Personal Improvement
Religion, race, ethnicity, sects or color, human beings, nowadays tend to find a reason to hate each other. The rich hates the poor and poor kills the rich to get their cut. The black hate white for unjust behavior and disrespectful treatment and the white hate black for their color or their angry nature. Americans hate Russians, Indians hate Pakistanis, Arabs hate non-Arabs and non-Arabs hate the rest of the world. We have gone so much extreme in our hatred that we have stereotyped each other.
As human beings – worldwide, as locals – in each society, we have learned reasons to hate, to get angry or to fight. Some justify their behavior under the flag of religion, some under the flag of country whereas some try to escape with their own lame excuses. We were taught to hate each other for a reason. We teach our children to hate – and then we get amused when they hate us upon committing a mistake or not doing things their way.
No one is born with all that knowledge; we learn everything in this world, from our parents and from our societies. But unfortunately we happen to be taught by the ignorant. Who wasted their lives’ energies in finding other’s mistakes and hating them for these mistakes?
But, it takes a smile; it takes a generous act or a word to love someone to make use of your life in an appropriate manner. You just got to pick the reason, you just got to tell your mind, you just got to think, you just got to act and your world in fact the entire universe around you will change. Sometimes you don’t even need a reason to love people, go out talk to the people. Talk to those poor children as they are your own, and they really will respect you like mom or dad. Try to share your life, try to share your health, your wealth, your time with those you hated till today morning. The more you get to know them the more you will like them, the more decent and charming they will become.
The moment you start loving the world around you, the moment you start feeling the importance each person in this world the very moment all those voice will be silenced forever that had been teaching you the reasons to hate, the reasons to ruin the world, the reasons to destroy your life. Every reason that tells you things will never change disappears and the person you were before this moment, that person’s turn is over. NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. The real you, the new you…
Personal Improvement
How do you motivate yourself to get back on track, deal with setbacks, or lift yourself up? Motivation is a renewable resource if you know how. There are lots of ways to motivate you, and the simpler, the better.
In his book, Vision: Your Pathway to Victory, I like how Gordon D’Angelo said we should motivate ourselves:
“When you are trying to motivate yourself in business or in general, you have to make a list of motivating people, motivating books, motivating phrases and other people who want to be motivated with you, who will encourage you, so you bring more of the desired result. Like vision, bring more of that energy near you to create endurance.”
Well said. And, so true. I think it’s a practice many of us use to get our mojo working or get our groove on, but I hadn’t seen it put so simply before. Motivate yourself the simple way by making lists of motivational books, motivational people, and motivational quotes. Lists are a great way to go (and grow.)
I’m a fan of examples because they can help inspire or prompt you with your own lists.
Here we go …
Motivational People
- Bruce Lee
- Chalene Johnson
- Guy Kawasaki
- John Maxwell
- Richard Branson
- Seth Godin
- Stephen Covey
- Tim Ferris
- Tony Robbins
- Zig Ziglar
Motivational Books
- Achieve Anything In Just One Year, by Jason Harvey
- Be the Hero, by Noah Blumenthal
- Fat, 40 and Fired, by Nigel Marsh
- Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, by John Wood
- Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived, by Laurence Shames
- Toughest Men in Sports: Looking for the Mental Edge, by Mike Chapman
- The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch
- The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom, by Slavomir Rawicz
- The Raft, by Robert Trumbull
- The Undefeated Mind, by Dr. Alex Lickerman
Motivational Quotes
- “An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
- “Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Proverb
- “I want to be all used up when I die.” — George Bernard Shaw
- If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” – Tony Robbins
- “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill
- “People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.” – Anonymous
- “There is no such thing as failure. There are only results.” – Tony Robbins
- “To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.” – Bruce Lee
Personal Improvement
If you had a choice between being happy or not which one would it be?
I am sure you’re saying to yourself “Hey! That sure is a silly thing to ask”. I do however think it’s a valid question, so I hope you’ll take a second to ponder it. If I had to guess I would say the answer is to be happy (in the remote possibility that I am wrong I do hope that you’ll humor me on this). Here’s where I am going to run the chance of reaching some disagreement. You see, I do believe that we have this choice. Now I certainly don’t mean that if it’s going to take you being a millionaire to make you happy that it’s necessarily going to happen for you (of course that is a whole other topic all together). What I am talking about here is the overall approach we take to our day. You see friend, much in the same way that one negative thing might have a snowballing effect on our day and make it ultimately appear as a “bad day” so can positive things happen (daily successes) to us, and before we know it we look back on our day and say, “this sure was a great day!” Here are a few tips that I use to “force the positives” in my life. I know they work for me and I feel confident that if you implement them in your life that you’ll have equal or better results. Besides even in a worst-case scenario where it doesn’t work for you at least you will have tried right?
First off I keep several books near my bed (sometimes I have so many books going I forget what to read next…lol). The books I choose to read are motivational or inspirational one’s. I don’t have a whole lot of disposable time so when I do, I like to know that I am doing something that will advance me in some way. When I am in the car I try to split my time between listening to the radio as well as listening to a motivational tape. You know like a recorded seminar or audio books, etc.
Sometimes I will listen to the same tape several times. You’d be surprised by how reviewing you’ll pick up things that you didn’t catch the first time around. Another thing that I do that is a big help for me is to stay in contact with people that are positive (my mentors). When I feel that I need a little boost I shoot off a quick e-mail or just drop by for a quick visit. You see my friend; these are not great insights, rather just simple steps that we can take to boost our positivity level.
However, I have found them to be extremely helpful in my quest to “choose happiness”.
“Goals that are not written down are just wishes.” — Unknown
I still remember the first time I heard the above quote about goals.
You see at the time as I recall I had a lot of big plans, things I wanted to see transform into reality in my life. Looking back I now realize that my problem was that I had the vehicle (my ideas) but I was missing my road map! (The written goals for achieving them).
You see my problem at the time wasn’t my lack of ambition or my belief that I could make it happen. Rather it was that in my effort to achieve I was simply “all over the place” in my efforts. When I began to do simple things like commit my goals to paper (actually I use a software solution myself) things began to come together more easily.
It was as if there was a puzzle that someone had taken the time to mark where each piece went for me in advance. I hope this message finds you well.
Personal Improvement
We each have within an incredible gift that we can share with our fellow human beings. It’s not some magical thing. Yet it is equally as powerful! It’s our ability to share our smile!
A smile when given at the right moment can literally lift the frown of another. Think about this for a second. It’s one of life’s mysteries that no one can resist that urge to smile back.
I recall one particular instance that I was in a meeting with several business people that were older in years than me. It was as if years of being in business for themselves had hardened them in some way.
I was there (as many before me had been I am sure) to show my product. The leader of the meeting quickly said “well, Mr. Ali, (in an almost smug sounding voice..lol) why should we choose your product” as he was shifting papers on his desk. Friend, I looked him squarely in the eye and smiled a big smile and simply waited (it seemed like hours passed..lol). Then suddenly beneath his hard shell emerged a half smile!
I said. “Mr. so and so, no doubt you have had many proposals and all are surely good products, but here’s what I have to offer”. How the rest of the meeting went is really not the issue, what is important is that we understand that we have to get people that we talk with to view us as a human being (and not just another person with a product). Sharing the gift of our smile is one of the surest ways I know to do that :-)
