Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams
Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams
We had another great night for Personal Excellence and Growth meetup about the topic “Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams”. Incidentally, while on my way to the event place, I managed to pass along a bookshop selling second hand books besides the
Mr. Patrick Yc Lim, event organizer and speaker, shared a story of Edmund Hillary, as being the first person together with a Sherpa mountaineer to reach the summit of
Patrick gave us an exercise and he laid down sets of 3D stickers of animals and insects such as whales, butterflies, dragonflies, bugs, etc. We were asked to pick one animal or insect and explained the reasons of our choice. I chose dolphin because it symbolized adventure, freedom and fun. It represents harmony with others with its strong communication skills. Dolphins easily adapt to a community and can be trustworthy.
The exercise taught us about life of making choices. Why did we choose and why we didn’t choose the other options. What were our motives in the selection process?
In life, we need to ask a question in making a choice. Is this activity will help me in moving towards my dreams and goals? Here’s a great guide that will help you in going the direction of your goals. Get a blank sheet of paper. Draw a horizontal line across the middle of the paper. Above the line, draw an upward arrow and write down Responsibility. Below the line is a downward arrow indicating blame, excuses, justify.
Your ability to respond is the key to every decision you take. Responsibility is about taking ownership of your choices. Their motto is: “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.” When you do that, then you’re living above the line. The opposite is when you start the blame game. You blame the government, your parents or your friends from the poor results you made. You make an excuse about the traffic situation for coming late in a meeting. Others justify that they can’t become wealthy because they don’t have the right education. Did you notice any commonality among these? They are all telling a story, mostly of BS and full of crap. Be very careful with people who practiced this kind of behavior. Simply walk away from this kind of crowd.
Let us dig deeper and have a look about the input and output realities of our decision. What are the things needed to change our desired outcome. What determines an outcome is our behavior. It refers to the way a person behaves towards other people or other circumstances or events. A good motto is “how you do anything is how you do everything.” The behavior of a person is identified with an attitude. Our attitude determines what we see and how we handle our feelings. Say, if people think that smoking is bad for their health, then, they will quit. What determines an attitude is how you believe in yourself. Beliefs are the assumptions we create about ourselves. The clearer you are about what you believe and value, the happier and more effective you will be. A good sample of a belief system, success is not what you know; success is what you do with what you know. Most of our limitations we face in life are self imposed and created from our environment. Our thinking habits are generated from our parents, school, friends, and colleagues. The way we think is like computer software and we can reprogram the input. We can achieve this by reading books and learning from highly successful people. We see things in a different perspective.
Our choices will lead us to our desired goals if we follow the simple discipline of success. On the other hand, we drift away from our goals if we take the simple errors in judgment of failure.
Do You Have What It Takes To Be Number One?
These past few days I was very inspired and blessed for the great results that I achieved. The kind of results that was once a dream. I’m referring to ranking way up to the top of Google search result page rank for selected keywords in just over three days. It is a skill that can be learned and developed through search engine optimization.
But what really inspired me the most and made me a very proud father was my son, Justin Daniel Castaneda‘s 3 medal awards. He received medals during their recognition day held at Guadalupe Seminary. For the second time, he was the first honor for Kidzone Learning School of Maysilo Plainview, Mandaluyong City.
It was also by accident that I managed to borrow audiobooks, What It Takes to Be #1 : Vince Lombardi on Leadership and Rich Like Them: My Door-To-Door Search for the Secrets of Wealth in America’s Richest Neighborhoods from the National Library Singapore.
So what it really takes to be number 1?
First, above all things else are my humble praises, worship and prayers to Almighty God for all the blessings that I have presently. I always make sure to give thanks for the blessings and the future.
Second, looking back about how I managed to get on top of Google rankings, I spend my time with mentors or coaches who are themselves number one in their respective fields of expertise. I must say that hanging around with winners is a very big factor in achieving whatever you want to be in life.
Third, I must say that my hungry pursuit in personal development played an important key to become number 1. You see, if I improve myself ten times more imagine how much improvement will it give to my family and friends. It is the character that will make a difference as I communicate and interact with different people. I have to be very careful with the words that I share with my friends, it can either break me or inspire them to become better. Attitude is indeed everything. I am still very consistent to say ” I Love You” to my wife and my son.
Is Your Boss a Source of Inspiration or a Source of Stress?
boss-a-source-of-stress
This question just popped out of my mind after few hours had passed since my boss came from a week of business trip outside the country. I had the courage to ask some of my colleagues about this question. There’s no point of asking that obvious question, remarked one of my colleagues. The resounding answer therefore is stress. Let me clarify that there will never be an intention of picking or in anyway to degrade my boss. I have the highest respect to my boss since I joined the company. My intention here is to get ideas from other work experiences whether from other countries, cultures or any background. The ideas that will help us not necessarily to look for other great working environment or workplaces but perhaps to help our existing workplaces to become less stressful environment. Moving out to a different workplace will be our last resort if you see there is no hope of improvement.
Stress will always be part of our life but too much stress can cause health problems. Stress may also come from your co-workers with some annoying attitudes. Verbal discussions which can turn into noise pollutions in an open environment will definitely affect your productivity at work.
I’ve been working here in Singapore for more than 2 years already to a Marine Engineering and Consultancy firm. This is my first and only company so far since I came from the Philippines, my home country. Being the only Filipino from an Indian dominated company was a challenge for me during my first few months. Well there were few local Singaporean colleagues there as well, just 3 of them. Every time our boss goes for a business trip or if he’s not around, the mood is relaxed. This does not mean that we take our time to non productive tasks. Now, let me placed myself in my boss shoes or any business owner. I fully understand that the goal of every company is to generate consistent profits or hit their monthly targets. My question is how can you inspire your subordinates or your team to hit their realistic targets without causing too much stress to the employees? How can a boss be so confident that even if he leaves for a business trip, the employees are still inspired and motivated to perform their tasks at their own time?
My work experience here in Singapore is very different from my previous work in the Philippines. I had been to Japanese, US and local firms and most of the companies there had teambuilding events like sports fest, an outdoor trip to beaches, Christmas parties, karaoke’s, and anniversary events. Wow, I missed the fun of interaction with different co-workers. Here, let me see…hhhmm…oh I remember we ate our lunch out to a good restaurant which only happened once in a year. That’s all then back to work. I remember in my first few months that I even worked on a holiday. Normally I got double pay back in the Philippines but not here. Overstaying at work seemed to be a regular sight while office neighbours had gone home. Please don’t interpret me that I am whining because I know a friend that moved out of companies 3 times in just 2 years.
Again, my motivation here is how can we help improve our present situation or other with similar challenges in their workplace? Another reason why I’m asking you some of your experiences is that I have never talked to my boss regarding this kind of issue. I have other issues as well like I haven’t been invited for a performance evaluation since I started working here. Ok, that’s a totally different topic. I am not sure if the small size of our company of not more than 20 people is a limitation but I don’t want to look that way. Looks like my boss had a lot of roles being the businessman, sales, hiring manager, purchasing, technical head (even if we had 2 managers – for engineering and for research and development). Did I miss anything?
I will really appreciate your inspiring experiences so please leave you comments below both employers and employees.
How Do You Deal with Bully or Bullies in School?
being bullied at school
Have you ever experienced being bullied around in your early years at school?
How did you deal with bullies?
Or, Are you the one playing as a bully?
Yesterday, me and my wife had a conversation over skype about our son’s experience in school of being bullied by his classmate. She told me that two weeks ago, Jed (my son) got some bruised over his upper leg and last week, a wound in his lower right eye.
First, I asked her if she reported this to the teacher? Yes, she told the head teacher and they did inform the parents of the bully. They told us that the boy had some attitude problem.
Now, here’s the meat part, what if the bully will repeat the thing that he liked to do? I mean what if he hurt my son again physically? I told my wife that we should set boundaries about self respect and teach him about self-confidence. I insisted that we can not tolerate this from happening again as well as to other inferior kids as well. I told my son that he needs to defend himself and teach the bully a lesson, a dose of his own medicine. If he hurt you again, hurt him with greater pain, i told my son. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not teaching my son to become violent or become bully as well. I told him that being a bully is bad and so that he (the bully) will not do it again. He should defend other inferior classmates or friends (victims) if ever he’ll witnessed an event. This is not just physical will but more importantly mental, about self esteem.
Here’s another tip, create a buddy system or a need to hang-out with like minded friends and develop a relationship around your circle of friends. Share ideas among your friends and make an offer of help among them in times of trouble.
It will be wise to enrol your child to a self-defense sport like martial arts. This competitive sport will develop one’s self confidence and of course you’ll have a physically healthy child. Now, this gives us an idea to continue what Jed had started in his summer two years ago.
What if you’re child is the bully? That’s tough for me to share. Let’s just put ourselves in their shoes as to why are they doing this? It could be they want to win more friends? They want some recognition and attention? They want to become popular? Whatever their reasons are, I don’t think they are making sense since bullying is totally wrong. I believe that they need more help and the role of the parents play a vital role in molding their child in becoming what they should be. There should be no excuse for this as the responsibility as a parents is very important. If they need help, they shoud seek advise from an expert, a family counselor, their parents, friends, teachers. The Internet is great cool resource as you can join forums from different parts of the world. Check my previous article, I strongly suggest that you create your own Family Mission Statement.
Lastly, my take is please stop bullying. Its not worth of your time and energy.
stop-bullying
P.S.
I would love to hear your experience about bullying.
