Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

Yesterday I wrote about “Understanding Essential Components Of A Blog” - it basically explains what blogging terms such as RSS, Social Networking, Comments, Technorati, Stumbleupon, Trackback, Do Follow, etc are all about. So what did I do that and what has it got to do with the Law of Attraction? Let me illustrate by telling you my objectives:

1) I would love to attract like minded readers who wants to improve their life to our blog.
2) I would love that readers who come to my blog gets oriented and feels familiar with it.
3) I would love that readers to share our blog post with their friends and readers if they find it useful.
4) I would love that readers know that they can vote/stumble/bookmark any post that they find wonderful.
5) I want my readers to know that I love their comments and appreciate them.
6) I want my readers know that they can follow any post or comment if they are not free to drop by.
7) I want help my blogging friends to help their readers and help their blogs too.

By writing that post and sharing it here:

1) I empower readers who lack the knowledge in these areas to to gain those knowledge.
2) I empower them to contribute actively on any blog they visit, not just ours.
3) I empower blogging friends to attract more active contributors.
4) I empower blogging friends and readers to share post ethically and attract even more loyal readers.
5) I empower everyone reading to ultimately get more traffic through active participation.
6) I create an active blogging community with a simple post
7) I can talk about Law of Attraction and Blogging Tips at the same time

It’s a short post today as I just want to share my thoughts. What do you think? Do share with me, Thanks

Cheers
James

PS: So did it work? After less then 24 hours, it became my most commented post on my blog The rest I will monitor, probably too early to tell.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Hey Folks,

Last night I caught a show about the real life story of a local entrepreneur, Mr Mustaq Ahmad, who runs the hugely successful retail mall Mustafa. I have a real soft spot for any stories on successful people, especially successful entrepreneurs.

The show was very short, just 30 minutes but it focus on Mr Mustaq’s childhood days and significant lessons that he learn since young. From milking cow in India to selling teh terik (milk tea with foaming bubbles) to selling textiles in his later years!

What Mr Mustaq Learned
Here are some lessons he learn as I appreciate them:

1) If the price of your merchandise is fixed by external source, sell more to increase your income.
- He learned that from a milk man collecting milk that his mum milked from their cow in India. “One rupee per bucket. You want to earn more, get me more bucket of milk” says the milk man.

2) Be honest in your business dealings.
- His father taught him that whatever he wants to do in business, he must remember to be honest. They were so honest, they even refused to pay street gangs “protection fee” (that’s 1970’s Singapore). By the way, the mall is named after his father.

3) Fixed a price that is lowest in the market for your merchandise and sell lots of it.
- In 1970’s Singapore, price haggling is probably the default mentality of consumers. They haggle over any purchases, even a cup of tea! He noticed the trend and decided that he wants to focus on selling and not price haggling. He did that by fixing a non-negotiable price that is lowest in the market for his merchandise.

4) He never gives up!
- While operating their road side stall, they were frequently harassed by street gangs and even the police (in the later years when street hawking became illegal). It was actually at this point when he got his first shop space, just 500 sq feet but he bought it - never even considering rental!

5) Treat Your Customer Well and Listen To Their Needs
- His father taught him to treat each customer with respect and he, in his later years, taught his father to listen to their customers need. He say “If they want henna (a type of hand paint), we get henna. If it proves a mistake, we learn from it.”

It was at this point the story ended and it showed how successful Mr Mustaq Ahmad has become. Click here to take a look at his website and his retail mall. The story of what happened after the first shop can be found under history on their website.

What I Learned
So why am I telling his story here? This certainly is not a paid post (maybe I should contact him to see if he is willing to advertise here :P). What I wanted to share was what I saw on the show and how it relates to the Law of Attraction and Positivity.

Mr Mustaq is a positive man. In the show (that’s all I can tell since I don’t know him personally) he has a simple objective - to make himself rich (it’s every migrants dream). He choose to focus on things he has control of (fixing the price and sell more) and ignoring the things that waste his time (price haggling).

He set a goal where Mustafa (his company) will be known as the cheapest place you can get the best merchandise and he sets out to achieve it. His action speaks louder then anything he could have said. His father was not agreeable to price fixing and even laughed at him when he started selling silk handkerchiefs at fixed price. He was mocked by customers too for the same reason but they ultimately came back to him when they found that he was the cheapest in the market!

His goal set almost 40 years ago continues to be the pillar of his business and he continues to innovate by listening to customers feedback! It is the only retail mall in Singapore to operate 24 hours and it made the news for being the first and probably the only retail mall in Singapore to sell automobiles as part of their merchandise. Customer who feels appreciated will come back to buy from you. Another good example of like attracts like.

I love his story and I hope you love it too

Love,
James

Popularity: 10% [?]

Hey Folks,

Today I would like to share with you Stella’s (my little girl) manifestation. But before I do that, let me just recap on what she knows about the Law of Attraction and Manifestation.

Stella And “The Secret”
I remember that when we showed her the movie “The Secret“, about a year ago, the first thing she did was to wrote down what she wanted and paste it outside the main door to our house and a few weeks later, she got her wish in the form of a lucky draw!

Since then, we have always encourage her to dream and manifest and more importantly to take action to get what she wants. We observed that when she wants a particular thing bad enough, she will take action get it and she always start by asking!

Ask And You Shall Be Given (most times anyway)
For example, she wanted a balloon at a theme park but we wouldn’t get one for her. So she starts asking every stall owner where she can get one or if someone was holding a bunch of balloons, she will ask them for one. The thing is, she usually gets what she wants that way. She has gotten free drinks, extra serving of drinks, balloons, sweets, stickers, even not-for-sale items, etc

So can I say she really knows how to manifest? I still can’t say for sure. But we do know that she understands the need to ask for what she wants and what she desires. We always encourage her to dream and we encourage her to actively pursue her dreams. We always could tell if what she says she wanted was really what she desire - we look at her action.

What Makes You Take Action
Dreams come from thoughts and when you think hard enough and sufficiently, it turns into manifestation. Manifest sufficiently and you get the desire to take action and live your dream.

So by looking at what she does, we can tell how badly she wants it and if she was willing to work for it. But we still apply an acid test, we ask her to justify to us why she wants or needs whatever she was trying to get. It helps her to understand if she really needs it and to vocalize it in a logical manner. Whenever she desires something sufficiently, she can come up with a load of good reasons to justify it.

Stella And Her Manifestation
And it was such a situation that led us to 2 days of shopping and assembling her new work/play area. Take a look at these photos:

She did it again! Got a sales guy to part with his promotional stuff toy
- A cute trio of birdies (Mascot of LCD manufacturer ViewSonic).

And we didn’t even buy any LCD screens.

We started out shopping with the aim of getting kiddish (in Stella’s term, it’s anything pink!) looking. So we looked around for pink computer case and I didn’t realized how tough it was to find one, all other cases we came across was BLACK with an occasional blue, red, beige or while. Not only was pink case difficult to find, pink computer tables were non-existent (certainly not in Sim Lim Square - the famous electronic and computer hangout in Singapore). But with a little persistence, we finally found the perfect table at IKEA (our famous Swedish Furniture Mall) along with a pink chair :P. Check this out!

Now look at our girl. Totally engrossed in playing her game on her new PINK computer, at her new PINK desk and sitting on her new PINK Chair!

You can click on some of the images to look at a larger version if you want to. Did you guys notice the pink pig wrist rest and the pink pencil case on her desk (just beside the LCD)?

So that was what we got ourselves into over the weekend. We manage to attract the correct furnitures and items (a little bit of focus and some persistence does help) to make Stella’s Dream come true!

What’s The Moral Of This Story?
Sometimes we have dreams that are completely beyond our means to achieve (you can’t expect a 6 year old girl to have the resources to buy and assemble those stuff right?) but it doesn’t mean there is no hope. You can still achieve your dreams by getting your questions heard by people with the right resources or people with the right connections.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend because we sure enjoyed ours

Love,
James

Popularity: 9% [?]

Hey Folks,

Today I would like to ask you, How Do You Get Motivated?

There are basically 2 types of motivation:

Self Motivation
This is arguably the best form of motivation and it is commonly found in entrepreneurs. In this form, you create or find the reason(s) to be motivated. You know what you desire and usually, your goal or the results of achieving your goal IS your motivation.

People in this category are always looking for challenges, goals, objective, new things to achieve. It does not matter if they failed a hundred times, they will try new ways, new approach or new methods until they succeed!

Also, by being self motivated, you will tend to attraction opportunities as you are always on the look out for them.

Motivated By External Factors
This is the most common type of motivation. You fall into this category if your motivation is due to:

- Wanting to fulfill the expectations of other people
- Force by circumstances beyond your control to do something
- Promise of a great reward (Lottery falls into this category)

People in this category will not take any action unless there is a reason rewarding enough or more typically painful enough for them to take action and do something. Their motivation will only last long enough for them to achieve the minimum requirements to satisfy and remove the external factors (pushing or pulling them).

The people in this group tend to attract more external factors that will push/pull them by virtue that they wait for something to happen!

Illustration
Lets say if you have a kid who is self motivated, they study on their own, request for help if they need, join study groups and generally get good grades (because they put in the effort). Would you bother as much to push them? Probably not.

Lets say again that you have another kid that just study enough to pass test and exams and occasionally fails exam but do not put in the effort to study harder. Would you, as parent set targets for him, send him to tuition classes, nag at him, force him to study? Probably so.

Could you see how the the Law of Attraction is working here? I think you would

So Which Do You Belong Too?
I used to be in the second group. Now I am somewhere in between but moving slowly but surely into the first group of motivators. What about you?

Share your thoughts simply by voting in this small survey that I have set up.

Cheers,
James

PS: I’m still trying to figure out how to change the color of the button

Popularity: 8% [?]

Hey Folks,

Lets talk about something most employees who care for their livelihood would never dream about saying to their bosses. The word we are talking about here is “NO” and by that I mean “No” to assignments/requests/demands given by their boss.

My Reasons For Saying “YES”
I used to be a “YES” employee, everything that was ever assigned to me, I’d take them. Even if I don’t know a thing about it or even when I was already drowning with my current assignments. So why do I always say “YES”? Here are some of my reasons (thoughts actually):

1) I fear of being branded (or marked) as
- Insubordinate or rebellious
- Unable to Multi-task
- Inefficient or Ineffective
2) I want to be on the good side of my boss
3) I felt that I have no choice but to accept because he is my boss
4) I want my promotion
5) Or simply, sometimes I just don’t know how to say “NO”
6) Or worst, I fear I be shown the door if I say “NO”

So did the “YES” man attitude work for me?

Saying “YES” Was Good
In the beginning, all was well. I could handle all the assignments and demands and completed them quite well. But I did end up attracting more assignments precisely because I did them well and never say “NO”. But that was what I wanted, to prove my value and get a promotion.

I did get my promotion and attracted even more responsibilities and more challenging assignments. Again a good thing because I still could handle them. But good things are good if it is not carried to the extreme. Occasional overtimes are OK, especially if it is part of the nature of your job (such as finance department being extra busy during periods where they close their account books). But the moment you start taking so much assignments that you consistently do overtime, you will start to attract the “not so good” things.

Saying “YES” Was Not So Good
Fatigue starts to set in and you start losing family/personal time. You will get irritated or lose focus easily because of fatigue. And finally, your mood gets affected, negative thoughts starts to creep in and you start attracting bad things. At this point, you better learn how to say “NO” to your boss. Well, actually, you should start saying “NO” selectively well before this.

If you carry on accepting assignments at this point, you will soon find yourself juggling between so many assignments that you start to be inefficient and more critically, you start making mistakes and blunders that you could not afford! That could become fatal! Fatal to your career, that is.

So How Did Saying “YES” Attract This Mess
So why did it happen the way it happened and how did saying “YES” turned from being good to being bad? It all started with my thought! Go back and take a good look at the reasons that influenced me to say “YES”. The only positive thoughts in there were “I want my promotion” and “I want to be on the good side of my boss”. But the rest of my thoughts prevented me from saying “NO” when it was necessary to say it.

Different Thoughts, Different Results
So what if my thoughts were:

1) I need to understand what I need to do to get a promotion
2) I will complete my assignments as efficiently as possible
3) I will not accept a task, with ample reasons, if I cannot handle it
4) I will learn from my boss, ask for guidance whenever possible
5) If I had to accept more assignments than I can handle, I must have the resources to complete them

If I had these thoughts in the first place, I would have said “NO” where necessary and will not be afraid to ask for resources or extension of datelines if the assignments cannot be declined! See the difference?

Why Saying “NO” Can Attract Good Results
By saying “NO” to your boss, you indicate to him that there is a problem. Explained to him what the problem is and negotiate something out of it. No bosses wants his project to end up in flames, right? Think positive. Giving you a new assignment may mean he isn’t quite sure of your current work load or he is still testing the limits of your capabilities. So tell him that you have reach it by saying “NO”! Because the other option is to go down in flames!

Summary
So do you still think saying “NO” to your bosses is necessary a bad thing? Not necessary, you just need to know when to say it and how to say it. Nows your turn to talk! Share your experience and views even if you don’t agree with what I said. It is always good to have both views so we can compare and learn from them
Love,
James

PS: In my article, I always refer to someone as “HE”. The boss(es) need not necessarily be a “HE”, It’s just easier and less cluttered then writing he/she all the time.

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