It's Within Your Grasp

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't-you're right." -Henry Ford

We've all heard the phrases "I'll never be successful", "I can't loose weight", etc... and sometime we tell ourselves those things and that's okay. What's not okay, however, is to keep telling ourselves these things and not doing anything about it.

The reason why someone is successful in business is because they're doing something the unsuccessful business owner isn't doing. If the unsuccessful business owner knew how to be a success - would he intentionally fail? Of course not.
The successful bodybuilder knows more, and does more, about his craft than the unsuccessful one. It starts with knowledge!

In what ever field you're trying to get good at, you won't be until you learn the ins and outs of it - either with experience or with the help of someone else's experience (mentor or books on the subject).

Controlling Honor

"Honor encompasses the virtues of integrity and honest, self-denial, loyalty and a servant's humility to those in authority above as well as a just and merciful heart to those below." -Jeff O'Leary

Doing the honorable thing is the right thing to do but for some people in power, it's just a way to have better control over the masses. A corrupted king could get his way by appealing to the honor of his knights. It is therefor important that the person in charge of those honorable men keeps his motives in check and his intentions morally aligned.

The honorable thing to do is to assist the leader but we also have to verify that the leader is worth following. Otherwise we may end up in conflict with ourselves when ever the leader ask to do something that's not morally right.

Not choosing IS choosing

“Most decisions are not fatal and every decision increases your ability to decide the next time.” -Orrin Woodward

Not choosing is a choice in itself - it is better to decide and assume the consequences than it is to stay put and let things happen. The more decisions we make, the bigger the confidence in ourselves at making decisions and the more likely we will make other/bigger ones.

Make decisions! :)

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Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on July 15, 2011 and can be found here.

Sleep

Sleep is not only required to achieve anything great, by providing energy to produce, it also helps with our attitude. It is difficult to keep our negative talk in check when we're tired as it requires energy to do so.

Sleep also help reduce stress, repair the body and keeps ourselves looking young. If you don't get your 8 hours of sleep every night - try it and see if you notice an improvement in your day (or if you still need that morning coffee).

Date Your Partner

We often hear people say "we've grown apart" which makes sense considering that most people work 8-5 jobs and then entertain themselves 2-4 hours every night - not much time is left during the day to spend time with the person we love.

Make time to date your partner - it's more important than a job or entertainment.

Job Security?

"If you take the risk, you might eventually fail. But if you don't take the risk, you've failed already." -Dale Carnegie Training

As a job ever been secure? Factors outside of the employee's control is what determine a job's security. Companies go bankrupt, wrong decisions are made and project get cancel - all of which is done with complete disregard of the employee.

Is going in business risky? Absolutely but so is allowing someone else's to make career decisions for you. With your own business you can, at least, make the decisions that are the most beneficial to you.

4 Rules for Saving Money

Wealth means how long someone can live forward, with his current lifestyle, without a source of income. For some people, it's not very long. It is good practice to have 3 to 6 months saved up in the bank in case of emergencies. The below rules can help achieve that.

1. Live below your means: If you make a million dollars a year but spend a million dollar a year, you're not wealthier than the person who made 30k and saved 5k.
2. Keep track of every penny spent: Keep track of your spendings to then make an accurate budget. Ideally, you want to save 25% of your monthly income so that you accumulate 1 month of freedom every 4 months.
3. Open a Tax Free Savings Account(TFSA) to invest and/or retirement account: There's nothing wrong with a government to want his share of the money you make but when you use a TFSA for your investments or a retirement account to store money in, the government gives you a little break. This will give you more money during tax season and I would encourage you to save it.
4. Don't finance things that depreciate: It doesn't matter if the item is at 0% interest, it's still not a good idea to buy new due to the depreciation of the item.

We generally want to clear off our debt before starting to save for the simple reason that the interest rate on a debt is higher than the interest rate on money we save. For more information, pick up the book "The Millionaire Next Door" book by Thomas J. Stanley Ph. D. & William D. Danko, Ph. D.

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Revision Wednesday(on a Thursday)
Blog post originally created on February 18, 2015 and can be found here.

Stuff

"We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like." -Dave Ramsey

Stuff is, to some, a source of happiness which requires constant purchases to maintain the feeling. Stuff does little but add complexities in our lives. The less we have, the less we have to worry about.

You Snooze You Loose

Holding off that dream of yours? Waiting for the perfect moment to ask that person on a date? Finding excuses to not ask for a promotion at work?

That one person you like won't be single for ever. That promotion may not come around again. You may not have enough energy tomorrow to start your dream journey...
Wait no more! As we speak, they're hundreds of people fighting for the things you also want in your life - some of them may not be as afraid as you to go for them.

Act today! It may just be your last chance to do so.

Thinking for Yourself

"If you are influenced by the opinions of others, you will have no desire of your own." -Napoleon Hill

I love my mom but there are things that she says to me that I have to ignore because it affects negatively my life decisions. It's not to say that I never take her input, she is a smart cookie after all - I just do what I feel is right for me.

Growing up, I had a hard time with this. Her opinion of what I should do, or what other people would tell me I should do, would often be what I ended up doing because I couldn't think for myself.

There comes a time in everyone's life where he needs to stand up for himself and make his own decisions. It is better to end up somewhere you wanted to go than to end up somewhere someone else wanted you to go.

No Right to do Wrong

"... no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them."
-Viktor E. Frankl

As M. K. Gandhi supposedly said “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”. When does suffering ends? It ends with you!

Life is equally unfair for everybody; some are going through difficult times while others are unfairly blessed but that doesn't give us the right to pass on our suffering to others.
We must learn to forgive and forget. If we forgive but don't forget then we're not really forgiving are we?

It Starts With You

When we cheat, we are more likely to believe other people are cheating too. When we do good, we're more likely to see the good in others.

Life is an interpretation of ourselves and it changes only when we change.

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Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on June 28, 2011 and can be found here.

Routive Vs Discipline

Routine without purpose is boring while routine with purpose is discipline. The difference between the two is that one comes with the "why" while the other comes from going through the motions. Both still requires going through the same process everyday.

Do you know why you're doing what you're doing or are you only going through the motions?

Emotional Memories

As I said before, emotions are what allows people to understand each other and now I understand it to also be a mechanism to help create memories.

We tend to remember experiences, with many emotions involved, more vividly than those that had not as strong of an emotional impact on us.
We remember our pains, our loves... but we likely don't remember our drive to work from 2 weeks ago - as it was uneventful in terms of feelings.

Those who live a life of routine don't have as many vivid memories of their lives as those who goes to great length to get out of their comfort zone since the system isn't "shocked" with feelings to start the process of remembering. When the body is on auto-pilot, it doesn't need to remember things as much.

Change!

“Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replace genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality, which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth.” -Erich Fromm

The industrial age brought with it a host a changes in the world that got carried over to the information age. Man has become industrialize - a machine that is paid to do not to think. This problem is made even worse since as soon as he arrives home he entertains himself, in an attempt to forget his workday, until he goes to sleep - leaving little room for the brain to, again, think.

"Human beings will not change unless the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing." -Anthony Robins

Get control over your thoughts - it's time to change and actually think!

How We Speak To Ourselves

How we speak to ourselves affect how good we are at doing things. Who is more likely to hit a home-run? The person who tells himself "I'm going to hit that ball out of the park" or the person who tells himself "I'm probably going to miss it again"?

Last year, I started drawing again and while my physical skills did improve - how I speak to myself when I draw is what changed the most. My self-talk went from "I can't draw" to "I can draw". Practice helped change how I talk to myself when I pick up a pencil.
Here's the thing; I don't draw as good on days that I feel negative about myself and it's not because my physical skill suddenly went out the window, it's because of how I speak to myself.

The person who's confident will get good at a new skill faster than the person who's not confident.

What Are We Teaching The Next Generation?

"Children are closer to the original potential we were born with. Until we become programmed to believe what we cannot do, as children we are still willing to believe in what we can." -Shad Helmstetter

Nobody is born a racist - kids are thought to be racist by their parents, or close association, and these beliefs can last a lifetime to then be passed on to the next generation. Will it ever end?

"Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot."-Charles Bukowski

Obviously, this doesn't only apply to racial beliefs. There are plenty of bad habits we pass on without knowing it and it's our responsibility to identify and fix them. Are you a good example for the next generation?

A Lifetime of Weakness

‎"I think we never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public." -Chuck Goetschel

As a kid, I used to think that adults were invincible. That I could tell them anything and it wouldn't hurt their feelings and that once I get to that age, I would be the same.

“When you’re young; you learn. When you get older; you understand.” -Unknown

As you get older, you realize that you're just the same as when you were a kid. We still have fears, we still get hurt, we still feel like we want to cry ... what changed? Obviously, the body did and we do know more about life, and hopefully take responsibility over our actions, but it surely is different than how I envisioned it as a kid.

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Revision Wednesday (on a Tuesday)
Blog post originally created on June 7, 2011 and can be found here.

Average

"When you're average, you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top." -John Wooden

Average, Middle-class, Normal... call it what you want but what it really means is being controlled by a system and not being good nor bad at it.

"When I thought I was learning to live, I was learning to die." -Leonardo Da Vinci

What is the system?
The system is a set of beliefs they influence you to follow - so much so that you loose your individuality to become a carbon copy of what is considered appropriate for the system in place.

Can I beat the system?
No, you can't beat the system but you don't really want that anyway. What you really want to do is either master it or create your own.

Ok... so how do I do that?

"The brain simply believes what you tell it the most." -Shad Helmstetter

The person you listen to the most is in control of your thoughts. If you want to master, or create a system, what you'll first need is creativity. Creativity comes from within - how can you think creatively, or have original ideas, if you're a carbon copy of somebody else? Your ideas are not your own until you stop people from dictating your thoughts and start listening to yourself.

Finding yourself, your individuality, your own ideas, will help you figure out ways to succeed within a system or create a successful system of your own. Given that, of course, you have the courage to follow through on your ideas but that's another topic for another day.

*This post can also be found on Men 2.0

What Is Creativity?

"You don't get more creative ideas by trying to think more creatively, you get them by acting more creatively." -Roy Spence

Creativity is like a forest fire in the mind - some people wait until lighting hits a tree for the fire to start while others light up a branch with a lighter until it burns.