Happy Father’s Day–a special song to you Dad!
It’s been more than 3 years since I came here. Being a father working and leaving away from the family is tough emotionally. Last year was great since I was able to spend it with them and at the same time celebrate my son, Justin Daniel’s 7th birthday last June 18. Oh, I want to greet my son a very happy birthday. I’m very proud of what you are and what you will become in the future. I love you Jed. I’m hoping and praying that I can bring them along here soon in Singapore. It’s been more than 2 years since my wife; Helen submitted her birth certificate to Manila City Hall for correction of her misspelled name as Hellen instead of just single L. We’ve been persistent to the point of not giving in to any form of extortion. I hope and pray that this culture of corruption will be minimized significantly, if not eradicated by the new administration of Philippines President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
Since I can’t celebrate both Father’s Day and my son’s 8th Birthday, I have to find some creative ways to celebrate. Bold and crazy as it may seem I decided to sing a special song from one of my favorite performers, “The King” Elvis Presley with the song Can’t Help Falling in Love. I shared this video just for my circle of friends in Facebook. Now, I’m sharing here in my blog. I remember singing this song way back in college during my stay at University of the Philippines Narra Residence Hall. Bold and crazy at that time, yes we are, we used to serenade (in our term “harana”) the ladies’ dormitories at Kamia and Sampaguita Residence Hall.
So to all fellow fathers (even mothers) who are away from home, never give up. There are countless of ways to keep you moving. It is ok once in a while to spend most of your time at work, but no too much, as stress can be fatal in your health in the long term. There are great things that you can’t find within the four corners of your office. Depending on your preference, you can join your school’s alumni organization, a sports club, or photography enthusiasts, or a religious or spiritual community, personal development group, and thousands of groups. In my part, I would like to thank my circle of friends from (CFC-SvFL) Servants for Family and Life (also CFC FFLers lah), from my Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup group, from internet marketing circle of Fabian Lim’s friends, fellow UPAAS (University of the Philippines Alumni Association Singapore), fellow PEN friends (Pinoy Entrepreneurs Night), and of course my fellow social media friends in Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin.
Achieving Your Goals and Dreams- How To Overcome Barriers?
goku super saiyan in dragon ball z breaking barriers
Do you have the power to believe in your goals and dreams? You have the power to achieve anything.
Last Thursday April 22, 2010, I attended the monthly Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup. It was fun and engaging experience as facilitated by the inspiring Patrick Yc Lim. We were given this questions and made us write down.
1. What is Your Dream? an example is what lifestyle do you want to have/live when you retire? We were divided into groups and made us to share our dreams. When you share your dreams with another person it becomes a commitment. This will make you more accountable. The goals and dreams should be as specific as possible.
2. Why is your Goals and Dreams important to you? You need to ask this question, Why? The more it is emotional to you the more likely you will motivate yourself to achieve your goals.
3.What could stop you from achieving your goals? There were lots of reasons and sometimes can be considered as excuses such as your job, friends, money, limiting beliefs, procrastination, health (sickness), out of focus. If you noticed these are mostly about oneself. So the old age saying by Socrates,“Know Thyself” is something that we have to start with. A great book reference is Thick Face, Black Heart by Chin-Ning Chu
We need to keep on asking deep questions. Say, when you say no money, what do you really mean no money?what are the ways of finding money? Is there a way to do it? Do I know someone who can support my ideas? Are there venture capitalists or angel investors that can help? There was a suggestion of about asking Google for help regarding the common questions.
4. What will happen if you did not achieve your dreams? The key is to associate with some sort of emotion such as pain say if you did not achieve your goal of creating the Personal Development School for the children, they will suffer the consequence of ignorance or poverty.
The Master-Servant principle - the idea is the master determines the goals and dreams. The master orders the servant to do or carry out the activities.The servant also looks for other partners who can help him with his tasks.
Another Principle is the Big Yellow Circle – the idea is to close your eyes and imagine yourself achieving your dreams and goals when you step inside the circle. The color intensifies by changing the color to orange as you become emotional with what you feel using all your senses. In my case, I imagine my self as a Dragon Ball Z character Goku turning into a Super Saiyan. If you don’t know what I am talking here take a look at his picture above. I used to watch this Japanese anime back then. I remember doing this kind of exercise that I attended at Unleash the Power Within Event.
Some words of wisdom that can help to motivate were;
“Success is Not What you Know – It is What You Do with What You Know” The key here is your ability to take action.
“Failure is not because you lack ideas or knowledge, It is because you lack courage.”
Ask yourself this question, “Are you afraid of the known or the unknown?” You can make similar analogy in life as the level of your comfort zones. You have to embrace the challenges in life because it means that you are stepping out of your comfort zone. Be afraid of the known because it is where you are now, your comfort zone. Go into the unknown where the infinite possibilities lay waiting for you.
Jerome Castaneda sharing with PEG group what his dreams are
Personal Excellence and Growth - Breaking Barriers Group
Thank You 2009 and An Exciting 2010 Goals!
WOW! 2009 will be my most memorable year! It was the year where I learned to develop my skills in internet marketing. My objective at that time was to learn how I can generate more leads to my network marketing business through pay per click. I learned more than what I expected and the thought of passive residual income while you sleep is such an inevitable and powerful tool. Internet marketing is such a lonely business if you do it by yourself so I highly recommend that you find a mentor just like when you enroll to get a college degree. I developed my skills in the field of search engine marketing – both in search engine optimization and Google adwords. It was my first time to buy a domain name for jeromecastaneda.com and learned to use this powerful blog resource of WordPress. Actually, I managed to rank on the first page for some keywords about my blog. Woohoo! I was able to dominate almost all the sites on the first page for my name Jerome Castaneda and hope to totally dominate it next year 2010. Indeed, wordpress is the king!
I had the chance to attend Tony Robbins Unleashed the Power Within 4 day’s seminar at the Singapore Expo. In those 4 days I had the chance to shape my destiny in my thoughts and managed to do a firewalker on burning coals. It was also in this event that I truly take care about my health especially the food that I ate. I just developed the love for green stuffs, vegetables and fruits. Wow, it was truly an awesome time to remember.
It was the year where I regularly attended a Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup with great life coaches, Mr. Patrick Lim and Ms. Jessica See. I’ve met like minded people and exchanged life experiences and philosophies to grow and become the person that I want to be. There were 2 things that I learned if you want to succeed or grow in life, 1. the people you know or associate with and 2. the books that you’ve read.
2009 was the year I started to grow my spiritual relationship with the Lord God through CFC-FFL Singapore (Couples for Christ – Foundation for Family and Life) as a member for the Servants of the Lord (SOLD) group. Here I got the chance to meet God filled spirited people where there’s no inhibitions about telling your personal challenges in life. Here we prayed for each one’s personal success, family and health miracles. I highly suggest to any individual to join a spiritual or religious group especially if you’re working away from your family just like me.
Now, some people (especially with hardcore employee mindsets) may ask me why on earth should I spend much time learning stuffs that is outside of my job skills as a Mechanical Engineer. My answer is very simple my friend, I have Big Dreams. I am taking Jim Rohn’s advise to work hard on myself than what I do on my job. Personal development builds up my character and my attitude at work. I have the power of concentration and the focus to become a very productive engineer not only at work but with my relationship and communication with my colleagues.
As I looked forward about my 2010 goals, I am very excited about the potential person I can become. Year 2010 will be the start of my 10 year master plan. I’ll continue the commitment of my never ending personal development blog, to become the best father to my son and a loving husband to my wife. I’ll continue to read or listen to books or audiobooks, to meet like minded individuals in personal development and internet marketing fields. I’ll continue to work and apply my skills in internet marketing, to help local businesses generate more sales to their business. I’ll continue to take care of my health by having a regular exercise and watch out on the food that I take. Most of all, I’ll continue to praise and worship God for all the blessings and for the person I become.
Personal Branding, the PURPLE CAT way
Last night was another great night that you shouldn’t missed every end of the month on a Friday. Why, it was the second “Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup” and the topic was Stand Out from the Crowd! Learn to Create a Personal Brand! I must say it’s getting better and bigger (more crowd and great food).
Personal Branding is something that is uniquely yours. It is something that helps people to remember You. What do you think if you hear the word, Trump? you’re right, skyscrapers, The Apprentice (You’re Fired!), and oops, his hair. What about Oprah? I believe everything she says will turn into gold, imagine her Book Club and other organizations. Her famous tag lines, ”You are responsible for your own life”, “Live Your Best Life”. Think about the famous brands in the market, say Nike is equivalent to “Just Do It” . What about when you hear “It keeps going, and going, and going…” yes, you’re right its our neighbor who kept on yelling non-stop at her husband for whatever reason. OK, it was Energizer Batteries.
There must be a purpose for those slogans or names. Personal branding can only happen if you have a Purpose. What do you really want for Your life? What don’t You want in you life? What have You settled for?
You need to define your USP or Unique Selling Proposition. What will make your customers buy from You (ideas) instead from others. In order for you to understand your USP, you need to know 1.) Your Strengths 2.) Your Skills 3.) Your Values 4.) Your Passions.
You need to Reinvent Yourself. It means that you must unlearn (things that will not help you grow), learn (that will help you grow) and relearn (making a habit of continuous growing). Ask yourself, what’s missing with this picture? Here’s a very nice quote from one of my favorite (invisible) guru Zig Ziglar, ” Go as Far as You can See and when You get There, You will always be able to See Farther.” Reinvention is about maximizing your Assets (strengths) and camouflaging your Liabilities (weaknesses). Be aware of how You are communicating with Yourself. Talk to yourself in front of the mirror and say “I’m the Best” as often as you want and feel what you’ve said.
Bringing Passion into the pursuit of Your dreams is critical if You are to dream Big and achieve those dreams. Please refer to my previous post for more information, Finding Your Passion! Furthermore, you can ask some questions;
- What do I love to Do? – look for elements in your Job that you feel good, it could be Your friends, relationships or anything.
- What do I enjoy Doing?
- What gives me an adrenaline rush?
- What do I feel proud of?
Here’s another great way to psyche up yourself, You need to Look Good and Feel Great. The greatest risk to a reputation is his/her failure to factor image into his/her success in business or career. Here’s a circle of Success Cycle, if you Feel Great then you will Look Good. If You Look Good then You will Project Well. If you Project Well then You will have a Positive Response and when you respond positively then you will Feel Great (back to the start, see the cycle).
There is never a second chance to your Signature Look. Here are some tips to work on your signature look;
- Capitalise on your Assets – these could be your physical, your pearly white smile, your eyes, your nose, your gorgeous body
- Dress to suit your Body Shape
- Go for your Colors – enhancing your instant switch (power on) to your Glowingness
- You need to understand your Dress Style
- Dress to suit your environment or audience – you can dress a level up from your environment without being overdressed.
For me, most of the times, my wife made good recommendations for the clothes that I wear and did get some good compliments from colleagues in the office. So better include your wife or girlfriend whenever you want to select the dress style you want and be sure to you are comfortable wearing it.
Excite Others by developing a WOW statement or signature will get others to say WOW. A signature wow is a personal style that you did with a special touch. To guide you ask yourself;
- What am I known for?
- What do I want to stand for?
- Am I making a difference?
The sacred trinity for a Brand’s Success is 1. Clarity 2. Consistency and 3. Authenticity
- Does the message that you want to send to your target audience or public at large have clarity?
- Are you consistent in the image you project to others?
- How authentic are you? Are you true to Yourself?
Lastly, Tell the World! Position and Promote Yourself. Be visible.
My take on this is, Just Be Yourself at Your own Very Best All the Time.
Be-YourSelf-Brand
PS
The next Meetup topic on August 28 will be on Persuasive Communication – The art of moving people through to action. Check more info at this site. See you there!
HINT: Don’t you know that the bold words above, is an abbreviation of PURPLE CAT. check it if you got it.
Finding Your Passion!
I had a great time last night at our
Just to share some bits from what I’ve learned about finding your passion. Passion is something that fuels your purpose, why you are here in this world.
Passion is something you
- love to do
- enjoy doing it
- feel strongly about it
- are drawn to it ( attracts)
- feel good doing it
- like to talk about it ( again and again)
- feel excited about it
- want to keep doing it
- can show expression
from my own experience, it is something that I kept on thinking about it even when am asleep or at work, I spend a lot of time and energy on it, i write about it (now you know why I have a blog).
So what about you? Share me your Passion.
