Defining Success

July 28th, 2007 July 28th, 2007
Posted in Books, Life Coaching Entries
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Success_j_pincott these are some of my favorite advice adoptations from remarkably accomplished people.. they’re a source of inspiration and mentorship, it is a good thing that they were able to share their ways on how they were able to achieve their success in life. if you want a good compilation of the advices of these remarkable people, look for the book Success edited by: J. Pincott..

For some poeple, success is simply defined: it’s the act of accomplishing something one has set to do. But finishing something isn’t always the same as being succesful at it. For many, success also implies meaningfulness and magnitude. Almost every person has his or her own definition of success - and many of these definitions are anything but definite.

it is worthwhile to think about what success means to you and what it means to others. and it’s up to you to decide if you want the latter to influence the former.

to me success is the ability to LOVE and to have COMPASSION. it’s
the capacity to experience joy and spread it to others. It’s the security
of knowing that your life has meaning and purpose. it is a sense of
connection to the creative power of the universe. it’s also the ability to
fulfill your goals. it’s the progressive realisation of worthy
goals. it’s also the expansion of happiness. when you have all that,
then material success in terms of material acquisitions and comforts and luxury,
follows as a by-product.

–deepak chopra, writer, medical doctor, and CEO of the Chopra
Center

I’d rather be a failure at something i enjoy than be a success at something i hate..

–goerge burns, actor and comedian

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. when you do a thing, do it with all your might. put your soul into it. stamp it with your own personality. be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective. nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

–ralph waldo emerson, poet and philosopher

i thought i was going to make crazy cartoons for the rest of my life. i didn’t think i’d ever get paid for it, didn’t think i drew well enough, but i knew it made me happy.

–matt groening, creator of the simpsons

my boyfriend was moving to manchester and wanted me to move, too. it was during the train journey back from manchester to london, after a weekend looking for a flat, that harry potter made his appearance. i have never felt such a huge rush of excitement. i knew immediately that this was going to be such fun to write… i didnt know then that it was going to be a book for children - i just knew that i had this boy, harry. during that journey i also discovered ron, nearly headless nick, hagrid, and peeves. but with the idea of my life careering round my head, i didn’t have a pen that worked! and i never went anywhere without a pen and notebook. so, rather than trying to write it, i had to think it. and i think that was a very good thing. i was besieged by a mass of detail and if it didn’t survive that journey it probably wasn’t worth remembering.

–joann kathleen (J.K.) rowling, writer

it [e-mail] was a hack - a neat thing to try out… it probably took four, five, six hours to do. less than a day spread over a week or two - when i had a spare moment.

–ray tomlinson, inventor of email, computer scientist

don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.

–thomas j. watson, founder of IBM

there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; ommitted, all the voyage of their life, is bound in shallows and in miseries, on such a full sea are we now afloat, and we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

–william shakespeare, playwright, in julius ceasar

our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. there is no other route to success

–pablo picasso, artist

give me a stock clerk with a goal and i’ll give you a man who will make history. give me a man with no goals and i’ll give you a stock clerk.

–james cash penney, fonder of J.C. Penney

a man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, “there goes ted williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.”

–ted williams, baseball player

my goal is simple, it is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all..

–stephen hawking, physicist

consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.

–pope john xxiii

goals are dreams with deadlines

–diana scharf hunt, aphorist

The 18/ 40/ 60 Rule:

July 22nd, 2007 July 22nd, 2007
Posted in Life Coaching Entries
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Have you ever heard of this rule? Well again, stumbled into another chapter of a book (that I’ll be recommending soon once I’m done with it…) and it gives me a laugh because I find it funny at the same time so painfully true…

It goes something like; when we were 18 we worry too much about what other people thinks of us, and so we do the dumbest things (or not do what we like) just to fit in and appear to be cool; and when we reach 40, we don’t give a damn what anybody will think of us; then we reach 60, where we find out and realize that nobody’s been thinking about us at all. tragic…

Funny isn’t it? I think I might have been in that kind of crap when I was younger and, ok ok, most of the time, frankly because I wanted to please my boss, my company, my family, my friends and maintain a reputable status in society. We become very self-conscious, very restricting and watch ourselves all the time coz we don’t want the people around us to think otherwise and destroy the reputation that we’ve built.

(say it with me) its becoming so tiring already and sometimes we just want to scream and shout, dance the silly chicken dance, and laugh out loud and not to give a damn about what other people will think!! And just be who we really think we are, the way we should be…

But this might come as a surprise for you, people around us doesn’t really think of other people that much because they are also busy worrying about what other people will think about them…

Of course we pass on judgments, we build impressions toward people the way we see them.. and these people also build judgments and impressions towards us that we don’t like.. and we in turn pass again judgments and impressions towards people that we don’t like.. and people that we don’t like pass judgments and impressions towards us…. and if they are really thinking about you at all..they are wondering what you are thinking about them… Ya dah..ya dah..ya dah.. see its a freakin vicious cycle and we are all caught up in it…

So why do we keep allowing ourselves get tangled up in that dumb cycle, where if we look at the results, it is not even giving us any good results. It is really a big waste of time.. and it is not helping us achieve the goals that we intend…

I have been adopting a very simple saying, a motto if you will, and I am gonna write it down in my slum book, together with my crushes, favorite color, favorite food, what do I want to be when I grow up, etc.. etc… and it goes something like:

“WHAT OTHERS THINK ABOUT ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS..”

Let’s think about it, we waste time worrying what other people think about us and jeopardizing what we really want, sacrificing our happiness, disregarding what really matters in our lives… where we can make ourselves busy by thinking about how do we achieve our goals, how do we hit that target, how else we can attain a bigger sale, how we can be able to get that guitar lessons, how we can add our skill set.. and basically how do we become successful doing what we really like…

Besides trying to please and patronizing other people is way so NOT cool anymore and in this new generation, people wants REAL people… that’s why reality TV is such a HIT.. get it?

HAPPINESS

May 2nd, 2007 May 2nd, 2007
Posted in Life Coaching Entries, My Essays
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HAPPINESS

Ahh… that ecstatic feeling!!!Such wonderful sensation that makes you feel all warm inside and having all the love flow inside your system, truly magnificent and builds an assurance that everything is working great in your life…

That’s exactly how I feel right now, its so much different writing about it and trying to put into words when all you want to write about can be put into a simple emoticon like this J !!!

I am one who is always in pursuit of understanding LIFE, what makes us who we are, what makes us tick, what brings us joy, what created our personalities, where did our values come from, what’s the essence of Catholicism, Buddhism, Kabbala, Taoism, Humanism, and etcetera, etcetera… and the more basics of all things, “How do we sustain HAPPINESS?”

I think everyone is in pursuit of this state.I know it can be difficult at times but everything we do in life is all about feeling this way.I’ve tried to simplify my goals in life, and it all boils down to being HAPPY!

The mind boggling and surprising of all is that when I am in this state, everything that I want in life is happening in fast pace.All the things that I visualized and imagined that would happen to me perfectly did just that, It happened.

I’m gonna try to tell you stories that has been happening and that has transpired in my life.I’ll be speaking of a lot of clichés right now but mind you the wisdom that can be drawn from it and once practiced can be very valuable in our everyday struggle…

1st cliché:“HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE!”

Society made us feel we belong, but sometimes it also discriminates us because they try to project that we are never going to be happy unless we’ll have what they have.Like a car, a house, a six digit salary, a fulfilling career, and what I have been always asked lately, “a romantic relationship.”I do believe that these things can give us glee, but why should we be unhappy when we don’t have those things?

I just recently realized that I have a lot of things to be happy about.And what made me aware of these is because of a very simple practice.It’s all about “GRATITUDE!”Hah! How cliché is that!But it did work for me, I woke up one day and said thank you.I thought of things and just felt grateful and said thanks.It boosts my mood to a jolly state and just made my day…I never thought that a sincere THANK YOU could maneuver my day into sheer delight…

And I guess its just common sense.Should we choose to be miserable or happy?I hope you choose the latter, coz what good will it bring you if you chose otherwise di ba?Unless you are happy being miserable… then again that’s a different story…

2nd cliché:“HAPPINESS IS IN THE DOING!”

A friend of mine wrote in a very small post-it and pasted it in my notebook, and read just that.Let’s hide her name by an alias of Ms. Kay Calpo.. haha… peace!Could it be cheesier than that!?!?Yeah let the cringe begin!

But philosophizing it could give you again, wisdom.I’d like to believe that we do things because it gives us happiness, but of course there are things that we do that we feel we don’t have a choice but to do it. And unfortunately we think that it is robbing us of our happiness.

Again it is a matter of common sense.Why would we do something that we know will not give us joy?Isn’t that being dishonest with ourselves?Who are we trying to please?Definitely not yourself…

Crazy right? But if we focus on the end result, and look back why we feel we sacrificed a lot and did what we did.There is a compelling reason.The root why we do things, looking at it deeply, we did it because the end result would give us happiness.

3rd cliché:“HAPPINESS BELONGS TO THE SELF-SUFFICIENT!”

WOW PARE, DUDE BIGAT!!! That came from my good old friend ARISTOTLE, pasensya na kayo adik talaga sya…

But it makes sense right?We can only be grateful for the people who bring us happiness but if we build expectations from them, that could only give us a broken heart and worst is we begin to destroy that person and strip them of their own happiness.One piece of advice, don’t depend your happiness from another person because eventually that person will go away or die, and tell me where will that lead you?

A person is never beyond our control.Keep trying that and I could only interpret you as, SELFISH! pakshet…

I’ll end my clichés with those, coz all the hairs in my body and what is left in my head are all standing up and the goose bumps are starting to itch.. but let me quote my KUMPARES because they are the cringe masters and they make you puke like hell, but they’ve always left a smile in my face… here they are:

Claude Monet:

The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.

Buddha:

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.

Carl Jung:

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

Ecclesiastes:

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Felix Adler:

The truth which has made us free will in the end make us glad also.

Franklin D. Roosevelt:

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

George Burns:

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

HH the Dalai Lama:

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

Henry David Thoreau:

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.

John D. Rockefeller:

I can think of nothing less pleasurable than a life devoted to pleasure.

Kalidasa:

Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!

Mark Twain:

Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.

Mohandas K. Gandhi:

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

To fill the hour — that is happiness.

Sophocles:

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson:

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.

Of Nostalgic 10 Years

April 4th, 2007 April 4th, 2007
Posted in My Essays, trying a shot at poetry
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Of Nostalgic 10 Years…

4 April 2007

Four corners of a room with a busy feel

Reminders of triumph of 10 years

Colorful, beautiful and comforting

Wonderful moments frozen by such keepsakes

Mementos smiling back from wooden and steel frames

Of loved ones from the past and the present

However cheerful it should feel

These things just stare

Without a voice, or warmth or scent

Good ‘Ol Silence becoming a gloomy company.

10 years it has been

Of days of struggling and just living

The chosen path endured and achieved

A long way from the innocence departed

And in a waking chance you realize

Important parts of life is put to sacrifice

Wondering where they have gone

Or rather not choosing over them was worthwhile

The value of thy self transformed

In an identity unrecognized

10 years past.

Now being mindful of the precious things

Where shall it lead? 10 years forward…