THINK LIKE A WINNER (Part 1)

People who never achieve success do so because they fall in love with their excuses. It isn't the truth about yourself and your abilities that hurts you; it is the negatives you consider to be true that hold you back. Abandon your excuses and learn to overcome the obstacles to success ... one oil drum at a time.

When I was 21 years old, a friend of mine and I decided to go off to see the world. Many of our friends were going to Europe and hitchhiking around with rucksacks. We decided to be different and go to Africa instead. It never occurred to us to ask why no one else was going to Africa. We found out later, much to our great regret.

To get to our destination in Africa, we had to cross the Sahara. We started out from London, riding bicycles across France and Spain. The labor was excruciating, the progress slow, and the pleasure was nonexistent.

In Gibraltar, we sold our bicycles and invested our last few dollars in an old Land Rover. We crossed from Gibraltar to Tangier into Algeria. We were on our way in Africa. Still, there was one obstacle between us and the greenery we were anxious to see. It was that darn old desert. We had no idea how serious and how difficult this adventure was to be.

(Article extracted from Nightingale Advantedge News letter)

Impossible Is Not An Option

I love to walk along the beach near my house together with my wife after our dinner. Friday evening is the usual time we will have our walk on the beach. I worked a 5 days week, and during weekday night, I still need to work on my personal projects which normally take up 2-3 hrs. You can understand how I appreciate and take great important of every Friday evening walk with my wife.

Last week, while strolling under the moon light with soft sea breeze blowing onto our faces. Watching couples cuddling under the cover of the darkness. What you can hear is only the sound of the wave coming onshore? Such romantic scene, only can happen in Hollywood movie is unbelievable happening every Friday night to us.

Unconsciously looking down onto the cement path that we are walking, under the warm moon light, we noticed some white painted words on the cement path. Look a little closer, it reads,

“Winning is not about beating the man in front of you, but within you.
Impossible is not an option.”

Think about the words closely, a lot of thing we thought whether we can or cannot do is on our believes, is all in our mind. It remind me of what Brian Tracy talk about in one of his audio CD:

80% of our constrain we faced in achieving our goal is within ourselves, only 20% is coming from external.

It matches want I saw on the path that night.

The world is full of new experience and new knowledge. That’s how much we can learnt, as for me just a simple walk along the beach.

We Can Learn From Frank Lampard

For those of you who are Football crazy (soccer) about English Premier League, will know who is Frank Lampard. He is the mid-field superstar of Chelsea Football Club. I recently surfing the internet soccer news and come across this article which I like to share with you. Below is part of the extract on what Lampard said in the interview to BBC:

At Chelsea I practice after training because I was given that advice when I was very young: train and work on your skills after everyone else has gone home, work on your weaknesses where you can. That lesson has become part of me.

Instead of thinking I've had enough now, or I can't do it, or I can't hit it with my left foot, to try and do more on your own is a great thing to make you into a player. I do lots of shooting, passing and sometimes fitness work if we haven't played games. I'll basically work on anything I feel is relevant at the time. If something is letting me down I'll work hard on that and hopefully the improvement will show in the following weeks.

I know first hand that dealing with someone with a great technical ability can help you. Gianfranco Zola had probably the best technique I've seen in a footballer I've played with and he was so willing to help others. Zola was a massive influence on me because he arrived when he was 35 and I was amazed how someone at that age could still have that hunger to improve and to take me with him and say 'come on let's do it together'. He was the most talented player I played with and he was still working on shooting with his left foot so he was as comfortable with it as he was with his right. These are basic things but it shows you that players at the top of the game are still doing them.

Football has always been the biggest thing in my life so at any moment after school or during my lunch break I would be training or just playing with my mates as much as I could. Undoubtedly there are more skilful players than me, players like Joe Cole, Wayne Rooney, Gianfranca Zola - they're the more technical players. I like to put myself somewhere in between - a bit of skill and a lot of hard work as well. But what is important is that you make the best out of yourself. There will be players who might not be technically fantastic, but they work as hard as they can at their game and they get themselves to a good level.

I think many of us know the phrase,

Practice Makes Perfect

In fact, many of us used it very often, but how many of us actually practicing it. We have abused the very simple phrase that makes success look easy. Only those who practice it are the one who make it.

WHAT DO YOU WANT IN LIFE? (Part 8)

Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow

Strategic Coach Dan Sullivan once stated that all entrepreneurs are really con artists. They get other people to pay them to practice getting better at what they love to do.
Think about it.

Tiger Woods loves to play golf. People pay him big money to play golf. Every time he plays, he learns more about playing better. He gets to practice and hang out with other golfers, all the while getting paid for it.

Or consider baseball power-hitter Sammy Sosa when he played with the Chicago Cubs. It took him about one second to hit a home run — as long as it takes for the ball to meet the bat. He earned $10,625,000 for about 70 seconds of batting time per year, so he got really good at making the bat meet the ball. That's where he made his money. That's where he put all his time — practicing and getting ready for the bat to meet the ball. He had found his core genius and devoted the majority of his waking hours to perfecting his genius.

Of course, most of us are not on par with Tiger Woods or Sammy Sosa, but the fact is that we could learn a lot from their level of focus on pursuing what they love.

If you do what you love and the money will be attracted to you, but critically remember that money is just the score of the whole process you will be going through. The knowledge, wisdom and experience you gain in the process far exceed the monetary rewards you received in the process. Focus on the process and learn from the experience, it will bring you further than where you expect or plan.

(these contents are extracted from article written by Jack Canfield posted in Nightingle Newsletter)