Years to Seven Figures

2009-08-16T03:09:00.000-07:00

The Fast-Track Plan to Becoming a Millionaire

By Michael Masterson

In the introduction section of the book, Michael mentioned that getting rich involves 3 components :

1) How long you invest ?

2) How much you invest?

3) What rate of return you achieve on your investments?

Creating a seven figure net worth in seven years or less may sound outrageous.. even impossible. But according to Michael, it can be done.

One of the first lesson is about priorities. The challenge is to identify top 10 gaols, narrow them to five, narrow them again to three, and finally pick one as a primary goal. While it is true that most people don't succeed because they don't have clearly defined goals, some people fail to make progress because they have too many.

Dale Carnegie argued that the best way to guarantee that you will accomplish an objective it to make it your number one priority. After the No.1 priority is determined, spend the remaining 10 weeks or so focusing on it. At the beginning of every day, you have to remind yourselves whether you have a purpose. And throughout the day, we had to make sure that all our actions and decisions reflected that purpose.

It is important to have a full balanced life - one that includes not only work but also friends, family and community involvement. That means you should think in terms of 4 categories when setting goals :

1) Your health
2) Your wealth
3) Your social life
4) Your personal life

7 years from now, for example, you might want to have :

- attained and maintained your high school body weight

- achieved a seven-figure net worth

- become your town's mayor

- written and published you first novel

These are all reachable goals, but they are also ambitious. If you give them equal weight, chances are you will not be entirely successful. There's only one way to be absolutely sure that you'll reach your financial goal (having a seven-figure net worth in 7 years) : you have to make it your top priority. Other goals are extremely important to you, but wealth building always has to come first - every year, every month, every week, and even every day.

If you aren't willing to make seven years to seven figures your top priority, you can still benefit greatly from the program in this book ... but your chances of hitting your financial target will be diminished.

The Seven Years to Seven Figures wealth-building program is based on experience. My experience tells me that you can't get rich fast unless you dramatically increase your income. There are many ways to dramatically increase your income, and none of them involves scrimping and saving pennies.

According to Michael, you can start making enough dough to put away between $20K and $200K every year by doing 2 things :

1) Invest directly in a brand-new business

2) Invest directly in real estate

There are all sorts of ways to improve the rate of return you are currently getting on your stocks and bonds. But this book is devoted to mainly 2 things - experiences on others who have achieve 7 figure wealth in seven years or less by doing 2 things : investing in new businesses and real estate.

For more information and articles by Michael, you can visit his website at http://www.michaelmasterson.net/

Difficulty with blogspot

2009-08-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

I am having some difficulties with blogspot publishing...
could not load properly a blog posting with pictures in it.

Thinking of transferring all these blogs info to WordPress, but it will be such a hassle.
Meantime I will wait

*************************************
Found a solution through blogger discussion group. A person called Seoul Girl helps me provide the solution! Thanks a lot Seoul Girl :)

The flight of the creative class

2009-08-06T00:57:00.000-07:00

By Richard Florida

After reading this book, I feel that it provides extraordinary insight into one of the problems of today's world. Many people feel threatened by the influx of new immigrants, however Richard wrote in this book - that if the new talent does not come, it will pose a more serious problem in future.

So how can creativity, best be harnessed for sustained economic growth? What powers economic growth? The answer lies in a formula call the 3 Ts of economic development : Technology, Talent and Tolerance.

Economists have long argued that technology is the key to growth. MIT's Robert Solow won a Nobel Prize for his work in isolating technology as the driving force of such growth.

Talent is the second variable in this model. Leading economists, including Nobel Prize winner Robert Lucas, have argued that growth is a consequence of human capital, a view shared by Harvard's Edward Glaser. Lucas and others have argued that more urbanized and denser urban areas realize a tremendous productivity advantage because they gain those economies of combining people's creative energy.

Resources like technology, knowledge and human capital differ in a fundamental way from more traditional factors of production like land or raw materials, they are not stocks but flows. People are not forever wedded to one place ; they can and do move around. The technology and talent that people therefore equally bring with them are mobile factors, and thus flow into and out of places.

Some places are better than others at generating, attracting, and holding on to these critical factors of production. Truly successful socieites go out of their way to be open and inclusive. Courting divergent ideas and inputs isn't about political correctness.

Healthcare Stocks Analysis 2 - Net Profit Margin

2009-06-15T18:14:00.000-07:00

The profit margin tells you how much profit a company makes for every $1 it generates in revenue. Profit margins vary by industry, but all else being equal, the higher a company’s profit margin compared to its competitors, the better.

Based on 2008 Financial Reports of the following healthcare stocks, I am going to see how their net profit margin compare with each other.

Ranking based on net profit margin :

1) Thomson Medical Centre - 18.5%

2) Raffles Medical Group - 15.8%

3) Healthway Medical Group - 11.8%

4) Health Management International (HMI) - 10.86%

5) AsiaMedic Ltd - 8.77%

6) Parkway Holdings - 4.25%

7) Medtec International - 1.26%

8) Pacific Healthcare - (17%) Loss

General Comments :

I am quite impressed with Thomson Medical Centre. Not only do they excel in their credit control, their net profit margin also reflect similar excellence. I believe medical healthcare services and related industries are likely to show continued strength whether in a boom or recessionary market.

Most of the healthcare stocks seems to be making some net profit with the exception of Pacific Healthcare. The major expenses I saw on their income statement are mainly from employee benefit expenses ($42,937,000) and other expenses ($25,954,000). The other expenses arise mainly from the impairment loss on goodwill and intangible assets.

The action to write-off the goodwill may be driven by the extraordinary market conditions that have depressed their stock value. This accounting charge shows impacts on Pacific Healthcare's reported earnings. It is better to look at overall financial analysis of the organisation rather than coming to a conclusion based on net profit alone.

Healthcare Stocks Analysis 1 - Credit Control

2009-06-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

The following healthcare stocks are based on their 2008 Annual Report. This is my personal analysis based on their credit control, on an average of how many weeks they take to collect customers' money or their trade receivables.

Ranking :
1) Thomson Medical Centre - 3.85
2) Healthway Medical Group - 6.24
3) Raffles Medical Group - 6.45
4) AsiaMedic Ltd - 7.13
5) Parkway Holdings - 7.6
6) Pacific Healthcare - 10.9
7) Medtec International - 11.5
8) Health Management International (HMI) = 21.4

1. Pacific Healthcare (Ranked No.6)
Current Price : $0.110
http://www.pachealthholdings.com/

An integrated healthcare provider offering a comprehensive range of healthcare services under Special Healthcare Division (clinical services and facilities management) and Primary Healthcare Division (general practice medicine, dentistry, eldercare and wellness services).

A/C Receivable = $17,064,000
Sales Revenue = $81,225,000

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 4.76 times, average sales credit week is 10.9 weeks. It takes about 10.9 weeks to collect money from their sales.

2. Parkway Holdings (Ranked No.5)
Current Price : $1.65
http://www.parkwayholdings.com/

The Group operates Gleneagles Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Hospital, East Shore Hospital and Shenton Medical Group. The Gleneagles chain of hospitals are now in Singapore, Jarkarta, Surabaya, Medan, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Calcutta and Colombo. It has a specialist Heart Hospital in London.

A/C Receivable = $137,378,000
Sales Revenue = $945,386,000

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 6.8816 times, average sales credit week is 7.6 weeks. It takes about 7.6 weeks to collect money from their sales. okie... looks like they seems more in control than Pacific Healthcare.

3. Raffles Medical Group (Ranked No. 3)
Current Price : $1.01
http://www.rafflesmedical.com

One of Singapore's leading private integrated healthcare providers with a network of 65 private clinics, offering general practice (GP), dental and specialist healthcare services, X-ray and diagnostic services, healthscreening and laboratory testings. The Group also owns and operates a tertiary care private hospital, insurance services and a consumer healthcare division.

A/C Receivable = $24,901,000
Sales Revenue = $200,769,000

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 8.063 times, average sales credit week is 6.45 weeks. It takes about 6.45 weeks to collect money from their sales. okie... looks like they seems more in control than Pacific Healthcare and Parkway Holdings over their credit control.

4. Health Management International (HMI) (Ranked No.8 -Last)
Current Price : $0.11
http://www.hmi.com.sg/

Healthcare division of the Group owns and manages 2 hospitals in Malaysia, the Mahkota Medical Centre in Malacca and the Regency Specialist Hospital in Johor. Its education division owns and manages the HMI Institute of Health Sciences in Singapore.

A/C Receivable = $18,351,516
Sales Revenue = $44,525,424

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 2.43 times, average sales credit week is 21.4 weeks. It takes about 21.4 weeks to collect money from their sales. okie... looks like their credit control very much out of hand - compared to Pacific Healthcare, Parkway and Raffles.

5. Thomson Medical Centre (Ranked No. 1 - First)
Current Price : $0.575
http://www.thomsonmedical.com.sg/

The Group's principal activities include that of hospital operations and ancillary services. The hospital operations provide primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare with focus in the areas of O&G and paediatric services. Its ancillary services include fetal assessment services, diagnostic laboratory services, disgnostic imaging services, anti-aging services, healthcare screening services and parentcraft services.

A/C Receivable = $4,457,000
Sales Revenue = $60,264,000

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 13.5 times, average sales credit week is only 3.85 weeks. It takes about 3.85 weeks to collect money from their sales. Wow... this is quite impressive of their credit control compared to the rest of the medical stocks in Singapore. But again if you think about it, their operations is much smaller and local compared to other medical stocks.

6. Medtecs International Corp Ltd (Ranked No. 7)
Current Price : $0.105
http://www.medtecs.com/

The Group is an integrated healthcare services provider and original product manufacturer (OPM) of a wide range of medical consumables for large multinational healthcare distributors, pharmaceutical companies and hospital groups in the US and Europe. Major product lines include linen, hospital apparel, hospitality apparel and bandages. The Group also acts as agent to distribute other branded medical devices in Asia Pacific, including medical supplies and equipment such as wheel chairs, syringes, gauzes, digital thermometers, nebulizers, blood pressure monitors, etc.

A/C Receivable = $17,859,000
Sales Revenue = $80,707,000

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 4.52 times, average sales credit week is about 11.5 weeks. It takes about 11.5 weeks to collect money from their sales. This is still better than Healthway Management International.

7. AsiaMedic Ltd (Ranked No.4)
Current Price : $0.065
http://www.asiamedic.com.sg/

AsiaMedic provides ambulatory healthcare services in radiology, diagnostic imaging, ophthalmology, cosmetic surgery and health screening.

Sales Revenue = $12,256,277
A/C Receivable =$1,680,814

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 7.29 times, average sales credit week is about 7.13 weeks. It takes about 7.13 weeks to collect money from their sales. Still looks okie..

8. Healthway Medical Corp(Ranked No.2)
Current Price : $0.115

One of Singapore's private outpatient medical service providers with a network of more than 80 clinics. The Group operates 11 medical practice groups, offering healthcare services such as family medice, dentistry, paediatrics, orthopaedics, sports medicine, aesthetic medicine, TCM and healthcare benefits management.

A/C Receivable = $9,712,000
Sales Revenue = $80,903,000

Their accounts receivable turnover ratio is 8.33 times, average sales credit week is about 6.24 weeks. It takes about 6.24weeks to collect money from their sales. It is just behind Thomson Medical Group.

Compare the healthcare stocks based on their net profit margin
http://bealovecat.blogspot.com/2009/06/healthcare-stocks-analysis-2-gross.html

Some of the general information are derived from the following blog:
http://knowledge-deposits.blogspot.com/2009/04/healthcare-stocks-singapore-companies.html

I think it is very useful website.

Trump 101 - The Way to Success

2009-06-14T03:38:00.000-07:00

By Donald J.Trump with Meredith McIver

People are capable of great things, but not if they don't envision themselves achieving greatness.The following are some of Coach Trump's tips in the book.

Tip 1 : Before you start any venture, while it's still in the idea stage, imagine ways to increase its size, scale or scope. Don't worry about being realistic or practical.

Tip 2 : Explore whether any of your ideas, or parts of them, could be achieved. Identify the hurdles that could stand in your way.

Tip 3: Examine how to overcome those obstacles and the costs it would take.

Tip 4 : If the timing for your expanded vision isn't right, the cost is too steep or other problems are just too great, consider implementing parts of your ideas that you can achieve now. File the rest away because things always change, and what can't be done today could be a piece of cake tomorrow.

Tip 5 : Become a planner. Examine every project in detail before you commit to it and plan every step you will have to take it to succeed. Try to limit the surprises that will arise as the project proceeds. Don't dismiss any potential problem as too minor or unlikely.

Tip 6 : Realistically assess the greatest downside liability for each potential problem that you face. Price the cost of dealing with each in tomorrow's dollars and factor in the time and resources that could cost you.

Tip 7 : Build a financial cushion that will allow you to avoid being squeezed when problems and delays occur.

Tip 8 : Read constantly to learn everything you can about your interest from books, articles and web sites.

Tip 9 : Make files to save important information you read. File the names of authors and business movers and shakers. Visit their web sites to learn about their accomplishments.

Tip 10 : Contact successful businesspeople, authors, experts and insiders and try to meet them or ask for their advice.

Tip 11 : Don't ignore employee performance problems. The sooner you talk with the employee, the more likely you can get him or her back on track. Getting great work from employees is a sign of a strong leader.

Tip 12 : Trust your feelings, but also listen to reason. Stay open to new ways and ideas so that you and your instincts will continue to grow.

Tip 13 : Before you deal with others, find out all you can about them. Learn about their backgrounds, interests, and ambitions, and look for anything you have in common.

Tip 14 : When you come across common denominators, figure out the best way to raise them. I find it's best to be direct : "Hey, I heard that you play golf." If the other person doesn't respond postiviely, don't force the issue.

Tip 15 : Don't overlook any opportunity to break the ice. Everyday occurences such as the weather or current events can be good starting points. They affect all of us, whether we're billionaires or college students, and can ease us into better communications.

Tip 16 : At the end of the meeting or in a confirming or followup e-mail, briefly mention or refer to the item you have in common. These asides add a touch of personal warmth that can strengthen your relationship.

Tip 17 : Create a step-by-step plan of attack and systematically implement it. Make a backup plan that you can use if your first efforts don't work.

Tip 18 : When you negotiate, be fair and reasonable so everyone can win. Don't demand everything and risk making an enemy who could come back to haunt you.

Tip 19 : Master your subject. Become and expert in your area of business. Learn and think about every aspect of your field so that you can immediately rattle off answers to any questions.

Tip 20 : Take acting or public speaking classes or get media training. Invest in yourself by getting training, it will help you in every aspect of your career and life.

Tip 21 : Practice, practice, practice.

Tip 22 : Realize that each new hire will be somewhat of a gamble. Solid gold credentials don't guarantee solid gold employees, but sometimes they do.

Tip 23 : Be positive every day. If you're not, no one will think you can succeed.

Tip 24 : Believe in yourself, exlude confidence, and get in your competitors' way. Project yourself into their picture and upset their status quo.

Tip 25 : Break loose from your comfort ozne by moving forward with the power and momentum that positive thinking creates.

Tip 26 : Zap negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. Whatever energy you expend will build the positive stamina that is vital for success.

Tip 27 : Measure yourself against your feelings, ambition, needs and goals, not those of others.

Tip 28 : Ignore the expectations of others. Stand up to your friends, family, teachers , colleagues, and those who think that they know what's best for you. Plug into your own energy.

Tip 29 : View everything you do in terms of the big picture. See each step of a project not just as another task or job but also as a rung that will help you reach the next level in your life.

Tip 30 : Become a perpetual student; gobble up information on many subjects.

Tip 31 : Periodically ask yourself, "What should I learn more about? " Take inventory and study areas in which you may be weak or may wish to investigate. Look into topics that you always avoided or those that are outside your area of expertise.

Tip 32 : Make it your goal to create a business that will be a huge success for many years.

Tip 33 : Strengthen your weaknesses, fill in your gaps and explore new areas. But don't neglect or let your existing strengths erode.

Tip 34 : Don't be stagnant, complacent, or rest on your laurels, no matter how successful you've been. Giving 50% is not enough; your clients and customers deserve more - they deserve your best.

Tip 35 : Undersand that life is unpredictable and that things will change. Realize that your methods and goals must change for you to keep pace and succeed.

Tip 36 : Keep abreast of what's happening around the globe. See how you can integreate recent developments into your world. They can open the door to new interests and excitement.

Tip 37 : Never be satisfied. Don't rest on your achievements. Do more, be more and give more. Avoid becoming complacent because of your accomplishments.

Tip 38 : Start every day with a sense of appreciation and excitement about what you can achieve. Think of how you can accomplish your goals.

Tip 39 : Generously reward people who help you succeed. Thank and compensate them. Find meaningful ways to show your appreciation. Never take help for granted. Take good care of those who help you, and they will take good care of you.

Tip 40 : Find your most effective way to work. Do you work better in the mornings, or when you sleep late? Examine your habits, patterns and comfort zones. Try to develop an objective understanding of how you act.

Tip 41 : Study the best people in your field and learn from them. Examine their approaches and styles and determine why they are unique.

Tip 42 : Identify what you can take from the masters and incorporate in your work, and then try to add your own personal twist. Stay within yourself, and don't be a pale imitation of someone else.

Tip 43 : Recognize your shortcomings. Learn where you need more knowledge, training and experience. Then find out where and how to get it.

Tip 44 : Explore developments and breakthroughs in other fields to see if you could use them, or parts of them, in your work.

Tip 45 : Eliminate all distractions and give your full attention to your work.

Tip 46 : Take responsibility and don't just lash out at others. Focus on solving problems. As a leader, be willing to accept responsibility for problems and failures as well as praise for triumphs.

Tip 47 : Learn your area of expertise fully, in great detail, so that you become a leader in yoru field. Become the best at what you do, it will improve your business and your life.

Tip 48 : Dealing with trouble promptly is usually the best approach and is generally more cost-effective than hoping trouble would go away.

Tip 49 : Learn from each situation. As you deal with each problem, note what you learned from it so you don't repeat that same mistake. Situations often repeat themselves, so next time the problem occurs, you should be prepared to handle it.

Tip 50 : Trust your feelings. Your inner feelings have a way of telling you what's right for you. They are your personal warning system and most trusted advisor, so listen to them.

How to be the person successful companies fight to keep

2009-06-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Insider's Guide to being number one in the workplace
by Connie Podesta and Jean Gatz.

This book is extremely informative. In my opinion, it is very value-added that I can see myself in a very different perspective.

The key to staying successfully employed will depend upon your ability to :

1. Take charge of your personal life
2. Demostrate value added

3. Have a positive impact on your company, customers, and colleagues.

4. Embrace and initiate change

5. Work harder, smarter, faster and better.

6. Communicate openly and directly.

7. Look for leadership opportunities.

8. Commit to lifelong learning

The chapter I like best is actually : Communicate openly and directly.

It seems the one thing that people are communicating about most these days is the need for better communication. Effective and open communication cannot exist without trust. It is necessary because truly open commnication is based on a commitment to say and do what is honest, fair and right - without fear of reprisal.

But if you believe you will stay out of trouble by keeping quiet, you may be mistaken. Most CEOs and managers told us they were frustrated by employees who did not communicate. Listen to what the chief financial officer of a major hospital had to say :

Jason had ceased to be an effective employee. He's so afraid of saying the wrong thing and making someone angry. If he can't communicate to other employees the information they need to do their job, or to our customers about our commitment to service and excellence, then he is no longer of value to us. Being sensitive to the feelings of others is certainly important today, but Jason seems to be overdoing it.

There are 4 styles of face-to-face communication : assertive, passive, aggressive and passive-aggressive. These 4 styles, each in thier own way, affect our ability to communicate openly with others. But assertive communication is the only one of the four that allows us to experience what we like to call "open and trusting" communication. The other 3 all involve some degree of manipulation, avoidance, or form of game-playing which make it difficult to maintain a relationship built on trust.

The passive-aggressive communication style is probably the most difficult one to deal with in a relationship. Passive-aggressive communicators avoid confronting others and steer clear of face-to-face discussions (passive) but they nevertheless want to get their own way or make others suffer (aggressive). And they usually do it behind another person's back. This style of communication is laced with deceit and secretiveness because it is always done undercover. It is usually hurtful and can even be dangerous to a company.

The Power of the Pitch Part 2

2009-06-10T22:42:00.001-07:00

By Gary Hankins

There are 3 parts to a powerful sales pitch.
1. Pitch 1 - The Grabber (Make audience eager to listen)
2. Pitch 2 - The Persuasion Model (structure presentation in a quick and easy manner to buy)
3. Pitch 3 - The Power Close (close deal)

Pitch 1 : The Grabber
The purpose of the grabber is to get your audience's attention and focus them on your topic. There are 4 common mistakes that people make when they begin their presentation. These include apologizing, announcing the topic, making trivial comments and referring to notes.

The author talks about applying the STAR system to grab the attention of the audience

S - Startle
(You can proclaim a line example "$5 million dollars! Thats the size of your oppotunity loss!" )

T - Tell a story or a joke
(Use a case study or example)

A - Ask Questions
(Ask 2-3 questions to create rapport as early as possible)

R - Recite a quote
(The quote might be from the president's comments in the prospect's annual report)

Now you want to go to sales pitch 2. To proceed, you need 1-2 lines to talk about preview of what you going to say and the benefits. The benefit answers the what's-in-it-for-them? (WIIFT) question.

Pitch 2 : The Persuasion Model

Structure your argument in a convincing manner by following the ISB Model.

I = Issue. Begin by discussing your client's objectives. Pain frequently is centered in one or more of the following, example time, money, people etc. Dig deep into the pain. Make the prospect suffer mentally. Get him or her emotionally involved.

Ask the following questions :
a) What will happen if you don't resolve the issues that you have?

b) How much time, money will be lost?
c) Who else will be impacted by the lost time, money or oppotunity?

S = Solution. Provide solution to their issues. Now refer to the picture which will illustrate some of the steps taken. Naming your solution gives it much more validity. List each step and give it a name. By naming each step, you increase the perceived values of your process.

B = Benefit. Complete the sequence by telling the client how they will benefit from your solution. People buy benefits not features. People don't want to know everything you know. The Rule of Three states that people will remember 3 key points not ten or twelve. Identify the 3 most important issues, componenets of your solution, and benefits.

Pitch 3 : The Power Close
Before you conclude your pitch, take a few minutes for any questions the audience may not have previously asked. Q &A comes before conclusion. The purpose of the close is to close the deal. There is no new information. Conclude by using one or combination of STARUS.

S - Startle (repeat the startling statement in Grabber)
T - Tell a story or joke. (another one)
A - Ask for the order. (Example : How does this plan sound?)
R - Recite a quote
U - Urge (Encourage audience to do what you want them to do)
S - Summaize

There are 2 words "thank you" that you do not want to use to close your pitch. Not saying thank you means that you must know the conclusion very well.

The Power of the Pitch Part 1

2009-06-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

Transform yourself into a persuasive presenter and win more business by Gary Hankins

Do you have your own brand? Brand : The perception people have of the experience of having a relationship with you. Don't underestimate the value of perception. In the eyes of the observer, perception is a reality. The observer believes that what he or she sees is real. As Norman Vincent Peale said, "It' is a fact that you project what you are."

The use of having a 360 degree feedback is that the awareness you gain will be invaluable as you continue to grow personally and professionally.

There are 2 important steps to get psyched up.

1. Affirm

2. Visualize

Affirm

Henry Ford said that "Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't , you're right." What negative self talk do you use as you prepare for your pitch? Whatever it is, turn it around and create an affirmation. Make your affirmation brief and in present tense. If you say to yourself, " I hate to give presentations." your affirmation might be, "I enjoy giving presentations". If you've received feedback that you lack passion, your affirmation might be," I am a passionate speaker ." Take a minute and write your affirmation in the space below. Example :

My affirmation : ______________________________________________

Visualize

The second step in being authentic and presenting the real self is to visualize successfully giving the presentation. Athletes use affirmations regularly, and so should we. Jack Nicklaus was a big user of visualizations. He would arrive at golf tournament two days ahead of time. The first day he would walk around the course and take notes about the bunkers, greens and traps, and water hazards. The next day he'd stay in his hotel room, close the curtains, sit down and visualize the entire game : every hole, every shot, every club.

The laws of nonverbal attraction

Nonverbal gestures -> Attraction ->Likeability

Your number one asset is your smile. When you smile at someone, you're saying, "I like you." Smiling is a key element in the Rock Star Attitude. Not only does your smiling have a positive impact on your audience, it can have a positive emotional effect on you.

The power of packaging

Always dress slightly better than the best dressed person in your audience. Implicit in the One-Notch Principle is that you don't dress down, you dress up. If prospects are casually drssed in pants and shirts, one notch means that you might add a blazer to your ensemble.

The One-Notch Principle will prevent you from dressing so far above the level of your audience that there is a disconnect. If you typically wear a business suit and one afternoon you decide to tour one of your plants, construction site etc, consider changing to casual clothes ahead of time.

Unlimited Power

2009-05-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

The New Science of Personal Achievement by Anthony Robbins

I have a very old copy of this book - cover totally unlike the one seen here. I am not going to summarize his personal powers ideas in here. The chapter that I like best is actually Chapter X - Energy : The Fuel of Excellence. It actually talks about the type of food and breathing one should do to improve one's health.

You can change your internal representations all day long, if your biochemistry is messed up, it's going to make the brain create distorted representations. In this chapter, he gives six keys to a powerful, indomitable physiology.

1. The Power of Breath

Breathing controls the way you fully oxygenate the body and thus stimulate the electrical process of each and every cell. You should breathe in this ratio : inhale one count, hold four counts, exhale two counts. Why exhale for twice as long as you inhale? That's when you eliminate toxins via your lymphatic system. Take 10 of these deep breaths 3X a day and you'll experience a dramatic improvement in the level of your health .

2. Eating water-rich foods

When too little fluid is supplied, the blood maintains a higher specific gravity and the poisonous waste products of tissue or cell change are only cast off very imperfectly. The body is therefore, poisoned by its own excretions.

3. Principle of effective food combining

Different types of food require different types of digestive juices, and not all digestive juices are compatible. Starchy foods (rice, bread, potatoes, and so on) require alkaline digestive medium. Protein foods (meat, dairy, nuts, seeds) require an acid medium for digestion.

Based on the law of chemistry, the two contrary mediums (acid and alkali) cannot work at the same time. They neutralize each other. If you eat a protein with a starch, digestion is impaired or completely arrested. Undigested food becomes soil for bacteria, which ferment and decompose it, giving rise to digestive disorders and gas.

4. Law of controlled consumption

Eat less, live more. If you want to eat large quantities of food, you can. Just make sure they're water rich foods. You can eat a whole lot more salad than you can steak and remain vibrant and healthy.

5. Principle of effective fruit consumption

Fruit is the most perfect food. It takes the least amount of energy to digest and gives your body the most in return. You must always eat druit on an empty stomach. The reason is that fruit digests in the small intestine. Fruit is designed to go through the stomach in a few minutes and into the intestines, where it releases its sugars. But if there is meat or potatoes or starch in the stomach, the fruit gets trapped there and begins to ferment.

6. Protein myth

You don't need a high-protein diet to maintain optimum health and well-being. Cut your intake of meat. Make your new maximum one serving of meal per day. You know what Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Volataire, Henry David Thoreau, George Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Dr Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi have in common? They were all vegetarians.

Secrets of Superstar Sales Pros Part 2

2009-05-31T06:15:00.000-07:00

F.G " Buck " Rodgers

Question : What is the core of your belief system, if you had to sum it up in one basic principle?

Rodgers : The thing I stress all the time is that you have to do a thousand things 1% better, not just do one thing 1000% better. It's doing the little things well being on time for meetings, returning phone calls, saying "thank you" to people.

It sounds like a simplistic cliche, but that is the reason one organization or one person is successful and the other person is not. The secret is that everybody knows what they ought to be doing, but the ones who practice daily excellence are the real " difference makers"

With a little extra effort and a positive attitude, the problem goes away.

*************************************************************

Lonnie "Bo" pilgrim

Question : How many hours do you work a day?

Pilgrim : I get up at 5.30 am and I go to bed at 10 pm. Most of the time I am doing something that contributes to the business. I don't believe a successful business can be managed on 40 hours a week. If a manager is not working 60 hours a week, he's not doing his job.

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Mo Siegel

Question : How did you learn to accept disappointments?

Siegel : I am basically religious. The foundation of his faith is not in materialism, it's not faith in people, but faith in God. I believe that people become greater by being more God-like rather than by becoming themselves. I don't believe that the self is everything or that by fulfilling yourself, you can be this great individual.

Secrets of Superstar Sales Pros

2009-05-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

Strategies for success from Zig Ziglar, Mary Kay Ash, John Henry Patterson and the best names in sales

By Gerhard Gschwandtner

Face to face interviews with the masters

Question : I've heard many sales managers express doubts about the value of a motivational seminar.

Ziglar : The charge to motivation is not permanent. How do you respond to that? And I said "Absolutely right!" It is not permanent. Neither is bathing. But if you bathe every day, you're going to smell good. In my seminars, I explain that 15 minutes a day of motivation from a good audio tape or a book can make a tremendous difference in your life and give you a motivational lift every day.

********************************************************************************

Question : Many salespeople have a tough time in this economy. What thoughts can you offer to approach these tough challenges more positively?

Ziglar : A good friend of mine, Calvin Hunt in Victoria, Texas said, " You know, Zig, it's an absolute fact that we are in an economic slump, 50% of all salespeople literally slow down rather than speed up their efforts. They are not motivated to do something. They lose that enthusiasm.

"Now," he continued, "when that happens, it simply means that if business is down 20%, but 50% of the salespeople are not nearly as active, your own personal prospect list is considerably higher than if there was no recession."

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Question : Is it true that some of your salespeople start their workday at 5 o'clock in the morning?

Ash : It's true. You know, if you get up at 5 o'clock three times a week, you'll gain an extra day. You need to try it a few times because you'll realize a great feeling of satisfaction at eight o'clock in the morning when you've already finished what would have taken you six hours to do after eight o'clock because of the interruptions.

Question : What are some success principles that you've developed for yourself in this area?

Ash : Well, one of the most important principles that I ever learned is to write each evening the six most important thing I have to do tomorrow. I also number them in the order of their importance.

Top Money Tips for Malaysians

2009-05-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

I am not a Malaysian. Hence there may be some tips that may not be applicable. Generally, I feel that this book tries to take the idea and concepts from Rich Dad Poor Dad. Nevertheless, it does have its own style.

Money-Making Tip

In Chapter 8, KC Lau explains what he does best- monetizing online to earn a passive income. A Squidoo lensmaster himself, he also showed his readers how anyone can also make some extra income from creating Squidoo ‘lenses’

Whenever you want to know something fast, you type it in the search box of Google, Yahoo!, MSN etc. You look through the search result. If you can't find what you are looking for in the first page, you click "next". If you are still disappointed, you can narrow down your search or ask in a relevant forum and hope to get opinions and replies from other experienced users.

Try answering this question "Do you still remember what you searched for five months ago? " If I would to ask you the same question as you did during your info-hunting, can you point me to the pages that provide the perfect information? It is not likely, because the conclusion you made maybe based on many websites and articles you had spent hours to read and digest.

If you do nothing about the information you gather, you are going to forget about it sooner than you can recall ! The solution is to make a conclusion and make it somewhere on the internet.

There are several ways to do it :
1) Write post on a blog
2) Use social bookmarking site and tag
3) Create pages on website that give you revenue share such as Squidoo.com and HubPages.com

Squidoo (http://www.squidoo.com/) is a website hosting hundreds of thousands of lenses. Each len is one person's vision at something online. Lenses are free. Lenses pay a royalty to you. You don't have to pay anything to use Squidoo. It is an incredibly easy platform that allows you to build a lens, all by yourself, in less than 5 minutes. It lets you mash up your lens page with Youtube video, Amazon products, Google news feed, Flikr photos and many other internet stuff without the knowledge of programming, IT or internet marketing knowledge.

When you are looking for the music created by your idol, you create a lens about his discography with all the album artworks shown in one page, plus your favourite music videos, live concert video clips and interviews. At the same time, you earn royalty and affiliate sales commission just by simply reorganizing the information you are searching for.

There are other platform that's similar to Squidoo :
1. www.hubpages.com
2. www.gather.com
3. www.Apsense.com

This is the one money making tip that I feel that it makes it worthwhile for me to get his book.

Rich Dad's Prophency (2002)

2009-05-17T05:19:00.000-07:00

Rich dad said "Always watch for changes in the law. Every time a law changes, the future changes."

The words "security" and "freedom" were not the same words. The more security you gain, the more freedom you lose. A person who seeks security often gives up control over parts of their lives.

The more control you give up, the less freedom you have. Many people feel insecure about their financial future and their retirement because they have given up most of the control over their financial future.

Build Your Ark

1 Are you willing to take control of your ark?

2. Develop your own financial statement. You can use the format of the game sheet from Cashflow 101.

All that glitters is not gold. Watch which mutual fund, stock, public company or financial advisory service is doing the most advertising. In other words, which one is glittering? I become a little suspicious of mutual fund companies or stock brokerage firms that advertise a lot. Those ads are expensive, costing millions of dollars. Someone has to pay for those ads and that someone is obviously the investor.

Which direction the cash is flowing determines if something is an asset or a liability? Assets cash flow money into the income column.

As captain of your own ark, you too will need to post lookouts on your bow and in the crow's nest.

1. Keep your word

Dr. Fuller said that we are entering the age of integrity. Integrity simply means whole or complete. This means that your thoughts, words and actions need to be the same.

2. Keep an open mind and your ears tuned for change.

Since changes are now invisible, you will have to see more with your mind than your eyes.

3. Learn to read financial statements

If you do not have neat and complete financial statements, are not articulate in explaining your financial position, then the chances are that the only kind of debt you will be granted is bad debt at high interest rates.

4. Use technology

Learn how to use charts and softwares that give individuals the same power to see and search for investments that giant investment firms have.

5. Watch for bigness

There is a saying in the investment world that when someone becomes famous enough for the front cover of a national magazines, their career is over. The moment something or someone becomes too big, they are about to decline and to be replaced by something or someone new.

6. Watch for changes in the laws

Rich dad was forever watching for changes in the laws and the effect the laws had upon on our future.

7. Watch out for inflation

If inflation sets in, anything of questionable value will lose value, while things of value, assets such as real estate, gold, silver and utility stocks, may greatly increase in value.

8. Pay close attention to government's handling of its social programs

Some government policies may not be pushing problems forward onto future generations. If governments begin raising taxes excessively, be prepared for anything, and be prepared to act quickly. Today. money can literally move at the speed of light.

Next with the above 8 concepts in mind, review the 8 possible changes. How can you turn these negatives into business opportunities?

1. Millions will be left destitute in old age.

2. Medical care will get even more expensive.

3. Terrorism will increase.

4. Japan, currently the world's second largest economy is on the brink of financial collapse and depression.

5. China will become the world's largest economy.

6. The world population will continue to age.

7. Wall Street is obsolete.

8. Big corporations are losing the public trust and failing.

By reviewing these items regularly and brainstorming the possibilities for businesss opportunities, your financial awareness will improve dramatically. If you can do it with a group you can challenge each other to set and achieve goals.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

2009-05-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth by T.Harv Eker

According to T.Harv Eker, there are 17 Ways rich people think and act differently from poor and middle-class people. If you wish to know more in details, you should really get the book and read it.

Wealth File #1 :
Rich people believe "I create my life." Poor people believe "life happens to me."

Each time you catch yourself blaming, justifying, or complaining , slide your index finger across your neck as a trigger to remind yourself that you are slitting your financial throat. Do a "debrief." At the end of each day, write down one thing that went well and one thing that didn't. Then write answer to the following "How did I create each of these situations?"

This exercise will keep you accountable for your life and make you aware of the strategies that are working for you and the strategies that are not.

Wealth File #2 : Rich people play the money game to win. Poor people play the money game to not lose.

Poor people play the money game on defense rather than offense. If your goal is to be comfortable, chances are you'll never get rich.

Write down 2 financial objectives, not mediocrity or poverty. Write "play to win" goals for your : Annual Income and Net worth. Make these goals achieveable with a realistic time frame, yet at the same time remember to "shoot for the stars"

Wealth File #3 : Rich people are committed to being rich. Poor people want to be rich.

The number one reason most people don't get what they want is that they don't know what they want. Rich people are totally clear that they want wealth. They are unwavering in their desire. They are fully committed to creating wealth. As long as it is legal, moral and ethical, they will do whatever it takes to have wealth. Rich people do not send mixed messages to the universe. Poor people do.

Wealth File #4 : Rich people think big. Poor people think small.

The Law of Income : You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace. The key word is value It's important to know that 4 factors determine your value in the marketplace : supply, demand, quality and quantity. The factor of quantity often presents the biggest challenge for most people.

How many people do you actually serve or affect? Most people choose to play small. Why? First, because of fear and feel small themselves. Write down or brainstorm with a group of people how you can solve problems for 10X the number of people you affect in your job or business now. Come up with at least 3 different strategies.

Wealth File #5 : Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles.

Life doesn't travel in perfectly straight lines. It moves more like a winding river. The idea is to get in the game with whatever you've got, from whatever you are. I call this entering the corridor. Action always beat inaction. Rich people get started. They trust that once they get in the game, they can make intelligent decisions in the present moment, make corrections and adjust their sails along the way.

Wealth File #6 : Rich people admire other rich and successful people. Poor people resent rich and successful people.

The fact is, resenting the rich is one of the surest ways to stay broke. We are creatures of habit, and to overcome this or any other habit, we need to practice. Instead of resenting rich people, I want you to practice admiring rich people. I want you to practice blessing rich people. I want you to practice loving rich people. "Bless that which you want." -Huna philosophy

Wealth File #7 : Rich people associate with positive successful people. Poor people associate with negative or unsuccessful people.

Rich people are grateful that others have succeeded before them so that they now have a blueprint to follow that will make it easier to attain their own success. Why reinvent the wheel? There are proven methods for success that work for virtually everyone who applies them.

Everything happens for a reson and the reason is there to assist me. It is difficult to be positive and conscious around people and circumstances that are negative, but that's your test! If you can remain true to your values while otherse around you are full of doubt and even condemnation, you'll grow faster and stronger.

Wealth File #8 : Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion.

Rich people are usually leaders, and all great leaders are great promoters.

Wealth File #9 : Rich people are bigger than their problems. Poor people are smaller than their problems.

The secret to success is not to try to avoid or get rid or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than any problem. Rich people don't focus on the problem, they focus on their goal. Rich and successful people are solution-oriented.

Wealth File #10 : Rich people are excellent receivers. Poor people are poor receivers.

For every giver there must be a receiver. For every receiver there must be a giver. How could you give if there weren't someone or something there to receive? Besides, how does it feel to give? Most of us would agree that giving feels wonderful and fulfilling. Conversely, how does it feel when you want to give and the other person isn't willing to receive? Most of us would agree that it feels terrible. So know this : if you are not willing to receive, then you are "ripping off" those who want to give to you.

Wealth File #11 : Rich people choose to get paid based on results. Poor people choose to get paid based on time.

Never have a ceiling on your income.Suppose you are in the pen business and you get an order for 50,000 pens. If this were the case, you'd simply call your supplier, order 50,000 pens, send them off and happily count your profits. If you are a massage therapist and you are fortunate enough to have 50,000 people lined up outside your door all wanting a massage from you. What do you?

Just don't expect to get rich anytime soon unless you create a way to duplicate or leverage yourself.

Wealth File #12 : Rich people think "both." Poor people think "either/or."

Practise thinking and creating ways of having "both." How can I have both?" Become aware that money in circulation adds to everyone's life. Each time you spend money, say to yourself, "This money will go through hundreds of people and create value for all of them." Think of yourself as a role model for others - showing that you can be kind, generous, loving and rich.

Wealth File #13 : Rich people focus on their net worth. Poor people focus on their working income.

The true measure of wealth is net worth, not working income. Net worth is the financial value of everything you own. The four net worth factors are : income, savings, investments, simplification.

Income comes in 2 forms : working income and passive income. All things being equal, the more working income you earn, the more you can save and invest. Passive income is money earned without you actively working.

Once you've begun saving a decent portion of your income, then you can move to the next stage and make your money grow through investing. Generally the better you are at investing, the faster your money will grow and generate a greater net worth.

Simplification means decreasing your cost of living, you increase your savings and the amount of funds available for investing.

Wealth File #14 : Rich people manage their money well. Poor people mismanage their money well.

1. Open a Financial Freedom bank account. Put 10% of income into this account. This money is never to be spent, only invested to produce passive income for your retirement.

2. Create a Financial Freedom jar in your home and deposit money into it every day. It could be $1, $10 etc or all your loose change.

3. Open a play account where you deposit 10% of all your income.

4. Open a 10% long term savings for spending account

5. Open a 10% education account

6. Open a 50% necessities account

7. Open a 10% give account

Wealth File #15 : Rich people have their money work hard for them. Poor people work hard for their money.

There are 2 primary sources of passive income. The first is "money working for you" This includes investment earnings from financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, T-bills, money markets, mutual funds etc. The second source of passive income is "business working for you" It includes setting up any business under the sun or moon that is systemized to work without you. The idea is that the business is working and producing value for people, instead of you.

Rich people buy assets that will likely go up in value. Poor people buy expenses, things that will defintely go down in value. Rich people collect land. Poor people collect bills. Change your focus from "active" income to "passive" income.. List at least 3 specific strategies with which you could create income without working, in either the investment or business field. Don't wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.

Wealth File #16 : Rich people act in spite of fear. Poor people let fear stop them.

Action is the "bridge" between the inner world and the outer world. The biggest mistake most people make is waiting for the feeling of fear to subside or disappear before they are willing to act. These people usually wait forever. If you are willing to do only what's easy, life will be hard. But if you are willing to do what's hard, life will be easy.

Being comfortable makes you feel warm, fuzzy and secure, but it doesn't allow you to grow. To grow as a person you have to expand your comfort zone. The only time you can actually grow is when you are outside your comfort zone. The first time you tried something new is usually uncomfortable. But what happened afterward? The more you did it, the more comfortable it became. Everything is uncomfortable at the beginning, but if you stick with it and continue, you will eventually move through the uncomfort zone and succeed. Then you will have a new, expanded comfort zone, which means you will have become a "bigger" person.

Wealth File #17 : Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.

Poor people are often trying to prove that they're right. One of T.Harv Eker's famous line is "You can be right or you can be rich, but you can't be both." Being "right" means having to hold on to your old ways of thinking and being. The goal of creating wealth is not primarily to have a lot of money, the goal of creating wealth is to help you grow yourself into the best person you can possibly be.

Overview

The essence of transformation is not just about you. It is about the entire world. Our world is nothing more than a reflection of the people who make it up. As each individual raises his or her consciousness, the world raises its consciousness - moving from fear to courage, from hatred to love, and from scarcity to prosperity for all. It is therefore up to each of us to enlighten ourselves so that we add more light to the world.

If you want the world to be a certain way, then start with you being that way. If you want the world to be a better place, start with you being better.

Hungry Heart Wild Striker

2009-05-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

This is a Japanese anime series.

This is shown at the beginning of an anime series and it covers the journey of a wild and talented dark horse, Kanō Kyōsuke, as he tries to realize his full potential and make it big in the world of football. Though I don't understand the lyrics, but it is a strong and vibrant song that you cannot feel unmoved.

In the beginning he had a lot of interest and passion for the game. But as time passed, he lost the initial zeal. He meets a girl, Miki, who rekindles his passion for the game.

Initially joining as the coach of Jyoyō's girl's soccer team, the determination exhibited by the girls, especially Miki, invigorates his passion for soccer, and soon he joins Jyoyō's male soccer team, emerging as their ace striker.

When You Believe - Song by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston

2009-05-07T17:16:00.000-07:00

"Music enhances the experience of life for it has the power to move the deepest depths of our souls." - Kevin Ngo

It can be easy to lose faith and start believing that you're no one special and that the life you've dreamt about is reserved for the lucky and talented. You must realize that you have in you more potential than you think. The people who achieve their dreams are people who put everything into them. They are the ones who failed over and over, yet got back up, dusted themselves off, and kept going. It's this level of determination that got them to where they are today.

The Secret of Chimneys

2009-05-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

By Agatha Christie

The people of Herzoslovakia wish to restore the monarchy and offer the vacant crown to the exiled Prince Michael Obolovitch, a distant relation of the murdered King. The British government are acting as powerbrokers to the restoration in return for which they want oil concessions in the state.

Good-natured drifter Anthony Cade accepts a messenger job from an old friend. That is to deliver the provocative memoirs of a recently deceased European court to a London publisher. But the parcel holds scandelous royal secrets.

This book is a little complicated and kind of boring to me. Nevertheless, the ending of the story is still good. However if you have read Agatha Christie's books like "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", you can more or less guess the real identity of the main character in the story to be a member of the royal family.

Murder on the Orient Express

2009-05-05T02:04:00.001-07:00

By Agatha Christie

This novel is one of Agatha Christie's most popular and must read book. It is so popular that a PC game was made out of it. Actually I feel that the story moves quite slowly, it was only towards the end of the book, I felt emotional when it was revealed how the murder took place.

Travelling on the Orient Express, Poirot is approached by a desperate American named Ratchett. Afraid that someone plans to kill him, Ratchett asks Poirot for help. Sadly the very next day Ratchett's worst fears become reality, when he is found dead in his cabin, a victim of multiple stab wounds.

Ratchett's real identity was found - he was the mastermind behind the brutal kidnapping and murdering of a small baby girl, Daisy Armstrong. Who was it on the train who wanted to kill him? Later Poirot found out that each of the passengers had a direct or indirect relationship to the victim Daisy Armstrong.

As I was reading the book, I was thinking it is quite impossible. How can all these people be on the train at the same time and have this one connection. Luckily Agatha Christie wrapped up the whole story quite nicely.

Jeffrey Gitomer's Sales Bible Part 2

2009-05-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

I'm often asked if there is some secret for consistent sales performance. The answer is simple : Have a great Monday and have a great Friday.

If you're looking for consistency in selling performance, try these steps :

1) Make a sale first thing Monday morning.
Since there are a lot of companies having sales meetings on Monday morning, be as productive as you can with an appointment. If time permits, make calls in the early morning. Lots of decision makers are early risers.

2) Learn something new
Listen to some training or motivational CD instead of same old news or music, try to feed your head with new knowledge that will help you make the first sale. When you learna new idea on the way to an appointment, you can try it out in minutes.

Continue your sales education throughout the week on a regularly scheduled basis is as important to your success as any other aspect of sales.

3) Make at least 5 appointments for the rest of the week

Why not have a Monday full of success and positive anticipation? It is up to you. Pick up the phone and work at it.

4) Work like hell all week- especially on Friday

If you work intensely on Friday, it will ensure success next week and give you a good reason to have a great weekend.

5) Make a sale on Friday afternoon.

Schedule a close for Friday afternoon. There's nothing like ending the week on a positive note.

6) Confirm and solidify your Monday appointment on Friday.

If you worked hard the last four days, you've already set your Monday morning make-a-sale apointment. Call the prospect on Friday and confirm it.

7) Make at least 5 appointments for next week

Why not guarantee yourself a full schedule next week? Spend your weekend relaxing instead of worrying about how few appointments you have. Make this commitment to yourself. I won't leave work on Friday until I have five appointments and I've set my Monday appointment / sale.

8) The secret to a great week is to use Monday as a springboard
The big secret is to trigger it by making a sales call on Monday morning. THe bigger secret is having enough qualified prospects in your pipeline to make your Monday sales possible. Biggest secret : Keep your pipeline full.

Jeffrey Gitomer's Sales Bible Part 1

2009-05-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

I love this book, very easy reading book with cartoons illustrated.

Sales Success Formula .... AHA !
(Attitude - Humour - Action)

This is a combination of elements I have found to be effective for sales achievements. It's simple on the surface and even simpler in practice. Each element contributes to the whole and is vitally linked to the other two. They are useful by themselves, but together they make sales magic.

1) Attitude
Your positive mental attitude is your driving force to success in every endeavour of your life. Each day you wake up to a rededication to being positive, thinking positive and speaking positive. It makes you feel good all the time on the inside, no matter what the circumstances is on the outside.

2) Humour
It is not just being funny. It is how you see things. Humour is a perspective for effective living and a successful career in sales. Making others laugh and feel good in your presence. " You make me laugh" or "You just made my day" That's what humour does. It makes others look forward to talk to you instead of ducking your call. It's medicine. Sales medicine.

3) Action
Walking your talk. Waking up in the morning to a clearly defined set of goals. Having a daily agenda that you're prepared for. Making the last call. Following your own game plan for success. Doing more than anyone else you know. Doing enough to make yourself proud.

What have you done today to make you feel proud? (My own understanding)

The combination of these 3 elements will provide the pathway to your success.

The 25 sales habits of highly successful salespeople

2009-05-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

By Stephan Schiffman

Habit #21 Passing along opportunity when appropriate

"What goes around, comes around"
This is a hard adage for a lot of salespeople to relate to, but it is nevertheless a vitally important point.

Maintaining a can-do attitude where your own efforts are concerned is easy enough. But why on earth should you make an effort to help someone else out, if you don't have to- if there seems to be no logical way for that person to help you out somewhere down the line in your career?

Based on top baseball players' activities, it seems that they pass along those information, facts or tips not because they do not see each other as competitors (they do!) but because they see each other as colleagues- and it is not a bad idea to be known as the type of person who likes to help out a colleague.

Is there a "book" in your league? If so, do you contribute to it? Do you share insights, leads and contacts with others where appropriate, even though you cannot see any immediate benefit in doing so? There are hundreds, probably thousands of stories of strange, off-the-wall referrals generated "though the grapevine" that resulted in sales. To get your share, you'll need to develop a reputation as a person who contributes to that common pool of resources, tips and openings.

Pass along opportunity when you can. It's a wise investment- one I've never heard any salesperson regret making.

I walked the dollar Part 3

2009-05-02T19:13:00.000-07:00

I guess I really like this book so much that I am going to highlight some of the things in Part 3 of this blog. It is a very simple and easy to read book.

Regret will undoubtly creep in at several intervals through your sales career, just remember to use the tools mentioned below to overcome those down points in your life.

1. Staying Forcused

So you'd had a bad day, what can you do to turn this around? One of the things you could do it s to take time out of your day and refocus on YOU for a while. If you can, make arrangements to set any appointments left in the day to the following day but if you can't then you need to work a little harder to gain back your self-confidence level again.

You could go somewhere quiet with a relaxing environment, perhaps somewhere there is soft soothing music to listen tol somewhere you can enjoy a cup of tea. In a calmer environment it is easier to reflect on what has happened during the day that has affected your self-esteem and confidence, where your mind is more at ease you can go through the processes which got you to feeling how you feel. Refocus your thoughts and energy back to what it is you want to achieve in your life.

2. Self affirmations

Once you are in your private quiet zone, you tell yourself all the positive things that you are out loud. As an example say to yourself "I am a winner. My dreams will happen. I will succeed. I can do it!" and you MUST say it out loud and keep repeating it until you feel a surge of positive energy flow through you, don't forget that your mind is a sponge that is always ready to soak up positive things.

3. Leave it to GOD

If all else fails, I find that there is always comfort to be found when you turn to a higher entity. Taking time to talk to God is not only a spiritually uplifting activity to address your problems at hand but also one that will enrich your life on many levels. Don't just share your bad days, share all the good things you've experienced too and be thankful for them.

If you exude positive energy out of the universe and to the higher entity regardless of good or bad days, the universe will respond in a positive way. Sometimes when things just seem so bleak and there doesn't seem to be a way out and you turn your energies towards divine guidance with feelings of gratitude a way will somehow be made for you. Just have faith first and foremost in yourself and never give in to doubt, believe that you deserve to achieve your goals and dreams.

I walked the dollar Part 2

2009-05-02T18:59:00.001-07:00

One of the most important characteristic any salesperson should possess is being respectful. Knowing when to be respectful is another.

If a man be gracious and courterous to strangers it shows he is a citizen of the world - Francis Bacon

The crux of it is that if you carry through on being a respectful individual that same respect will flow back to you and there is no better enforcer of self respect than gaining the respect of others, it will highly enhance on your confidence level and make you a well liked all rounder.

Whenever you embark on anyting in life and you know deep down inside that what you're doing is the right thing to do, then you have to follow your instincts and just do it, because the first voice in your heart that says "Wow this is great, I should do this!" is the real you telling you that you're on the right path, it's the you that is free of doubt and worry, it's the you that takes analytical thought out of the picture.. listen to it and write it out before doubt kicks in and tells you that you'd be wasting your time, and don't just sit on it, do something about it.

I walked the dollar Part 1

2009-04-25T00:36:00.000-07:00

By Dr.Saiful Bahri

To keep himself motivated, the author created a new midddle name ... CASH, because in order to get order I needed to adopt the following attributes :
C = Commitment and Candour
A = Aim and attitude
S = Self Discipline and Strategy
H = Hunger for success and security

To make a salesperson, you will need
1) To believe in yourself
2) To possess a strong will power, energy and desire to succeed
3) To transform
4) To be forcused
5) To be sincere
6) To believe in the product
7) To be a constant student
8) To be patient

In the business world, there is a particular technique strategists use within companies to determine an action plan in order to overcome certain road bumps that they may come across along the path to progress. This technique is called a S.W.O.T analsyis and the basic principles of this is to determine the company's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Once all the characteristics have been outlined can strategists devise the best route to overcome or enhance on those strengths and weaknesses.

The Book of Luck

2009-04-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

By Heather Summers and Anne Watson

Are some people just born lucky? The answer is no, people control their own fortunes. There are seven luck indicators in life.

1. Control-ability

2. Stick-ability

3. Risk-ability

4. Sense-ability

5. Socia-ability

6. Percept-ability
7. Person-ability

Control-ability
This is about choosing and flexing our responses to events and any situation that arises, no matter how difficult it may be. Situation + Response = Consequence

When you take responsibility for your life and your luck, you know that you will reap what you sow. Whatever happens to you, you will see it as a consequence of your own actions and thoughts.

Stick-ability

It is about perseverance, tenancity and following things through - even when the odds are against you. It is about finishing off what you start. Lucky people are people who don't give up. All seven indicators of luck work together, but perhaps only stick-ability needs to be supported by one or more of the other indicators if you are to considered lucky or successful.

Many people work very hard, and stick at something long after others give up, but are not successful because they have not got the self-awareness of high Percept-Ability. Alternatively, they perhaps have low risk-ability and are not open to the ideas and views of others- they work in a vacuum.

Risk-ability

This is the confidence to take a chance rather than plumping for the safe bet, as well as having an open mindset and a willingness to explore and experiment with new ways of thinking and doing things. Your luck will change if you allow new ways of thinking and behaving to come into your life. In order for that to happen, you have to open your mind to new possibilities.

Quiz : Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four of them decide to jump in. How many are left on the log?

Answer : It could be one,two,three, four or five because there is another step after 'decision' called 'action'. Four of them decided to jump off but we don't know if they did it or not.

Sense-ability
This is the skill of using all our senses and feelings to heighten our awareness of lucky opportunities. It includes using our emotional intelligence, gut feel and intuition. It recognises the value of coincidence.

When we are stressed, we don't take in information as readily as we do when we are relaxed. Nor can we express ourselves as well; somehow our channels of communication become blocked. Learn to listen to your body. Learn to listen to your gut feel. Luck from the past creates luck in the future.

Socia-ability
This is the talent to relate easily to other people in a wide variety of contexts. It includes being comfortable with striking up conversations with people we don't know, being proactive about keeping up with the people we don't know and generally going out of our way to the network.

Lucky people with high levels of Socia-ability know people from all walks of life. They are at ease in all social situations and know how to behave appropriately. They recognize the social or networking events they want to go to and maximise the value they get out of them.

Percept-ability
This is all about how we look at life, events, ourselves and others. Do we have good expectations? Do we always see the positive side of negative events or people? Buy a notebook and give it a name - you could call it your 'Life's going my way' Journal. At the end of every day, jot down at least one thing you are pleased about , something that has gone well or a positive experience.

Read previous entries in your 'Life's going my way' Journal before going to bed so that your mind has positive things to dwell on before going to sleep.

Person-ability
This is about knowing ourselves well enough to recognise what works well for us and what can work against us. Life will never go your way if on top of all those other qualities that contribute to luck, you lack the sense of who you are and what naturally works in your favour and what naturally holds you back.

Person-ability is the luck indicator that supports all the others particularly well. It would be possible, for example to have high stick-ability and carry on doing something that we just don't have the intelligence or flair for, and then wonder why it turns out to be a waste of time.

When faced with a problem, sit on your own in a room where you won't be disturbed by the telephone or people. No distractions in the form of food or music are allowed. All you are allowed to do is change where you are sitting and change your posture, as this will give you a different perspective. Now empty your mind and aim to think of nothing. This will be like snow shaker where the snow eventually settles and the scene is revealed in total clarity - the same applies to our minds.

Brian Tracy : All skills are learnable

2009-04-14T22:39:00.004-07:00

Don't Worry, Make Money Part 2

2009-04-14T22:39:00.003-07:00

By Richard Carlson

Just Do It

In every instance, the less talented players accurately explained their form and strategy. The better the player, the less able they were to describe how they did what they do so well.

In one way or another, the top players all said the same thing : We just do it. It didn't seem to come from arrogance or from a lack of intelligence, but from the perspective that too much thought about how you are going to do something interferes with actually going out and doing it.

The top players in the world all shared the belief that the best way to do something is to just go out and do it.

Don't Worry, Make Money Part 1

2009-04-14T22:39:00.002-07:00

By Richard Carlson

Sell the Sizzle, Not the steak

In any business, it is critical to know what you're actually selling. If you're selling a house, for example, you're obviously not selling wood, brick or concrete.

Instead, you're tapping into a person's dream - his or her perception of how they are going to feel and live once they get into the home.

The analogy of selling the sizzle instead of the steak can be extended to many other types of businesses. I have to admit that, often, I've made my decision on which hotel to stay at based solely on the fact that they have an indoor pool and room service. Rarely, however do I actually take advantage of these luxuries. The point is, we enter the place not because of any rational thinking but because we, like most people, are influenced by our thoughts and dreams.

It's important to know that people love to dream. So if you want to sell something, be sure you know what the dreams are. Factor this knowledge into whatever it is you are selling - product or service - and you' ll be amazed at how much more effective you will become.

Yi Ben Wan Li

2009-04-14T22:39:00.001-07:00

Cards on the Table

2009-04-14T22:39:00.000-07:00

By Agatha Christie

The famous detective Hercule Poirot meets Mr Shaitana. The mysterious Mr Shaitana claims that he collects items of interest that are to Mr Poirot - the collection of murderers. He invites Mr Poirot to a party.

4 guests - Doctor Roberts, elderly woman Mrs Lorrimer, tall and adverturous Mrjor John Despard and pretty young woman Miss Anne Meredith. At dinner, Mr Shaitana mentioned that poison was a woman's weapon and about a doctor's opportunities. These comments certainly made his guests uncomfortable.

Later Mr Shaitana was found murdered in his own house. Which one of the guest is the murderer?

It is quite interesting to note of the way Agatha Christie brings up each of the guest's past and the likelihood of murder in their lives. There are quite a few surprises. When everyone start to think that Ms Anne Meredith is the murderer of Mr Shaitana, another surprise rise up and it was revealed that the real murderer was the initial suspect all along.

Brian Tracy - Increase your income 1000%

2009-04-06T03:16:00.000-07:00

The Pale Horse

2009-03-28T09:38:00.000-07:00

by Agatha Christie

A dying woman, Mrs Davis, gives her last confession to an elderly priest, Father Gorman. Along with her confession, she gives him a list of names and a terrible secret. Before he can take action, he was murdered.

Mark Easterbrook, the hero of the book and its principle narrator learns of an old inn called The Pale Horse, inhibited by three modern witches. Behind the appearance of witchcraft playing on people's psychology, the actual answer to the natural death of those people being bet to died on lies in the simple answer of thallium poisoning.

This novel is notable amongst Christie's books as it is credited with having saved at least 2 lives after readers recognised the symptoms of thallium poisoning from its description in the book.

Thallium is a soft, malleable gray metal that was previously widely used in rat poisons and insecticides. In the first 48 hours after serious thallium exposure, the affected individual will usually experience nausea, vomitting and diarrhoea. Within a few days, symptoms of nervous system damage become apparent. These symptoms can include pain, loss of reflexes, convulsions, muscle wasting, headaches, numbness, dementia, psychosis and even coma. After 2-3 weeks, characteristic changes are seen in the bases of hair shalfs, and there is hair loss. Finally after around 3 weeks post-exposure, heart rhythm disturbances may occur.
Thallium poisoning can be treated.

From this novel, it tells that murder can be very simple and clean, which is quite scary.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

2009-03-26T02:25:00.000-07:00

By Agatha Christie

The main reason why I read this book is because it is highly recommended over at Agatha Christie's website that it is one of the best known and most controversial novels.

After reading it , hmm... I do not really feel that the story is very outstanding. But more like a case that the writer cheated her readers. For those of you who have not heard about it, I will let you find out by reading the book. It is indeed a shock.

In the fictional village of King's Abbott in England, it is narrated by Dr James Sheppard, who becomes Detective Poirot's assistant (a role filled by Captain Hastings in several other Poirot novels) . The story began with the death of Mrs Ferrars, a wealthy widow who is rumoured to have murdered her husband. Her death is initially believed to be suicide until her secret lover Roger Ackroyd, was found stabbed in his study.

The initial suspect is Ralph Paton, Ackroyd's stepson, who is engaged to Flora Ackroyd and stands to inherit his stepfather's fortune. Anyway, while reading, sometimes I feel that certain parts are rather confusing. The book however ends with a then-unprecedented plot twist....

Video - Brian Tracy : What is Creativity?

2009-03-25T03:54:00.000-07:00

Whose Cheese can I move?

2009-03-25T01:08:00.000-07:00

By Chen Tong

Whose Cheese Can I Move? is a short but insightful story about six main characters who reside in two sections of the maze named Cheesetown and Brie Country respectively.

Power struggles break out as cheese consumes the hearts and minds of the once-peaceable residents, and betrayals results.

Successful people are those who keep moving the cheese of the unsuccessful. Unsuccessful people always get their cheese moved. Protect your cheese from being moved, tell them not to move it, but be prepared for the opportunity to move someone else's cheese.

The world's supply of cheese may be infinite, but do you want to invest your finite lifetime in an infinite search for cheese?

I chose to live life, and my life, and all that is wonderful in it, has become my cheese. I'm not afraid that my cheese will be moved because my cheese is my ideas and thoughts. Ideas and thoughts can be copied and multipled, so no one is able to, or will want to, take them away.

But many of us choose desires, thus our cheese is the fulfilment of these desires. The more cheese there is, the more we desire. But such desires are contradictory by nature, and the different cheeses are mutually exclusive. You can only have one or the other, but not both. And in pursuing our cheese, we often have to protect our cheese from being moved by others.

The Master-Key to Riches

2009-03-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

By Napoleon Hill

The Revealing Story of Edward Choate

At the outset of his career as a life insurance salesman, Edward Choate made a modest living from his efforts but he broke no records in that field. Through an unfortunate business venture, he lost all of his money and found himself at the bottom of the ladder and was forced to make a new start.

Through his meditations he became a student of the philosophy of individual achievement. When Mr Choate reached the lesson on going the extra mile he was awakened by a keen sense of understanding he had never before experienced, and he recognised that the loss of material riches may lead one to the source of greater riches, consisting of one's spiritual forces.

For the time being he ceased to think about the amount of life insurance he might sell, and began to look around for opportunities to be of service to others who were burdened with problems they could not solve.

His first opportunity came when he discovered a young man out in the deserts of California who had failed in a mining venture and was facing starvation. He took the young man into his home, fed him, encouraged him and kept him in his home until he found a good position for him.

In thus casting himself for the role of the good Samaritan, Mr Choate had no thought of pecuniary gain, for it was obvious that a poverty-stricken, broken-spirited boy might never become a prospective purchaser of life insurance.

Then other opportunities to help the less fortunate began to reveal themselves so rapidly that it seemed as if Mr Choate had made of himself a magnet which attracted only those with difficult problems to be solved.

But the appearance was deceiving, for he was only passing through a testing period by which he might demonstrate his sincerity of purpose in helping others. A period, let us not forget, which everyone who applies the principle of going the extra mile must experience in one way or another.

Then the scene shifted, and the affairs of Edward Choate began to take a turn he probably had not expected. His life insurance sales began to mount higher and higher, until at last they had reached an all-time high level. And miracle of miracles, one of the largest policies he had ever written up to that time was sold to the employer of the young man of the desert whom he had befriended. The sale was made without Mr. Choate's solicitation.

Other sales begain to come his way in the same manner, until he was actually selling more insurance, wihtout any strenuous effort, than he had ever sold previously by the hardest kind of labour.

Moreover, he had tapped a field of life insurance salesmanship in which the policies he sold were of large amounts. Men of great responsibilities and extensive financial affairs begain to send for him to counsel them in connection with their life insurance problems.

His business grew until it brought him that goal which is so greatly coveted by all life insurance men - Life membership in the Million Dollar Round Table. Such a distinction is attained only by those who sell a minimum of a million dollars a year in insurance for three consecutive years.

So, in seeking spiritual riches Edward Choate also found material riches ; found them in greater abundance than he had ever anticipated. He revealed the humility of heart by which he is inspired, frankly admitting that his achievements were the result of the application of the philosophy of others.

For it its obvious to all who think accurately that no man ever attains a high degree of enduring success without the friendly co-operation of others; nor does any man ever attain enduring success without helping others.

Keeping the Funnel Full

2009-03-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

The Definitive Authority on Solution Selling

By Don Thomson

The funnel approach is powerful because it shows at a glance the status of all your prospects and where they are in the sales cycle.

There are many sources of prospects, but the most productive are often well-planned seminars. Don Thomson also talks about 6 Step Prospecting Process. This 6-step prospecting process assists sales professionals in planning and executing that first important prospecting call. Prospecting begins by obtaining the interview.

Step 1 : Obtaining the first appointment

> Phone Call, Voice Mail or Email

Everyone has a preferred method of communication. Determine what it is for each of your prospects by asking them. One client asked not to be contacted by email, as he gets so many that he can't possibly read them all.

It is a mistake to save time by qualifying leads on the phone. Use the phone only to obtain the appointment. Do your qualifying face to face.

Top sales professionals will research a company or a person first before they make the phone call. Constantly scan newspapers, appropriate magaines, and other publications, watching for articles about prospective customers.

You need to empower the screening source. Write 1-2 short paragraphs stating the objective of the meeting. Include one valid reason why the Senior Executive would wish to meet with you.

Step 2 : Preparing the call

One way to get proficient at making prospecting calls is to pick a prospecting day 2-3 times a month, and make calls those days. The more calls you make, the more proficient you will become and the more you will enjoy making them.

Step 3 : Qualifying face to face

All prospecting calls have the same objective : To verify if company or individual A is a good fit and would benefit from your product.

Step 4 : Handling the Good Fit

A fit occurs when the lead passes the new prospect criteria.

Step 5 : Handling the Bad Fit

If the lead does not pass your new prospec criteria, lose early. A bit fit can take an inexhaustible amount of your time.

Step 6 : Reviewing the call

Complete a call report as soon as you leave the interview because recall of the points discussed will decrease exponentially with time.

Problem at Pollensa Bay

2009-03-01T01:21:00.000-08:00

By Agatha Christie

At first glance, the book I got was not of this yellowish cover. It was a green one with a buoy, the title - "Problem at Pollensa Bay". This was being kind of misleading as I did not know that the book is a compilation of a few short stories.

My own favourite is "The Harlequin Tea Set" .

A windower and a widow with their children from a previous marriage had 2 boys identity switched. The first boy, Roland, is supposedly to be Tom Addison's grandson. The second boy Timothy is supposedly to be the widow's son.

Detective and old family friend Mr Satterthwaite found himself affectionately looking upon Timothy as Tom Addison's grandson. It is only when the widow tried to poison Timothy that the family found out about the switch in identity as Timothy suffered from Daltonism (colour blind) similar to his grandfather Tom Addison.

"Greed, I supose," said Mr Satterthwaite. 'She hadn't any money of her own, I believe. Her husband Christopher Eden, was a nice clap by all accounts but he hadn't anything in the way of means. But Tom Addison's grandchild had got big money coming to him. A lot of money. Property all around here has appreciated enormously. I've no doubt that Tom Addison will leave the bulk of what he has to his grandson. She wanted it for her own son and through her own son, of course, for herself. She is a greedy woman.'

The Body in the Library

2009-02-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

By Agatha Christie

The significance is that people kills for money. A body of a beautiful stranger had been discovered sprawled in Colonel Bantry's library.

This stranger is linked to the Jefferson which is a rich family. Conway Jefferson is a rich, elderly wheelchair-bound man who lost his legs in a plane crash that also claimed the lives of his wife, son and daughter. He had only his son-in-law Mark Gaskell and his daughter-in-law Adelaide Jefferson and Peter Carmody, Adelaide's 9 year old son from an earlier marriage.

"Since the body wasn't the body of Ruby Keene, it must be the body of someone else. Of whom? Of the other girl who was also missing. Pamela Reeves ! Ruby was eighteen. Pamela sixteen. They were both healthy, rather immature. but muscular girls. But why, I asked myself all this hocus-pocus? There could only be one reason - to give certain persons an alibi.

Ordeal By Innocence

2009-02-26T21:23:00.000-08:00

Ordeal by Innocence is noted as one of Agatha Christies darkest works. with a strong focus on the psychology of innocence.

While serving a sentence for killing his foster mother - a crime he insisted he didn't commit - Jacko Argyle dies in prison. Two years later, the man who could have supported Jacko's alibi suddenly turns up, and the family must come to terms with the fact not only that suspicion falls upon each of them, but that one of them is the real murderer.

Christie's focus in this novel is upon the psychology of innocence, as the family members struggle with their suspicions of one another.

Ultimately it is revealed that the murderer was indeed acting under the influence of Jacko Argyle, and that the failure of his (carefully planned) alibi was, in hindsight, an ironic stroke of fate.

Anyway this novel does shows the treatment of adopted children. Though the victim may have been a very doting mother to all the children, it is nevertheless not your own blood. You never know what type of parents they originally have. A person may not did the act of murder himself, however he can instigate another to do it.

Postern of Fate

2009-02-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

Postern of Fate features Agatha Christie's detectives, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford and is the detective's last appearance. It is the final novel Christie ever wrote but it is not the last to be published.

Agatha Christie passed away in 1976. This final novel was published in 1973. After reading it, I was a little disappointed as I feel that it is not really up to the author's standard as compared to the rest of the books she had written.

A code message in a children's book puts the detectives on to the murder of a lady suspected to be a secret agent. Agatha Christie wrote her first novel towards the end of WWI, where she was a VAD. Based on those type of settings, and in her final days, she may have been thinking a lot about the past as in secret agents, traitors and commanders when she penned this novel.

As for the ending, I don't really think of it as a mystery. It is just a collection of past.

According to The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English, this novel is one of the "execrable last novels" where Christie "loses her grip altogether"

Sparkling Cyanide

2009-02-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

by Agatha Christie

It's been less than a year since beautiful heiress Rosemary Barton took her own life during a birthday dinner in her honor. Her husband George never believed that his fun-loving wife would commit suicide--especially now that he's received two anonymous letters that suggest cold-blooded murder. One implicates even George himself. It's true he long suffered Rosemary's infidelities.

The intended victim was supposed to be the new heiress Iris, however George subsequently became the accidental victim. Nobody ever imagine the black sheep of the family who was sent away is the mastermind of the whole event. It was plotted that upon the new heiress's death, her fortune will go to an unsuspecting aunt, who happens to be a doting mum to the black sheep.

So this novel tells that for unsolved mysteries like that, it may be good to follow the money trail for clues of the murderer's identity.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

2009-02-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

By Agatha Christie

An aging heiress, fatally poisoned; the door to her room locked from the inside, the charred remains of a will in her fireplace are some of the ingredients in this absorbing tale of murder, jealousy and greed.

Agatha Christie's classic introduces Hercule Poirot, the brilliant and amazing Belgian detective.

After reading this novel, it shows that reality may be the opposite of what it seems. Two person who may be appeared logged headed at each other, may very well be putting up a show to disguise their conspiracy to murder. Two person who appeared to dislike each other very much may very well be in loved without their knowing.

"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" was the first novel by Agatha Christie. It was written towards the end of the First World War, in which she served as a VAD. (Voluntary Aid Detachment) In it, she created Hercule Poirot, the little Belgian detective who was destined to become the most popular detective in a crime friction since Sherlock Holmes.

100 Ways to motivate yourself

2009-02-12T17:28:00.000-08:00

By Steve Chandler

Tip 6 : Simplify your life.

It is hard to be aggressive when you are confused. One of the benefits of creatively planning your life is that it allows you to simplify. You can weed out, delegate and eliminate all activities that don't contribute to your projected goals.

Another effective way to simplify your life is to combine your tasks. Combining allows you to achieve 2 or more objectives at once. An aggressive orientation to the day - making each day simpler and stronger than the day - allows you to look at all of these tasks and small goals and ask yourself "What can I combine?"

Make a list of absolutely every small task that has to be done, say over the weekend, and then do them all at once in one exciting focused action.

Tip 9 : Build a track record
It is not what we do that makes us tired - it is what we don't do. The tasks we don't complete cause the most fatigue. The best way to change your belief system is to change the truth about you. We believe the truth faster than we believe false affirmations. To believe that you are a good finisher, you must begin by building a track record of finished tasks.

Stop worrying about what you think of yourself and start building a track record that proves that you can motivate yourself to do whatever you want to do.

Tip 11 : Find your master key
The great master key to riches is nothing more or less than the self discipline necessary to help you take full and complete possession of your own mind. Remember, it is profoundly significant that the only thing over which you have complete control is your own mental attitude.

Perfect Selling Part 2

2009-01-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

First step : Connect

Connecting is the first step of the call. It requires 4 actions for you to do.

Action 1 : Greet / High-Mileage Rapport

Action 2 : Summary of Events / Leverage Preparation

Action 3 : Dual Purpose and Check

Action 4 : Transition to Needs

Action 1

Greet / High-Mileage Rapport

Rapport is a part of human relationship. The most important thing about rapport is that it has to feel authentic and genuine. There are 2 types of rapport - personal and business rapport.

One of the best ways to build rapport is to ask a rapport question or make a statement that invites a response. Ask questions relating to the client. Business rapport can be anything related to a business topic that is not directly connected to the objective of your call. Topics could be an article in the press which may relates to the customer.

Rapport can extend beyond words and gestures to actions, whether it is a tennis game with a customer, dinner or tickets to a show. Actions speak louder than words. So demonstrate your interest in your customer to strength rapport with things like sending a birthday card or find ways to do things you don't get paid for. Don't be too eager to cut rapport short.

Action 2
Summary of Events/Leverage Preparation

Tbe transition out of rapport is easy. Summarize the events that led to a meeting. Once you have summarized how you got there, immediately describe what you did to prepare. By positioning your preparation, you earn points and respect from your customers and you may even earn more time.

Action 3

Dual Purpose and Check

You must state the purpose of your call to clarify why you make the call and to make sure you and your customer are on the same page. The call has 2 purposes :

1) You are customer focused - you are there to learn more about your customer's needs

2) Clarify reason for meeting with potential benefits to the customer

Rather than describing your purpose with a comment such as "I'm here to discuss our product ... say something like, I'm here to learn more about your objectivies. Your words tell whether you are product-focused or customer-focused. Use your words to venture on a probing path to learn more about your customer.

Once you clarified your purpose, immediately ask for feedback to make sure you are meeting your customer's expectiations for the call and to identify any other areas that the customer cares about that should be included. When you ask for feedback, you learn how in sync you are with your customer's objectives and you get buy-in, which increases their receptivity. Sometimes, it is also necessary to credentialize your organization and/or yourself.

Action 4
Transition to Needs

To transition out of opening, you have to ask a few questions - priorities.

If you show you are prepared and interested to learn about the customer's needs, the number of customers who will refuse to talk about them will be few and far between.

How does this sound? How does that match up with what you are thinking?

Most customers are unable to resist giving their view.

Perfect Selling Part 1

2009-01-11T18:37:00.000-08:00

By Linda Richardson

According to Richardson, there are 5 steps for sales coaching for yourself.
The 5 Steps are :

1) Connect
2) Explore
3) Leverage
4) Resolve
5) Act

The important thing is how expertly you execute them. Within each step, there are a few specific actions for you to accomplish - not every time but most of the time. The actions are really a discipline.

Try a 5 day program - one step each day (or week). When you focus on one step at a time before moving on to the next, you will go from understanding to doing, and experience the exponential power of incremental, one-step-at-a-time growth. Once you have got that step, apply it in several calls. You will know when it is time to move to the next step, based on debriefing the day.

Office Wit and Wisdom

2009-01-08T20:40:00.000-08:00

By Tracey Turner

This book is written in a very witty and cute manner. Some areas you need to know that an interview is also there for you to make up your mind about the company.

The author writes about 15 office type that you can identify in the office :

1) The Thruster
Scarily ambitious and confident, the Thruster would cheerfully kick away his own grandmother's Zimmer Frame if he thought he could use it to climb up the corporate ladder.

Many Thrusters give the impression that they are caring and friendly people. Do not be fooled : they don't care whether you live or die, and if they are being nice to you it'll only be because they think you might be useful to them in some way. A majority of senior management is made up of Thrusters.

2) Insane Office Managers
Generally speaking, the lower doen the hierarchy the office manager is, the nicer and more reasonable she will be. But the higher up the scale, the more bonkers.

3) The Late Worker
This common office type stays at the office long after the end of the working day. Late Workers want to succeed in the world of office politics but usually they get the reputation of a lazy slacker who eats a lot of take-aways.

4) The Gossip
If you are starting a new job, beware of anyone who seems very friendly and asks a lot of personal questions : your sexual history will become general knowledge within hours.

5) Mr (or Ms) Whiffy
There is nearly always someone in the office who does something physically repulsive but occasionally you find an extreme case who always smell musty (at best), wears a limited wardrobe of stained clothing and has a wide variety of disguisting habits.

6) The Shameless Brown-Noser
Brown-Nosers look up to THrusters with admiration and awe, however they ususally manage to achieve with their obvious cringe-making toadying is the dislike of their colleagues.

7) The Loon
Loons are properly mad. Many of them seem quite normal at first when he or she started at the company : it could be that office life has driven them insane. Some disturbing behaviours include : stalking colleagues, throw regular 'temper tantrums' involving stamping feet and shouting, spread bizarre and obviously made-up rumours etc.

8) The Whooper
Whoopers are overly enthusiastic employees who whoop like chimps when they hear of high company performance levels, see the latest company product etc. They might also be keen high-fivers. Whoppers might often be Thrusters or Tigers

9) The Joker
Most offices have an official Joker who is characterized by being deeply unfunny. He or she will be responsible for forwarding "humourous" emails around the company.

10) The Tiger
Tigers are managers who have obviously read too much self-help style management books and can't stop sprouting motivational nonsense. Unfortunately, they are incapable of making it sound onvincing.

11) The Complainer
These people rarely open their mouths without whining and cast a deathly pall of depression wherever they go.

12) The Home Maker
A few office workers over-compensate by making thier office space into a home-from-home.

13) The Crisis Monkey
Some people have a poorly developed sense of proportion and see anything as hugely important.A minor problem for anyone else is a huge crisis for Crisis Monkey.

14) The Champion Slacker
They are idlers who manage to spend more time slacking than working. They can be subdivided into 2 types : those who admit thier appalling behaviour to colleagues and dont care much if they get sacked. The other type is pretend to work hard not realizing their idleness is plain to all and deeply irritating to those who have to deal with the effects of their feckless behaviour.

15) The Management Speaker

Unleash your creativity

2009-01-03T22:05:00.000-08:00

By Rob Bevan and Tim Wright

In this book, they give 52 brilliant ideas to change your life.

Ideas include :

#4 : Be organized

Create a to-do list -proritize tasks, break down big tasks into small and more achieveable ones, make a new list every day.

#5 Create arbitrary rules

The simplest way to impose a constraint on your creativity is to give yourself a deadline. Sometimes by applying your own illogical constraints, you can quickly discover creative ways of bending the rules imposed on you by other people.

#7 Restrict your choices to broaden your possibilities

Every now and then, try to immerse yourself in creative exercises that use only one color, palette, font or sound.

#9 Make more mistakes faster

#11 Look at things another way

The way of the dog - in a nutshell

2008-12-29T21:19:00.000-08:00

1. Position

Asking questions is the best way to find both their position and your position. Don't even think of starting the journey until you know the position.

Tip - talk about the past

Try - who did this for you, when did you decide, how is this done, what were you spending?

2. Lift

The only time the pressure should be raised is when we start them moving. Change is usually resisted. Take and keep control. Propose action, give no choice. Choices - tomorrow or the day after?

3. The obstacles

Find all the obstacles and remove them. Become their partner, see the obstacles as their concerns, work together to reassure and remove these concerns.

4. The pen

Get someone in a position of power to help open the gates for you. Realize that you have done all that work and don't waste it by giving up at the gate of the pen. They may be very interested, but you will have to guide them in.

5. Looking after your flock

Keep them happy by congraulating them on their choices. Don't let others damage what you have worked for.

The way of the Dog by Geoff Burch

2008-12-29T20:45:00.000-08:00

Why a dog? A dog has only two states of thought, which are happy, and waiting to be happy. When it has a task to do, it sees the beginning and the end.

It doesn't become anxious or depressed at the size of the job, but just undertakes it and deals with obstacles as they come. It always succeeds.

Geoff Burch taps into the core of great personal development writing in The Way of the Dog. He focuses on the two big questions - what do you want to do with your life and how do you do it?

By following the way of the dog, each obstacle in your path is dealt with unfailingly, one at a time.

1. When people ask you for a hot drink. Say Thank you so much, but I just had one. Then set your own time to perfection.

2. Make sure people feel welcomed and expected on their first day of work. Put them with your best employee, not your worst. Bad habits are just as easy to learn as good ones.

3. If your environment is "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going" Work hard,play hard. The fittest survive. I have worked in places like this - it doesn't motivate, it discourages.

4. Make it completely clear what job you expect people to do. If they fail, don't punish. Instead, break the job down into easy stages that they can master, and as they achieve each stage, reward them. This way, people will always feel motivated and that they are achieving something. There is nothing more depressing than a job you don't understand.

5. If you want sheep, don't waste your time herding goats. Qualify your customers. Question them of course, but this may be misleading. People don't like to admit that they are goats, so look for clues and ask indirect questions.

6. In all sizes and types of sales, it is important to use positional questions - People don't feel threatened when talking abou the past. Until you can see where they are, you won't be able to tell where they are going.

7. Finding and keeping customers is the only activity that generates money, everything else generates cost.

8. You could be as high pressure as the slaughterhouse dogs but, like them, don't ever expect to see your customers again, ever.

9. If you rush your customers, they will run away.

10. Before we even think of approaching people, just take a few moments to decide what exactly you want to achieve, and where you would like them to be when you have finished.

11. When you have to apologize or deal with a complaint, say that you are sorry and accept full responsibility, no matter whose fault you might think it was. That way three things happen :

a) the customer accepts what you say

b) they respect you

3) they understand

12. Have a clear view of the whole job, warts, obstacles, distance and all. Most of all, don't fool yourself.

13. However friendly the exchange,if no miserable progress was made, it was still a failure.

14. Have fun.

15. When you are involved with people, family, friends and customers, give 100% of your attention. Be there for them.

16. When things look as though they are going well, stay cool. If you push, you could blow it. If you back off too much, you can also blow it. Be attuned to the panic emotion of the other party.

17. Listen to customers' concerns. If circumstances were different, there would be a way.

18. If you see a solution to problems, don't be too eager to blurt it out. Build the problem to value the solution and then get commitment to move forward before solving the problem.

19. Even when your customer has agreed to do business with you, you should praise and congratulate them. It makes them feel good and wish to repeat the experience over and over again.

20. Being good to the people we make our money out of should not cause a conflic.

21. If you run a small business, the obstacles between you and those valuable customers are daunting. But seeing them is half the battle, knocking them down one at a time is the other half. And no, you can't have easier targets.

22. Put off the vital action

23. You don't have to be pals outside work to pull together as a great team. Separate people from the problem.

24. Everybody likes to be asked for help. If you are young and inexperienced, don't ever pretend that you aren't. The tough, old hard-bitten veteran, more often than not, will come to your side if you respect their ability to help and advise. Don't be afraid to ask.

25. Always know where you are, how much you have done, and how much you need to do.

26. A real favourite : even when all is lost and you are being carried to the car park by security, look over your shoulder and cry, "I would love to do business with you, please tell me what I need to do" You will often be told and then it is up to you what happens next.

27. Another classic for dealing with conerns : instead of answering the question " No it is too dear", try this : I can understand your concerns but to clear things up in my mind, what exactly do you mean, too dear? " When they explain, you will have a solution.

28. During the journey, write down all things the other party liked. When the end is in sight, list all the things that they liked, get them to agree that they liked those things, and then propose the action.

Fish! Sticks : A Remarkable Way to adapt to changing times and keep your work fresh

2008-12-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

By Stephen C.Ludin, John Christensen, Harry Paul

Effecting change in an organization is a piece of cake - compared to the real challenge of getting it to stick. In order to have sustainable change, there is a need to replace the dependency on external energy with a more natural energy. You can only rely on external energy in the beginning.

FIND IT

The most basic ingredient of any vision is the individual IT. IT is our personalization of the vision. Vision-sustaining energy is released as we seek to find out IT through conversation.

LIVE IT

Once we are clear about our IT, opportunities to Live IT are more obvious. We call these opportunities vision moments. Vision-sustaining energy builds as we live as many vision moments as we can.

COACH IT

Coaching is a gift we give to each other and to our vision to keep IT strong. Whether it's about the way we do our work or the way we work together, the feedback needs to flow in all directions. Coaching can't be an ego trip. We only do it for the vision. We Coach IT.

We have discovered that the secret to keeping our vision alive in today's challenging work environment is for each of us to commit to Finding our IT inside the vision, to Living IT, and to Coaching IT.

Many people talk about the importance of commitment, but commitment remains an abstraction until we take action. We demonstrate our commitment by taking the following actions :
FIND IT, LIVE IT, COACH IT.

Rich Dad's The Business School Part 2

2008-12-26T21:37:00.000-08:00

When I decide to learn something new, for example investing in real estate, I still allow myself 5 years to learn the process. When I wanted to learn how to invest in stocks, I again gave myself 5 years to learn the process. Many people invest once, lose a few dollars, and then quit. They quit after their first thing, which is why they fail to learn.

My rich dad would say " A true winner knows that losing is part of the process of winning. It is only the losers of life who think that winners never lose. A loser is someone who dreams of winning and does everything possible to avoid making mistakes"

Learning is a physical process and physical learning sometimes take longer than just mental learning. For example, you may decide to learn to ride a bicycle, but the physical learning process may take longer than the mental decision to learn to ride a bicyle. The good news is that once you learn physically, you generally have learned something forever.

On the other side, unlearning is also a physical process. There is a statement that goes " You can't teach an old dog new tricks" Take your time to both unlearn as well as learn. For some people, the hardest part of switching from the left side of the Quadrant to the right side of the Quadrant is to unlearn the point of view of the E and S quadrants. Once you have unlearned what you have learned, I think the change will go much faster and easier.

Rich Dad's The Business School

2008-12-26T21:04:00.000-08:00

For people who like helping people
By Robert T.Kiyosaki

This book highlights on the effectiveness of a network marketing business. A good network marketing business teach people how to think correctly about wealth, and how to become wealthy. However I like only certain parts of the books...

How can I afford to buy real estate?

After the stock market crash of 2000, many people began to wake upto the realization that stocks and mutual funds are risky. After the crash, many people began to wonder about investing in real estate. The problem was that many people did not have enough money to invest in real estate or live in places where real estate is expensive. A question I am often asked today is "How can I buy real estate when I barely earn enough money to pay the rent?"

My answer is always the same. I always say "Keep your day time job and start building a part-time business. Once the business is making money, the second step is to keep your day time job and begin to buy investment real estate with the extra income from the business. That way, you begin to build 2 asset classes rather than spending your life working for money"

Discover your sales strengths

2008-11-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

How the world's greatest salespeople develop winning careers
By Benson Smith and Tony Rutigliano

In the ever-changing world of sales, there is no single, surefire, tried-and-true method that can be readily imitated by anyone to miraculously improve performance. In fact, the world's best salespeople are not characterized at all by their technique. But they do share one common trait: Successful sales reps use their individual aptitudes to succeed in their work environment.

Sales is about people. It is not necessarily about being liked, but it is about being trustworthy, diligent, consultative and at the highest level, inspiring.

The Patterson Principles of Selling

2008-11-15T06:13:00.000-08:00

"People don't like to be sold but they love to buy." by Jeffrey Gitomer, 1989

1. Think
Patterson believed that progress was the result of thought. Thinking, like any other action, is a discipline. You decide your own outcome based on your desire and self-determination.

Set aside THINK! time - make a THINK appointment everyday even for only 15 minutes. Write ideas no matter how far-fetched they sound - just write for 10 minutes straight.

2. Self-belief
Self-belief is the most convincing characteristic of a salesperson. Strong belief will make you a more innovative, creative salesperson with a burning drive and desire to help the other person buy. There is a big difference from a burning drive and desire to sell something. People don't like to be sold but they like to buy.

3. Positive Mental Attitude is determined by You, Not Others.
To achieve a POSITIVE attitude, you must take physical, verbal and mental actions everyday. Read 2 pages from a positive book at the start of every day. When you are giving any form of communication or presentation, your attitude will shine through.

4. Boot Camp Separates the Salesman from the Wanna-be Salesman
"Industry is cheap. It is laziness that costs. It has cost many a bright man a bright career."

Have you ever noticed that some people just look more alive than others? In my experience I have found that people who combine physical and mental exercise seem more alert and ready to sell and serve. And by coincidence also seem to be the ones who can make their enthusiasm and self-confidence contagious.

5. Survival is a combination of knowing and doing
What do you know? What are you doing?
Know why do you want to succeed. What is preventing you from doing what you want to do?
The biggest reason people don't succeed is that they don't expose themselves to existing information. Therefore, they don't believe in themselves enough to succeed.

6. Studying.. the first discipline of knowledge
To master salesmanship, you must continually repeat messages and practice by doing in order to master the principles and the fundamentals that will lead to success. Training is an everyday occurence. Read about, study and listen to one new sales technique each day, and before the end of the day, try that technique out at least once. By trying it, you will see the real world application of what you thought might work.

7. Your Library is the Artesian well of knowledge
Training doesn't get you to the top of your plateau. Education does. Training teaches you how. Education teaches you WHY. Knowledge is like any other addiction, is a drug.

8. Planing prevents wandering and provides direction
Direct yourself. Each day, create one single direction that you must achieve. Even if you ass falls off. Just one thing that at the end of each day you can say "I did it!" After a month, it will be easy to add one more thing. At the end of a year, you will be doing 10 things a day and accomplishing them all.

9. Use "Today Time Management"
Get the big things out of the way first, and the little things will disappear. If you want to double your sales, you must double the time you spend in front of people who can say YES to you.

10. Prospect for probably purchasers
How to prospect is equally as important as where to prospect. Proper prospecting prevents poverty. Call one customer a day and ask for their business.

11. Increase business connections to increase sales
The 5 basic rules of networking are go where the probable purchasers are, give first, dig in, be consistent and get to know people on a friendly basis.

12. Creating the demand converts selling to buying
Desire leads to demand. Create the need. Prove the need. Don't just sell the product.

13. A Prepared demonstration means personalized!
If your presentation is perceived by the probable purchaser as relatively the same as your competition, then all that will matter is your price. If your presentation combines personalization and differentiation, you can win the sale on value. Differentiation is achieved by being certain that you ask questions and make statements that your competition does not ask or say.

14. Gain interest with information about the probable purchaser not the We-We.
In order toe arouse the interest of a probable purchaser, it is the responsibility of the salesperson to be interesting. Product knowledge is useless until you know how your product is used on the job to benefit and create profit for the customer.

If you walk in with information about you, they consider you a salesman. If you walk in with ideas and answers, they consider you a resource.

15. Questions lead to answers. Answers lead to sales.
Questions are the heart of sales. Want to get your probable purchaser to think? All you have to do is to ask questions.

16. Listening leads to understanding
There are 2 basic kinds of listening : listening with the intent to respond and listening with the intend to understand.

17. Less Sell-Time leads to more buy-time
If you let the customer talk long enough, they will see the purpose and value of saying yes. They will sell themselves.

18. Your message must be compelling as your product to engage the probable purchaser
The key to any sales rests in how well you engage the probable purchaser. In the beginning of a sales presentation, there are 4.5 elements that determine whether a sale will be made or not.

1. Rapport - Put yourself on the same side of the fence with the probable purchaser.
2. Need - Determine what are the factors to influence his motivation to listen with the intent to purchase.
3. Importance - The weight that a probable purchaser assigns to a product, feature, benefit, price or time frame.
4. Confidence - your ability to gain credibility
4.5 Value Transferred - Your ability to get the probable purchaser to perceive that he gains the most value by buying your product or service.

19. An objection is the gateway to a sale
Objections actually indicate interest and the need for more clarification or more proof on the part of the probable purchaser, and the salesperson's responsibility is to provide it enthusiastically.

20. Selling is not manipulating; selling is harmonizing
Harmony is understanding, sensing the tone and comfort level of the probable purchaser. Here are a few guidelines that will work on any type of purchaser : never argue, never offend, never think or act like you are defeated, try to make a friend at all costs, try to get on the same side of the fence, never to have to remember what you said. Don't lie.

21. Complete the sale with an agreement to buy .. and be certain to give them a receipt
There are closing strategies and tactics that you will find it effective.
1. Challenge the probable purchaser to do what is best for his business.
2. Let the probable purchaser have peace of mind that your service will supplement that process on their way to success.
3. Make a list of objectives for what the probable purchaser wants to accomplish after your product or service is in place.
4. Get the probable purchaser to be visionary
5. Commit to future action
- Make plans for after sale has taken place, before the sale is consummated.

22. Service is the reputation for the next sale
All customers need service. There are 5 divisions of services :
1. Service before selling (finding out general problems in the business now)
2. Service in selling (selling the proper machine to the merchant)
3. Installation service
4. Follow up service
5. Organization service

Give solutions, not excuses

23. Extra service leads to the "testimonial word"
Your biggest job is not to sell. Your biggest job is to deliver memorable service. Your customers can be walking, talking testimonials.

24. Referrals are better earned than asked for
The definition of referral is risk because someone is willing to risk their friendship or relationship with another to have them contact you for a purchase. People are only willing to risk when they are confident and comfortable that the risk is low and the possible rewards are so high.

25. Testimonials will sell when your salesman can't
A collection of video testimonials will go further than any other sales tool times ten.

26. Advertising brings awareness. Testimonial advertising brings customers.
Testimonials provides proof that your product is what you say it is. It strengthens the loyalty bond between you and the customer in the ad. It is the only proof you got. It reduces the risk of purchasing. It deflates the competition.

27. Competition means prepare to be your best.
Treat competition fairly. The goal is to separate yourself from the competition and from everyone else.

28. Recognize and thank those who have helped you succeed.
Take the time to acknowledge the people who have helped you succeed. Some will be readily apparent, but others may have seemed to have been against you when they were just trying to help you help yourself.

29. To get loyalty, you must give loyalty
There are 4 pillars of loyalty : loyalty to your company, product, customer and yourself.

30. Decide... It doesn't matter if it's right or wrong.. decide!
Patterson took calculated risks. Postponing a decision comes from lack of information, confusion or disorganization.

31 You become known by the actions you take. Take ethical actions.
There are 5 questions at the heart of ethics in the selling process. They must be asked every time a sale is being proposed.
1. Is this in the best long term interest of the customer?
2. Is this in the best long-term interest of my company?
3. Is this the best long-term interest of my career?
4. If I were the probable purchaser, would I buy?
5. Is it something that would make my mother proud?

32. If you have done your homework and prepared well, it will be evident in your sales report card.
Weak sales people look at quotas and become fearful. Mediocre salespeople look at quota as a goal. Great salespeople look at quotas and laugh. List the 5 fundamental things you need to do every day that will assure that you make a sale. Repeat them each day no matter what.

The Richest Man in Babylon

2008-11-03T18:27:00.000-08:00

By Georges. Clason

This title serves up sound practical advice on thrift, financial planning, and investment philosophy in a unique and refreshing way. Clason delivers classic insights into wealth accumulation through a series of "parables" set in ancient Babylon, the ancient world's wealthiest city.

Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple rules of its acquisition.

1. Start thy purse to fattening

2. Control thy expenditures.

3. Make the gold multiply.

4. Guard thy treasures from loss.

5. Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment.

6. Insure a future income.

7. Increase thy ability to earn.

Killer Instinct (2006)

2008-11-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

By Joseph Finder

A salesman who is well liked but lacks the "killer instinct" necessary to move up the corporate ladder. He met a dangerous former Special Forces Officer who helped him to create bad things for his rivals.

Moral of the book : It is best to be self-reliant and always find out more about the person whom you befriend. This is especially so for those whom you suspect to have a dubious background or character.

Towkay Hor Seh Boh? Part 3

2008-10-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

This book is so interesting that I will like to share with you an extract from the book.

Be highly skilled and always steady

I have been hearing the word "leveraging" so often nowadays in so many ang moh (foreigner) books. Business gurus tell you that you must leverage on the expertise of others to do the work you cannot do; you must leverage on other peoples' networks to grow more customers; and if you have no money, you can leverage on other people's money to make money so forth. The concept of leveraging becomes too simplistic.

But for most people, their understanding of leveraging is to "use and throw away". They make use of people and then throw them away. So wa ka li kong, don't always ask people for help for everything. If you want to be a good towkay, kaki must be steady steady poon pi pi (highly skilled, confident and composed)

You must have your own strengths before you can borrow on the strengths of others. People want to see if you wu liao (have substance) or not, and people want to see if you can or cannot do things. A hero likes to have a hero as a friend. Focus on building your own strengths first before you think of borrowing other people's strengths.

Towkay Hor Seh Boh? Part 2

2008-10-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

Once you eh chiat kor (can take hardship), it is like paying insurance premium. The premium will protect you in your future. In fact once you embrace the 3Hs, you can tong(endure) the harsh cold winter and the buring heat of summer. You can battle the changing weather conditions as the seasons change in the course of your journey.

Money comes from doing the following things:
1) Doing the things people don't like to do
2) Doing the things people don't know how to do
3) Doing the things people are afraid to do

Money is a byproduct of combining opportunity with action. Money is made when you are able to find and act upon an opportunity. But where can you can find opportunities? Sources of opportunities can be found in the news and found in change.

The moment you decide to be a towkay you cannot be kia su kia si (afraid to lose and afraid to die). By becoming a towkay you have already taken a big risk in your life. Always take only calculated risks. You must know what will be the worst case scenario if you fail and how much will you lose if you fail. The biggest catch is often found in braving the biggest wave. Taking no risk is the greatest risk for the towkay.

Towkay Ho Seh Boh?

2008-10-10T19:18:00.000-07:00

By Ah Chuan

This is a very funny and easy to read book. It's also very Singaporean because the language used is a mixture of Singlish an Hokkien.

To be a towkay, the meaning of his existence is the existence of his business. His life is his business and the business is his life. This means it is a lifetime business in which we don't try try today and quit tomorrow.

If you do business, you must feel it is meaningful. If you find it has no meaning then you are not doing business. All successful towkays are driven by passion. With passion, you will be happy even when you are overworked and underpaid.

The price that you must pay as a towkay are the 3Hs:

1) Hardship

2) Hardwork

3) Heartbreak

Jack Welch Speaks Part 2

2008-10-06T02:21:00.000-07:00

Stretch

To Welch, there is a big difference between pushing employees too hard and letting them set high goals for themselves that require extra imagination, brains, and skill to achieve :

Stretch means that we all try for huge gains while having no idea how to get there: but our people figure out ways to get there. I was in Japan in the fall and I saw Toshiba's new VCR. They had a stretch goal : produce it with half the parts, in half the time, at half the cost. They sent a team away to design the new model and ended up reducing the number of parts by 60% and producing it in one year instead of the usual two.

Welch focuses on 3 concepts that give GE enormous energy :
"Speed, simplicity and self confidence. We have been characterized over the years as the best managed company, the financial wizard or other labels. If we are to be the clear winners we must be in the '90s we will need to become the fastest, simplest and most self confident company on Earth."

Jack Welch Speaks

2008-10-06T01:56:00.000-07:00

By Janet Lowe

Bestselling author Janet Lowe presents the insights, visions, and philosophies that have guided Jack Welch during his extraordinary career at GE and his post-GE life,

Change before you have to. Welch says changing before a company is forced to do so is about as easy as changing a tire while the car is still going down the road. It's both risky and bound to create controversy.

Welch initiated a 2 phase revolution at GE. In the "hardware" phase, Welch restructured GE's basic businesses by selling ,buying, and downsizing ; and during the "software" phase, he shifted the corporate culture and employee mind-set. A company can boast productivity by restructuring, removing bureaucracy and downsizing, but it cannot sustain high productivity growth without cultural change.

Shun the incremental and go for leaps. Incremental change doesn't work very well in the type of transformation GE has gone through. If you change isn't big enough, revolutionary enough, the bureaucracy can beat you. Look at Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. They said "This isn't what it's going to be" And then they did it. Big bold changes, forcefully articulated.

When you get leaders who confuse popularity with leadership, who just nibble away at things, nothing changes. I think that's true in countries and in companies.

GE learned about "bullet train thinking" from the CEO of Yokogawa, GE's Japanese partner in the medical systems business:
"He says if you want to increase the speed of the bullet train 10 mph, you add a little more horse power... But if you want to take it from 150 mph to 300 mph - double the speed of the bullet train - you've got to think about whether or not you widen the track, change the suspension system. You've got to think out of the box. It's not the same train with a little more tweak. It's a whole new thought"

Good Luck

2008-08-21T08:21:00.001-07:00

Creates the Conditions for Sucess in Life and Business

By Fernando Trias de Bes

In friendly, fairy tale style, the authors tell a story of two knights seeking to find a magic four-leaf clover in an enchanted forest, and along the way impart wisdom about making one’s own luck.

The allegory is peppered with "Rules of Good Luck" and other mantras that manage—most of the time—to ring true.

1) Luck doesn't last long, because it does not depend on you. Good Luck is created by each of us; that's why it lasts forever.

2) Many are those who want Good Luck, but few are those willing to pursue it.

3) If you have no Good Luck now, it might be because you are under the usual conditions. To have Good Luck, you must create new conditions.

4) Finding new conditions for Good Luck does not mean looking for our own benefit only. Creating conditions, helping others, make Good Luck more likely to appear.

5) If you postpone the creation of new conditions, Good Luck never arrives. Creating new conditions is sometimes hard work, but .. do it today !

6) Sometimes, even under the seemingly right conditions, Good Luck doesn't arrive. Look for the seemingly unnecessary but indispensable conditions in the small details.

7) To those who only believe in chance, creating conditions seems absurd. Those who create conditions are not worried about chance.

8) Nobody can sell Good Luck. Good Luck cannot be sold. Do not trust those who sell Luck.

9) After creating all the conditions, be patient, don't quit. For Good Luck to arrive, have faith.

10) Creating Good Luck consists in preparing conditions for opportunity. But opportunity has nothing to do with luck or chance: iti s always there.

Moral of the Story : Creating Good Luck consists only in creating the conditions.

Mixed feelings

2008-07-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

I went for further training for motor claims today. It is kind of interesting to know more case studies and the unspoken areas in such claims. Sometimes in life, things may be written black and white on paper, but there are many times we should react based on circumstances.

Frankly speaking up till now, working in the insurance line may not have made me lots of money, however I do learn a lot in many areas. In fact, I learnt more things in life in this job, rather than my previous deskbound job. The feeling of satisfaction that you have helped someone lessen their burden in life was tremenous. This is especially true when I first encountered the hospitalisation claims.

It is getting late... I will have to get up early tomorrow... yawn....
nite

The Complete Turtle Trader

2008-07-21T02:14:00.000-07:00

The True Story of the Simple Investing System that beats Wall Street's best By Michael W. Covel

This book tells the story of a great experiment by a legendary trader. That trader was Richard Dennis, an unlikely champion of the trading floor. Unlike the typical trader, Dennis didn't come from a connected or privileged background. He grew up on the south side of Chicago, an area noted for crime and poverty.

Yet, by age 25, Richard Dennis managed to earn $1 million in the market. By age 37, he'd made $200 million. Where did the ability to do that come from? Was it genetic? He and his partner, William Eckhardt, debated on this question. Eckhardt said it was genetic, Dennis maintained it could be learned.

That debate led to the experiment that this book is about. The experiment involved recruiting people from diverse backgrounds, teaching them the system Dennis used, giving them funds to invest, and seeing what would happen. The name "Turtles" came about during a trip to Singapore. Richard Dennis was visiting a turtle farm and remarked, "We are going to grow traders just like they grow turtles in Singapore."

The interesting chapters 4,5 and 6 explain the trading method that the Turtles used. First you should have an expectation as to what can you earn on each trade on average over the long run from your investing decision. This is based on a formula :

E= (PW * AW) - (PL * AL)

where

E = Expectation or Edge
PW = Winning Percent
AW = Average Winner
PL = Losing Percent
AL = Average Loser

It didn't necessarily matter how little the Turtles lost on any individual trade, but they needed to know how much they could lose in their whole portfolio. The important thing is to limit portfolio risk. The trades will take care of themselves.

Trade Tip 1 : You need to calculate your edge for every trading decision you made because you can't make "bets" if you don't know your edge.

Trade Tip 2 : Use price as a primary decision making tool.

Trade Tip 3 : You need to be comfortable "shorting" a market. You have to relish the opportunity to make money in a decreasing market.

Trade Tip 4 : Price "breakout" was Turtle jargon to describe a market that had just made a new high or a new low over "x" period. The selection of these values for your trading will always be subjective. Test or practise these rules on paper or on trading software to gain confidence.

Trade Tip 5 : Feel free to experiment on breakout lengths. Do not fixate on specific values. Accept a breakout value and stick with it consistently.

Trade Tip 6 : Stop worrying about how you enter a trade. The key is to know at all times when you will exit.

Trade Tip 7 : You can determine the average true range for any stock or futures contract. Determine on an average of 15. Turtle risk management starts with the measurement of daily market volatility. The Turtles were taught to measure volatility in terms of daily ranges. It was nicknamed "N", also known as Average True Range or ATR.

How to derive "N"?
1. The distance from today's high to today's low
2. The distance from yesterday's close to today's high
3. The distance from yesterday's close to today's low.

Trade Tip 8 : Take your account (whatever size it is) and multiply by 2%. For example,a $100K account would risk 2% or $2000 per trade. It is always better to bet a small amount initially on any trade in case you are wrong - which can easily be greater than 50% of the time.

Trade Tip 9 : If you are trading Google stock and its ATR is 20. A 2ATR (2N) stop would be 50. If you lose 40 points on Google, you must exit, no questions asked. So stick to your exit point.

You can check out http://www.turtletrader.com for more information.

A Rich Man's Secret

2008-07-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

By Ken Roberts

Here is an interesting extract from the book. The clue is in a graveyard on a tombstone, and he starts with this first clue,

Your mind is not the friend you now believe it to be. Be as vigilant as you are able; observe yourself as often as you can remember. Observe the numerous states you enter and exit from each day. Inquire of yourself, "Who is this that is angry? doubtful? fearful? excited? depressed ?" It is not you; it is only thoughts in your mind using you.

When you do this long enough, an entirely new understanding will emerge and you will begin to think in a manner differently than you do presently. What will happen? You will become a new person! You will see, hear, and sense as never before. The demon fear will retreat and fall away more and more. You will receive directions to proceed that seem impossible.

Take that first step - no more, no less and the next will be revealed. In this way, you will pass through what formerly appeared to be solid brick walls that you avoided. Your way out is through the illusory brick walls ! Now you will seek "the impossible" knowing it is the doorway out!

Always remember that whatever appears as a solid wall is a mere illlusion created by the rushing river of thought. It is no more significant than an ant - disguised as a brick wall ! The only way to banish this illusion is to proceed through it, watch your fears and trepidation all the while. In this way, you will know from yourself that it is an illusion.

Do less, achieve more

2008-07-10T07:59:00.001-07:00

For anyone tired of chasing ever–elusive desires, of doing more only to find that more needs doing, and of making more money only to need more money, best–selling author Chin–Ning Chu shows you that life was meant to be easy, if you know the secrets.

When you are in fear of not surviving, you work hard trying to live a disciplined life of self-imposed deprivation. You do your duty, work at getting ahead, attempt to bring glory to yourself and your family. In fact, deprivation derived from the instinct of survival is no virtue.

If you knew you were going to die soon, you would not be so concerned about survival. Even if you made mistakes, the consequences would not be so awful, because death would come to your rescue. But whether it be 1 year, 3 years or 30 years, death will always come to your rescue? What is there to fear.

The worst that can happen is death, and when you truly know what death is, that is not such a bad opinion. When you willing to not survive, the static of uneasiness flees while harmony and calmness set in.

The Rainmaker has to not care about whether he is able to bring rain or not. Nor can the Rainmaker care about his professional reputation. Thoughts such as whether he will have to give the money back, or if his wife will leave him, can never enter his mind. The Rainmaker knows life has ways of always taking care of itself, including whether the village will ever see rain again. He focuses on bringing harmony into himself and lets the heavens bring the rain. He is at peace within himself and the world. Giving up survival will put your mind at ease, and without much effort, positive results will begin to surface miraculously.

The Tao of Coaching

2008-07-08T22:28:00.000-07:00

Boost your effectivess by inspiring those around you

By Max Landsberg

Each chapter is written around a brief story about 'Alex', on his journey from manager to CEO, with each episode designed to illustrate some aspect of the coaching/motivation/leadership challenge.

Socrates saw himself as a "midwife to understanding." He believed that one could help people understand, but that could not make people understand - just as a midwife delivers, but does not give birth to the child.

Hence it is often important to ask pivotal question than to tell instructions. Asking effective questions is one of the most powerful techniques of coaching. A coaching session also has to be structured. The GROW (Goal, Reality, Options, Wrap-Up) model is one of the most common coaching tools widely used. It is a simple 4 step structure for coaching session.

What People Want Part 2

2008-07-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

Being worthy of trust

Nothing is more important to you, than the perception people have of you as someone worthy of trust. When you have their trust, the people who work for you will work harder, be more productive and committed, take direction, receive coaching and remain loyal in hard times.

What does it take to build trust ?

1. Be unconditionally honest
Be unconditionally honest but also sensitive. Use the sandwich technique : good news, bad news, good news. Choose the right words to convey the truth, and be sure to communicate openly and clearly. Poor communication is often the culprit behind distrust.

2. Be credible
To maintain your credibility, speak confidently about what you know and avoid speaking confidently about what you don't know. The higher you go in an organization, the less likely it is that you will know as much as the real experts working for you. Calling upon the experts is a sign of genuiune wisdom and it shows that you are worthy of trust. This is because you won't pretend to know something when you don't know.

3. Keep your commitments
People who are or have been managers have a greater need for professionalism, teamwork and collaboration from those they work with. They value from their boss the sorts of things you value in them : commitment, loyalty, professionalism and cooperation.

4. Own up to your mistakes
If you are right all the time and if you have all the best ideas, then you will stifle innovation, idea generation and problem solving. If, on the other hand, you show a genuine willingness to explore ideas, to encourage innovation, and to listen to and accept the best that others have to offer, then you can create a vibrant team of people who love their work and will be encouraged to give more of what they have to offer.

5. Care about people
6. Be available for people when they need you.
7. Be in the moment with people when they are distressed.
8. Don't avoid dealing with people's personal issues.

9. Respect people's work
You show respect for people's work when you leave them alone to do their work and don't interfere unless it is absolutely necessary to do so.

10. Give credit when credit is due

11. Keep others' best interests in mind
Don't give yourself more than your fair share of rewards and benefits. The people who work for you will know how much you have contributed and how central you are to the business. If you take more than what they perceive to be your share of the rewards, they will resent it and will eventually resent you.

12. Go the extra mile

13. Back people up
Find out the reason if something went wrong. Especially if your team has been accused of wrong doings (when they are right) and you fail to back them up at important times, the people working for you will not excuse you for this type of behaviour. It will destroy trust faster than anything else other than outright lying and dishonesty.

14. Show good judgement
Everyone's individual differences must matter to you and you can't be so busy that you don't attend to those differences. People will find you worthy of trust if they know that you are sensitive to their individual differences and respect those differences in how you behave towards them.

15. Be a good person
You don't have to be a warm and fuzzy person to succeed in business. However if you want people to trust you, you have to be viewed as a good person.

16. Be fair
Good people are fair. They treat others with equanimity and respect. They don't joke about people or belittle them behind their backs or engage in destructive gossip. If you are arrogant, mean, petty, abrasive or caustic, and if you show little positive regard for other people through your behaviour, jokes, comments, or attitude, people will find you untrustworthy. They may still work with you, but they will be guarded and suspicious.

17. Maintain confidences
18. Be genuine

19. Allow your humanity to show
We all make mistakes. We have problems in our personal lives. We get indigestion. When you disclose your foibles, admit your mistakes, and laugh at yourself for being so stupid about something, you show your humanity (and show a huge amount of self-confidence). Moreover, you reveal a side of yourself that others may find endearing because it reminds them of their own humanity. And that's a wonderful way to build trust.

What People Want

2008-07-06T07:35:00.000-07:00

A Manager's Guide to Building Relationships That Work

By Terry R.Bacon

What do Gen-Y employees need from their Baby Boomer bosses that Gen-Xers don't? How does gender affect employee-manager relationships? What separates introverts from extraverts?

The author did a research that showed the top 7 needs people have in their relationships:

1. Feeling that others trust me

Trust is the most fundamental relationship need. Without trust, there will not be much of a basis for a relationship at all. People want to feel that they can be honest with others and that others will be honest with them.

2. Feeling challenged; feeling as if I am growing

With rare exceptions, most people are not content in trivial, boring or stagnant jobs. They need to feel that their work is challenging and they are developing their skills, capabilities, and possibilities.

3. Feeling good about myself

Self-esteem can come from many qualities and accomplishments : appearance, intelligence, talents, integrity, titles, acceptance or recognition etc. The elements that constitute high self-esteem for each of us vary considerably, depending on our backgrounds and life experiences.

4. Feeling competent and skilled
People want to be an expert at something, however modest that something might be, because it is critical to how they define themselves and how they develop and sustain self-esteem.

5. Being appreciated for who I am and what I do

People want others to recognize their accomplishments and hold them in high regard. Acceptance and appreciation are essential to feeling part of a community.

6. Feeling excited about what I am doing

People want to be energized and enthused. We live for that adrenaline rush, whether it comes from scaling mountains, running rivers, watching a suspenseful movie, dancing with a loving partner or launching a new project.

7. Feeling involved in activites that matter to me
People want to feel that their time on earth is relevant, that they are contributing to something they believe in. Nothing is worse than going through the motions and feeling that you are wasting your time.

This+Way=Up

2008-06-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

By Andrew Sng

Anyone aspiring to move on to bigger and better things in an organization -or outside of it- should harness and develop the STING'D principles. Here is what each letter stands for :

1) S- speaking skills. The ability to communicate ideas, to persuade, to sell a thing or an idea. Nobody in a leadership position can do without it.

2) T- thinking skills. The ability to think clearly, to be aware of one's critical thought processes with respect to problem solving, decision making , planning and lateral thinking.

3) I - Interpersonal skills. No one is an island. There are no impossible employees around, just employers or bosses who do not understand what make them tick.

4) N - Networking skills. Networking makes it easier to get the door ajar so that you can stick your foot in. It often means the difference between going through a long and circuitous route and taking a shortcut.

5) G- Growth. Sustained, continuous, personal and professional growth. Success is about continuing growth in all aspects of our lives.

6) D- Discipline. University degrees are useless without it. The author illustrates with a real life story. Ben grew up in a middle-income family and has an MBA and 2 degrees from a well knwon university. He is good looking, speaks several languages fluently and is married to a charming lady who earns a good income. He may be the prototypical yuppie success story.

In my view, however he is going round in circles for over a decade. Apart from his first job after graduation, Ben has never stayed longer than 2 years in any position. He is perpetually late for meetings and in completing his assignments. Today he holds a position inferior to the one he had more than a decade ago. Yet the same person often say "I'm capable of doing this and that!"

Achievers know that discipline is the driving force of success. Calvin Coolidge, the 13th president of US said "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Genuius will not. Education will not. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The Way of the Shepherd

2008-05-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

7 Ancient Secrets to Managing Productive People
By Dr Kevin Leman and William Pentak

“To be a successful leader, you’re going to have to interact with people in much the same way that a shepherd interacts with his sheep.” That is the concept set forth in William Pentak and Dr. Kevin Leman’s book, The Way of the Shepherd. The book contends that if bosses want workers to give their best, then bosses must first give theirs.

7 Secrets are :

1) Know the condition of your flock
You will have to follow the status of your people as well as the status of work. You will have to engage people on a regular basis. Keep your eyes and ears open, question and follow through.

2) Discover the shape of your sheep
Your choice of sheep can make flock management easier or harder. Start with healthy sheep or you will inherit someone else's problems.

3) Help your sheep identify with You
Build trust with your followers by modeling authenticity, integrity and compassion. Set high standards of performance. Define the cause for your people and tell them where they fit in.

4)Make your pasture a safe place
Keep your people well informed. Cull chronic instigators from the flock. Regularly rotate the sheep to fresh pasture. Don't give problems time to fester.

5) The Staff of Direction
Know where you are going, get out in front and keep your flock on the move. Always use persuasion rather than coercion. When your people get into trouble, go and get them out.

6) The Rod of Correction
Always protect, correct and inspect your flock.
Protect : Stand in the gap and fight for your sheep
Correct : Approach discipline as a teaching opportunity
Inspect : Regularly inquire about your people's progress

7) The Heart of the Shepherd
Great leadership is a lifestyle, not a technique. Every day you have to decide who is going to pay for your leadership, you or your people. Most of all, have a heart for your sheep.

Super Foods to boost your mood

2008-05-19T23:51:00.000-07:00

Super Foods to boost your mood by Alexandra Massey with Anita Bean Part 1

I am currently in the midst of reading this book to try to change my diet.. hhaha have yet to change any diet yet, but working it out..

Based on the book, what you eat affects how stressed, tired or depressed you are. The more you eat the high fat, high-salt, high-sugar foods that have become the norm in our modern diet, the less happy you will feel.

Breakfast is the most important meal for a day. In order to have your sugar levels balanced, you need to eat some nourishing food early on, and this will help you get the power boost you need to start the day. You can have the following for breakfast :
1) Fresh food Salad -> Frush fruits are high-energy foods and will offer get-up and go to kick start your day. Ingredients can be apples, kiwis, berries, pineapples, pears etc and serve it with yoghurt.

2) Peanut Butter on toast - peanuts are impressive source of protein that will give a boost to start the day.

3) Eat Oats

4) Take a banana smoothie to give you a Vitamin C lift!

Polar Bear Pirates and their quest to reach fat city...

2008-05-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

By Adrian Webster

Small unseen goals are tiny personal goals that will keep you on track to your Big Exciting Dreams. For them to work, you must keep them really small and hidden from the rest of the world. These small unseen goals are known as SMUGs.

Many people fail to achieve their dreams because they get too greedy and expect big instant success. They make their path along the way too steep or with over ambitious goals that are unrealistic with their timescales. As a result, they end up throwing in the towel, feeling hopeless, depressed and at times disliking themselves. They key to avoiding this negative and self-destructive feeling of failure is to start and keep on enjoying the addictive taste of success by feeding yourself regular teaspoon-sized drops of achivement.

Lay down a path littered with SMUGs that are so easy to break that's like walking on a bubble wrap. You will be amazed at the immense amount of pleasure and self satisfaction that you will derive from popping your SMUGs along the way, no matter how small they are. Bursting through your SMUGs on a regular basis will make you more motivated and increasingly addicted to keep on going because you are continuously achieving something, enjoying little tasters of succses and most importantly feeling good about yourself.

You can visit the website at http://www.polarbearpirates.com for more information.

The Bull Hunter

2008-05-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

Tracking Today's Hottest Investments by Dan Denning (2005)

Most investors have a very limited idea of what a bull market is. They think if prices are moving upward, it's a bull market and if prices are moving down, it's a bear market. This is flawed thinking because it's limited thinking. And the world of investment opportunities is anything but limited.

The more you look around today's world, the more you see the economic equivalent of war (total economic warfare), for a simple reason : More people than ever before are competing for the same scarce resources.

The author comes face to face with James Dyson, a British vacuum cleaner magnate. He said that Of the world's 10 largest corporations by revenue, nine makes big heavy things. Like cars, ship's turbines, computer's hardware or consumer electronics. These companies rely on their engineering and their technology - not their styling for their wealth. Only one Wal Mart is a service company. Manufacturing creates the wealth and spending power that feeds the service industry.

The book poses some interesting ideas on US and terrorism and the value of resources. Instead of fighting a war conventionally, nowadays there is the use of economic warfare, attacking a country's economy. In total economic warfare, you attack a country's access to natural resources or its currency. By attacking its economy, you indirectly weaken its ability to attack you militarily.

Dan Denning also thinks very highly about the potential of future crude oil prices. If you are expecting the price of crude oil to rise or on a dramatic interruption in supply. you may want to consider a long term call option.