You don’t have to be Good!

“If you’re not good, it means you’re not supposed to be doing it” I heard that a few times in my life. You don’t have to be good to do anything, you just have to do it!
I like to take the exemple of Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, creators of penny-arcade.com. Mike said that he wanted to create a web comic but he didn’t know how to draw properly. He just did it anyway and he became good in the process.

The things you’re good at might not be the things you want to do. Just do what you want to do long enough and you’ll be good at it.

It Takes a Community

I don’t know why but I was brought up to believe that I could be successful on my own; that I needed to be successful on my own. That’s simply not true.

Everybody, and everything, that’s successful out there share something in common. They all have a community. A community is required to be successful in anything.

Would Facebook be considered a success if only 2 people was subscribe to it? If I’m the best Singer in the world but nobody buys my cds, am I successful? It’s the community that determines what’s worth the investment.

To Plan Ahead of Time

Nick, a mentor of mine from the gym, said that the most important part of training was what you eat. He said that it can be a challenge to find the time to do good meals on a daily basis and that the easiest way to do this was to prepare meals in advance.

I’ve decided to apply this principle for blogging as well (this blog was actually written Friday September 17). Let me tell you that it’s easier to come up with things in advance (when you’re inspired) than it is to come up with things on the spot.

When I write a good blog, I actually look forward for the day it’s coming out and in the meantime, I’m able to correct mistakes or rephrase it as best as I can. I haven’t encountered any downside of planning ahead as of yet.

Short Term Entrepreneurs

Most people, including me, stress about money all the time and it will be like that until a few minutes before we die.

If you ask a billionaire, or someone who lives on the streets, on their death bed “Do you want an extra 10 million dollars or an extra 10 years to live?” What is the answer they’ll more likely say?

What good is money if you don’t have time to enjoy it?

I love entrepreneurs, I look for them all the time to ask them questions. Some say that they’re going to start their own business in the “Near future”. When I ask them what’s stops them from doing it now, they usually come with 2 answers. The most popular one is “Debt” the second is “There’s some things I have to do first”.

What will change in 5 years? Do they think that they’ll be out of debt? That the “things they have to do first” won’t get more complicated?

The same person who said he couldn’t start a business because of debt bought a big flat screen TV. How is that going to get you out of debt?

In a way, it’s like they’re lying without even noticing it!

What I learn from all of this is that I shouldn’t listen to what they say, I should look for what they do. If someone tells me he wants to get out of debt before getting in business and I see him pay his debt there’s more chance I’ll see him start a business than someone who bought a TV.

Over night Success takes Years

I used to think that if I couldn’t be successful now that it wasn’t meant to be. I was going to business seminar expecting to hear that 1 quick thing that would make me a millionaire. I know now that I’ll wait a long time because such thing doesn’t exist.

The secret of success is that there’s no secret. Speakers in business seminar can only talk about the path that they took. You have to find your own path.

My Integrity for a pair of Heaphones?

I have a tendency to forget things when I don’t write it down. Today I forgot to bring my headphones at work and I sent a few emails away to ask people if they had a pair to spare. A guy from the Tech department said that he had some available but it was only for work purposes.

I was faced with a choice, I could either lie to him and get the headphones or tell the truth and not have any. Nobody would have known except for me.

Integrity is doing what’s morally right. Every time you don’t, you’re giving your integrity away. I believe that the more you give it away, the more it will trouble you.

Would you have given your integrity for a pair of headphones?

[Update December 2, 2019]
This blog post consistently make it on my most viewed list so I've decided to expand on it a bit.

I remember clearly the event that made me write this post. It was at an old office and I was about to listen to leadership CDs called "Integrity" only to realize that I had forgotten my headphones. When I asked our IT guy if we had any to spare he said that he can only lend them to me if it's for work purposes.
I could of lied to get the headphones but that would of made me kind of an hypocrite wouldn't it? I mean there's got to be a special place in hell for people that lie to get headphones in order to listen to a leadership cd about Integrity?

I chose to wait but sometimes I wonder if I would of took them if the leadership CD would of been about another subject. Every day, we're faced with thousands of decisions that ultimately define who we are.

Do we choose to be a person of integrity or lie just to get the headphones?

The Million Dollar Dream

Getting a million dollar seems to be a popular goal. The worse thing that can happen is giving money to someone who doesn’t have discipline financially. How many times do we hear stories about people who won a million dollars and went bankrupt a few years later?
It’s rare for an employee to actually get there but it’s possible if they’re discipline enough with their money (I know of one who did it over a 20 + year period).

I’m not a millionaire, but being in network marketing, I’m two phone call away to one and have the opportunity to speak to millionaires on a monthly basis. I was told, by one of them, that if I can’t save money with what I have now, it doesn’t matter how much I make; I’m going to be broke.

My thinking needs to change. The only way I can do so is by associating myself with people that have the result that I want, by shutting off television and opening a Robert Kiyosaki book instead.

Be careful who you listen to for financial advice, you may end up with the result that they have.

Politics - It’s not that Complicated

Politics today looks more like a bunch of teenagers fighting than anything else. Instead of each party focusing on what good they will bring the community, they focus on what the other parties are doing wrong.
I don’t want to know what everybody does wrong, I want to know the right things you’re going to do!

People are brought up to believe that politics is something hard to understand when it truly isn’t. I think they make it look difficult on purpose to discourage you and I to have anything to do with it. By having people look the other way, it gives them the opportunity to do what they want.

The important thing to keep track of is the “promises” of each party. While it’s true that they can’t make all of the promises come true, it does give a general idea of what the group is about.

I see many people who doesn’t vote and complain that they want to see certain things change. In my head, all I can think about is “I heard someone from that party address that issue the other day, why don’t you vote for him!”

To change the country in the way you want, you have to support people who wants the same things.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.

Go vote!

An Age of Virtual Heroes

I have a problem, while I know life is too short to be wasted in-front of a screen, there’s a side of me that just wants lay around and do nothing.

I love to win and Video games provides a world in which it allows me to win. I’m adventuring in a virtual world almost on a daily basis and I sometime find myself venting my prowess to my colleagues to try to receive praise.

There’s more to life than just to live, I have to wake up to the fact that video games won’t give me the true sense of fulfilment that only hard work can provide.

How to eat an Elephant

We live in a microwave society where everything needs to be done fast and people seem to bring that mentality into the skills that they’re trying to learn or the goals that they’re trying to achieve.

Brian Roy, a great artist and friend of mine, said “The fastest way to become a good artist is to work a little bit at it daily. 10 minutes a day for a week is better than 70 min in one day. The more you work on something the better you will master it.”

Becoming good at something is like eating an Elephant. How do you eat an elephant? You first need one. Then you eat it one bite at a time, a little bit every day until it’s gone.

Lets Save Trees!

For the past few months, I've been warned that my bills will no longer be in paper form and will now be sent online. The reason for this is because companies suddenly wants to "save trees".

I no longer receive paper bills from some company, I do, however, receive a lot of promotional advertisement in paper form. How does that save trees?

My friends, I can almost guarantee that there's not a company in the world that sat down and said "Let's do something for the environment". During business meeting, all that they talk about is how can they make more profit.

By not sending bills in paper form, they do save considerable amount of money. If the customer doesn't think about looking online for bills, he'll be more likely to forget about it and have to pay a late fee.

To me, the "save tree" campaign is a false truth. While it's true that it does save trees, it's not the main reason why business do so.

"Lets save trees" does look better for a company than "Help us save more money" right? I'm sure that expense were covered in our bill in the first place, did anyone receive a discount on their bill ever since they applied this?

Government VS Freedom

If the demand for low cost kinder gardens were on the rise. The government would say, during elections, "Vote for us and we'll build affordable kinder gardens." Once elected, the kinder gardens are build.

The government can't magically lower the price of human resources, or toys, required for a lower price kinder garden service. The only way a kinder garden can offer lower prices, at the door, is by having the help from the government. Where does the government take the money from? Our pockets (tax)!

It may be a more affordable kinder garden on the surface, but in the background we would still be paying the same (possibly more due to human resources required to put something like that together).

Here's what I mean by the lost of freedom. I don't have a kid, why should I pay for something that I won't use? Someone else took my money to build something I didn't want. How about I keep the money and do what I want with it?

How many government will it take for us to realize that it cost us our freedom?

The more people that decide what's best for you, the less decisions YOU make. If freedom is choices and those choices are made by someone else, where's the freedom in that?

We have to grow up intellectually and responsibility wise. By doing so the government will naturally close some doors. The only power the government have are the ones we give to them.