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.

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Hey Folks,Today I’ve been doing some fine tuning of our blog for quite sometime, I originally thought that I would just make an announcement to let you know what has been added, so you would notice. But then I thought, why not just do a brief run down on some essential component of a blog that (maybe, just maybe) newbie bloggers/readers may not know of?

So here it is, my blog announcement cum blog run down on essential components of a blog:

Comment Box
A typical comment box/form can be accessed by clicking on the post title or clicking on the “comment” link or sometimes a “read” link. Here is an example of a comment box:

The comment box is either an integral part of the post or a separate pop up form. Either one would have one of the following:

1) Name (Allows author to know who you are)
2) Email (Allows author to communicate with you)
3) Website (Allows author and readers to know if you have a website)

You can click on any names in the comment column that looks like hyperlink. It will bring you to the commentators site/blog.

Sometimes you will be challenged to answer a math sum or decipher a messy image before your post is allowed to proceed. That is to prevent/reduce the number of robot spams that the author may receive. We do want to author to concentrate on writing good stuffs instead of fighting spams right?

The last part, usually before or after the “Submit Comment” button, you may find a check box that allows you to get updates to subsequent comments from this post. It is very useful as the author/commentators may actually address or reply your comments.

Do Follow Movement

Sometimes you will hear certain authors saying that they “Do Follow” or you get a logo that looks like . What is means is that any comment on such a blog will generate a backlink to your site/blog (if you remember to fill it in). Backlinks are important to Google’s pagerank calculation and Technorati’s ranking.

This is a way an author says thank you for commenting and that they appreciate you taking time to pen down your thoughts. That said, please don’t abuse their kindness by leaving a comment with 10 links!

You Comment, I Reply

Following the Do Follow Movement, another hot community project is You Comment, I Reply! The logo looks the one on my right!

Again, it was started as a project to thanks readers for commenting but I put it down to basic courtesy :P. Blog post and comments are like a conversation, who wants to talk to a person who does not reply? So I do reply all my comments (sometimes just a bit later) even though I don’t publish that badge

Getting Updates From The Blog
Everyone loves to read blogs and get updates (especially from blogs with good content), 2 ways to get updates without visiting the blog everyday is to subscribe to the blogs RSS. If you want to know what RSS means, check here.

The first way is to get RSS delivered to your email. Feedburner and Feedblitz are 2 of the common medium that blogs used to delivered their post. Just find the subscription box, enter your email, verify it and you are set to get every single updates. But remember to go back to the site to comment if you like their post! You can find an example of what it looks like to the right of this para.

Another way of receiving Blog post update is via an RSS reader. Google RSS reader is one such example but there are many other good readers out there, just do a search.

RSS readers are useful if you frequently read a whole bunch of blogs and you don’t want to mess up your email. Another reason why RSS readers are more commonly used is that RSS via email is not commonly adopted by every blog yet! To the left, you will find an example of how an RSS logo looks like. Below is different presentation:

Just click on the logo or link and you will be shown a page where you can preview the RSS feed and select your preferred reader. Again, remember to check back with your favorite to comment and give support to the author.

Social Bookmarking and Networking

The next important and critically essential component on any blog is it’s social network! Most bloggers join at least technorati, stumbleupon, blogcatalog, mybloglog, netscape, digg or bumpzee. And if you love their article or blog post, help them spread the word by bookmarking them with your account (if you have one, if not it’s about time to get one). The one on the right contains a Fave button for Technorati, a save button for MyWeb from Yahoo and a voting badge from blogskinny!

You can fave them, digg, them, stumble them or whatever them (whatever the next big thing is) to your liking. The thing is, if you love it, share it! And you can leave a comment to let the author know about it, I know he would be eternally grateful! Below are some more examples of social bookmarks commonly found on a blog, typically within a post (i.e. you need to click on the title, comment or read link to access the single post).

This one below is bookmarking interface from Feedburner (I know , its a bit small but you get the idea). It’s usually at the end of a post:

Trackback

The last item is called trackback! If you love a post and want to share it on your blog, do it via trackback. Best not to copy, don’t rewrite just trackback and add your opinions and perspective to it. You actually do 2 things at once, maybe 3.

1) You do it legally (no copying) and give credit to the author. Thus earning his appreciation.
2) You still get to post good stuff and add your perspective which is what your readers love you for. You won’t actually lose them.
3) You gain some traffic from tracking back to the source. Your tracking appears as a comment on the source post and readers will follow to find out what you have to say about the topic they are interested in!

So as you can see, nothing wrong with tracking back! In fact it is good to trackback! Usually a post has a trackback link at the end of the post/article. Just copy that link and add it into your post (instead of the regular url) and you get a trackback. I have a picture below but it’s a bit small, so take a look at any of my post to find out what it looks like!

UPDATE : I have found this good writeup called “Wordpress Trackback Tutorial“. It should explain trackback more clearly. Another point is that certain theme may not display trackbacks in their comments. In those case, just drop them a comment telling them you like their post and have trackback. Simple?

Oh if you love this post and want to share it, Trackback! OK?

Love,
James

PS: The new additions to our blogs are the email subscription, notification of comments update, big RSS button and some minor changes. But mainly the email subscription.

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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

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Hey Folks,

Welcome back to Positive Articles Day. We are now at Volume 3 and today I will be sharing 2 different articles from 2 Blogs.

I literally stumbled across the first article while surfing at Stumbleupon.com last week. It is titled “18 Ways to Stay Focused at Work” by Dave Cheong over at davecheong.com. I don’t know Dave personally, I just found his articles interesting and valuable to share with you, my readers. He describes himself as “Software Engineer’s journey to Entrepreneurship”.

In this article, Dave shares 18 ways that could help you focus at work. Some of them are similar to what I have mentioned previously in my article “7 Tips To Improve Your Work Efficiency By More Than 100%“.

I find Dave’s articles to be well thought out and he goes straight to the point. He gives tips that are simple to understand and apply. I have some experience with most of the tips he mentioned in this article and I can safely say that they do work! Especially listening to the right type of music and remember to make your work fun. So take some time, head on over and read it. I promise you won’t regret it.

I found the second article in much the same way as the first, via Stumbleupon.com and it is titled “Fix the Problem, Don’t Just Put Up With It” by Beth over at MySimpleLife. Beth describes herself as a charter certified Family Manager Coach and you get read more about her here.

In this article, Beth explains that there are a kind of problem that we tend to put up with instead of solving them once and for all. She give a simple 5 steps process to deal with them. Again, 5 very simple steps that none of us should have problem following. Head on over and take a look, it’s a short article but I think you will find it very beneficial too.

I like this article as I have a similar problem of this nature too - I keep forgetting where I parked my car within my own condominium! It was the fact that it was nothing major and not a life threatening problem that I have never found any need to address it but occasionally, when I am in a hurry, it could make me very frustrated as I rush between different levels of my car park to locate my car. Do you have a similar kind of problem too?

Enjoy the articles and cya next week!

Love,
James

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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

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