Take Control

I like this story …

A friend came to you one day with excitement!

Friend: Are you in control of your life?
You: Of course
Friend: I just won a lottery. Come with me to Hawaii! I will pay for your entire trip. You don’t have to worry about paying for it.
You: Ar…. Let me check with my boss first.. .. I may not have enough vacation... oh.. my project is due next week and I probably have to work this weekend…
Friend: Are you in control of your life?

How you ask

Have you ever wondered why people say ‘No’ to you? Or why certain people seem to get whatever they want?

The way you ask the question have everything to do with the answer you will get back.

Let’s say you want to buy this car and you bargain with the sellers for a lower price. You may say, ‘Can you lower this price by 50%?’ Even I am not a sales expert; I can tell you that there is less than 1% chance that the seller would say yes to you.

When you want something from someone, think from their shoes. Understand why this person needs to sell. Think about how you can add value to this person life. It is true that buy & sell is a transaction of money. Everyone wants the best deal. Millionaire looks beyond just the transaction and build relationship that can last forever with many more deals to come.

Discipline or regret?

Do you want discipline or regret?

From Wiki - Discipline is any training intended to produce a specific character or pattern of behaviour, especially training that produces moral, physical, or mental development in a particular direction.

Discipline is not just routine. It is execution of your million dollar plan. In order to succeed, you need to physically and mentally engage on a daily basis. You need to take action today.

Here are some suggested steps ->
Morning – Spend 60 minutes to think and execute you plan
During the day – write down new ideas that may come up throughout the day
Evening – Spend 15 minutes to reflect your accomplishment

Be a forward driver

If you don’t like where you are now, you will never get to where you want to be.
If you like where you are now, chances are you will go somewhere.

Just like driving a car – Going forward with full gear will always be faster then full gear backward. To order to run away from something; you must turn around; find your next destination; step on your gas petal and move forward! Imagine, you try to drive backward; you head have to keep turning around to look at the road behind you that you are trying to go forward; your body and your car still facing the starting point; your car are in reverse gear; this is crazy! Neither you nor the car is designed to drive 95 miles per hour backward. It would not work.

The creator wants us to move forward. Roll up your sleeve. Move forward with full speed. You need to be ready for the destination. Forget about the past or anything you don’t like. You need to focus. Prepare your map. Get a full tank of gas. Get your engine ready. Step on your gas. Go go go! Once in a while you need to change course. Once in a while you need to fill up gas. These stops or changes are natural and expected. Once thing I know for sure it will be a hell of a time if you try to read map, fill up gas, look back or forth if you are driving backward.

Enjoy where you are now. Love your journey. Ready set go!

Kid at heart

Adult admire little kids. Kids are adaptable, smart, energetic, fearless and entertaining.

Have you ever seen kid playing with computer? They are smart. Have you seen kids making new friends even without speaking each other language? They are adaptable. Have you seen kids jumping into the pool? They are fearless! Have you seen kids screaming and laughing out down? They are having fun and real entertaining!

When is the last time you (an adult) have done all that - a real laugh, a real fearless move and an open mind to meet and chat with strangers? The time of fearlessness, joy and adventures.

Everyday should be an adventure. Today is the best day of your life. You just know when you get up in the morning. This will be the best day of your life. Why? Because you just know. You are in control. You are still the kid 30 – 40 years ago. You are fearless. I can be anywhere and I will be fine. Actually not just fine, I will be great!
Catch yourself thinking junk thoughts – doubts and disbelief. You cannot possibly become a millionaire or author if you think you cannot do it. You either can or cannot. Either way you are right.

Who should be your team member?

From the book – ‘The Ultimate Success Secret’ by Daniel S Kennedy
An advertising agency empire-builder David Ogilvy established a tradition of welcoming new executive with a gift of five wooden dolls, each smaller than the other, one inside the other. When the recipient finally gets to the fifth little doll, the smallest doll, and opens it, he finds this message: “If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs, but if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

I really like this story as it really echoes how we should build a team. Recruit people that are bigger than you. Not because they are your best buddies. They are someone that you see you will work for someday. They are someone that you know they can achieve great success one day. Both of you work together because you have mutual respect. You know each other strength and weakness. Your working relationship helps each other to excel. You can be successful by yourself; the joint forces can make bigger and better things.

Let your guard down and let loose of you ego for a moment. Open your eyes and minds. Bring the best out of your team. When you are willing give out your 100%, so will they. Positive energy will compound. It’s not only 100% + 100%. It will compound to 100% X 100%.

Be an adult

I love this quote ->

You know you're an adult, when you are able to tell yourself ‘I accept full responsibility for everything I have, and do not have, in my life.’ Most people never become adults.

I hate (yes I usually don’t use this strong word) whiners. Yes I do. When things fail or didn’t happen, whiners would complain or blame others on why things didn’t happen for them. I usually like to get away from these people, at least temporarily put a imaginary ipod ear plug if possible J

Take responsibility, take ownership. If you really care; if you really want certain things; be an adult about this and take responsibility!!! There are many reasons why you are not rich or why you have not achieved your goals yet. Stop thinking about the reasons or making excuses!! Be an adult, you know the reason you haven’t achieved what you want is because you have not put thoughts into this, you have not held yourself accountable for it. It’s about you. Make your dreams come true for you!

Be your own Junk thoughts police

I had a long week with my job this past week. On Friday, I was so glad the week was over. I said to myself, ‘Now, I need to relax and focus on my important things and thoughts.’ The strangest thing is that the thoughts and memory of what happened this last week at my job keep coming back to me. Those other thoughts keep popping up. Once I thought about this person, I started to think about my job. How should I approach this task? How should I work with this person? I found myself dwelling on old thoughts and keep thinking and thinking about it; even though I didn’t necessary ranked them as high priorities in my head.

I like to call this kind of thoughts - the junk food of thoughts. We all have tons of random thoughts. They are all around us. Easy to pick up. Easy to eat. Just like junk food you have around the house. I am not a big fan of them. But occasionally, you see them, you talk to your friend, you start putting those junk food in your mouth. You know that junk food is not particular good for you. But you don’t usually give them too many thoughts. You would just keep eating them. You don’t do it on purpose. But after an hour or so, you became full. You slowly and mindlessly let the junk food occupy your stomach. And guess what? When you feel full. You will stop eating and there is no room for the real food.

When I was little, my mom would to scold at me ‘Stop eating junk food before dinner!’ She was like the junk food police. I would get scared of her scolding and stop eating whatever I was able to put in my mouth. Now I am a grown up. There is no junk food police anymore. I would eat whatever I want. What ever I want to think.

Random thought is like funk food. If you keep having junk thought, your brain would be full and you will not have time for real thoughts. You are full. Think important thoughts. What do you want? If you want to support your parents, think about the how? If you want to get a bigger job, think about what you have that make people want to hire you? If you want to become a millionaire, think about some million dollar ideas.

Be your own junk thought police. Have real thoughts and eat real food. Think about what you really want and think about those real thoughts now.

Have fun!

Action: Just spend 15 minutes and think about what is the one thing you want the most right now. Think about how you can get them.

Your perfect working day

• You wake up in the morning. You can’t wait to get up. You are excited and looking forward to your new day. Today is going to be very exciting. There are lots of smart and great people that you will be meeting.
• You walk out of your balcony. Take a deep breath. You say to yourself, "What a glorious day!" You start writing and visualize your perfect day and start smiling. You know you will have a excellent day.
• You put on your running shoes. Run to the top of the mountain behind your house. See the sun that's just barely risen up. You know this is going to be a great day!
• You run back to the house. Excited. You get ready for the day. You look fantastic and you say to yourself in the mirror. Wow you look successful.
• You eat some fresh fruit listening to world news at the same time. You hear the UN is in need for aid in Africa for children with illiteracy. You say to yourself. I am glad I will be meeting them later today and help them on this.
• You take the elevator down from your penthouse apartment straight to the garage.
• You find your brand new Porche. You hop in and zoon to the office in 10 minutes.
• You office has a huge window with a view of the whole city. You sit down. Your assistant is smiling and happy that you are back.
• You close your eyes for 15 minutes, visualizing your great day coming ahead. It’s only 8:00 a.m. You spend 15 minutes thinking and planning the rest of your day.
• Your first appointment has arrived and it is Colin Powell. You and him will be speaking on stage tomorrow and he wants your opinion.
• You will then be meeting the US UN mbassador, Red Cross representative at 9 for a joint event.
  

Is this a great start for a glorious day? It is time to write down yours. You deserve it.

What you focus on expands

What do you want in life? Whenever I ask myself this question, lots of time I will hear myself saying. Well, I don’t want to live in this neighborhood, I don’t like going to bars, or I don’t like big crowds. It is easy to pinpoint what you don’t like or want, but most people don’t know what they really want.

Do you know that if you don’t know what you want, you will never be able to be rich? Or really happy? Just like taking a boat out in calm water, there will be small waves, small ups and downs. The boat will drift … it will be boring because you don’t really have a direction on where you want to go.

If you avoid answering the question of what is important in your life, the chances are those things will never come. Because you won’t be able to tell people or the universe what you want. No one can help you. Even you (yourself) can’t help you.

I love this quote ->

"What you focus on expands."

If you don’t focus on what is important in your life, the chances are nothing will expand. Yes you are busy. Day in and day out going to work and working crazy hours. Just remember these schedules or work are just drifts. You could be taken anywhere and be busy your whole life, but never have gone anywhere.

Action: Write down 3 things that are really important in your life. Ask yourself what you are doing today has anything to do with these 3 important things.

Purpose of anything

Al Gore told us a story about his new puppy. His next door neighbor volunteered to help train their new puppy. Al and his wife were really excited because they really had no idea how to train a puppy. His neighbor came over one night and said, ‘So… before I start I need to understand one serious thing.’ Al and his wife couldn’t imagine how serious could this be for training a dog. The neighbor asked ‘What is the purpose of this dog?’ They were a bit startled and said, ‘what do you mean?’ She continued, ‘Well is he going to be guard dog, pet dog, play dog, or what? Depending on what you want the puppy to be, the training approach will be different. You've got to tell me.’ Yes, even a puppy has a purpose. A computer has a purpose. A plane has a purpose. Almost everything in life has a purpose when it was created. How about you and me? What is your purpose? Are you serving your purpose? Do you know what it is?

Purpose is the 'Why' of your living. You can’t really proceed with your ‘What’ and ‘How’ before knowing the 'Why'. You could force your way forward in life without knowing the purpose, but it would be just like starting a journey without a destination. It could still be fun. But this journey will be easily drifted. You will have no idea where you will end up because you had no destination.

Focus

When was the last time you gave your best? Either for work, for yourself, for family, for your friends or for your country.

My mother grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution era. Growing up, she was trained to believe in the leader. The country was poor but the government (using propaganda) gave people hope. Everyone gave their best to support the country. They sacrificed by doing lots of labor work, but they were happy; genuinely happy because they gave their best. The goal (provided by the government) completely follows the process of manifestation. (Definition available in my blog - Welcome to Richpal - A Billionaire's first step.) People were given thoughts (to improve the country), feelings (they were all passionate about it), action (they were told exactly what to do); and the results? It’s up to you to decide. But one thing for sure was that my mother and her generation had focus.

My point is nowadays there are so many different ideas, influences, pop culture, wars, religions, TVs, meetings… people are distracted. We are distracted. We simply don’t focus anymore because there are million things going on in our life. What we are doing day in day out doesn’t necessary contribute to our goal. Your mind may tell yourself ‘I want to be rich’ and it is important, but if your daily routine doesn’t match or have anything to do with it. I am sorry to say, you will never be rich.

I am no golfer and I don’t know golf. But I know Tiger Woods. I recently came across this article about Tiger. I didn’t really care for the golf details, but I couldn’t help but found the word ‘Focus’ appears again and again.

(Tiger) Not only does it take supreme shot making skills, but physical endurance and the key to the whole thing is the mental capability of concentration and focus. These guys (Tiger) are (or were) in the zone!

Woods may be just 26, but history seems to hatch with every swing he takes. Woods is an amazing compilation of skill, intelligence and poise. He has an unshakable ability to focus and to adapt.

The lesson here is that nothing can be gained by allowing yourself to be rattled or distracted by your opponents, fans or even the officials. Your focus, mental attitude and determination are far more powerful than the response to your emotions. Tiger Woods figured: if he could get his low score to show up on the leaderboard, he could put the pressure on his competitors and force them to fold under the pressure.

If you want to be great, focus has to be part of your dictionary.