rawakramblings

I just completed reading "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" by Robin Sharma.  This book was first published in 1997 and has sold around 3 million copies world wide. I was looking for a new book to read after completing the 600 pages of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. A different genre actually but nonetheless, it was still a good book although I wouldn't rate it more than 4 stars from total 5.

Some good points to be shared from the books are:-


Ok. Let's try this and see the end result in 3 weeks time.

Normal human beings dream of having nice body, nice cars, good job that pays well, etc. Well, do we know we can get those dream things easily if we are born rich , good genes or smart. However, do u think everyone is lucky? Guess not. Do u know most people strive and work hard to active something in their life. Most people just stop when they don't see any results. Hell yeah. How to achieve success when they stop? HOW? So that's the difference between success person and average joe. Average person dreams. They have big dreams. Big desires. BUT in reality, they are just greedy. Greedy for success but stingy in effort. BIG DREAMS must come with BIG EFFORTS as well. Sometimes we forget one thing. The first step of success begins with the FIRST STEP. Yes! Get moving for the first step. People who starts can be considered as a medallist in life. They are better than the other person who wishes/ dreams but not able to take actions. One thing to remember. There are 3 types of medal, gold, silver and bronze. A winner will go through all the way till the end. Till they reach their goal. They are the goal getter. Nothing can stop them. None can defy them. ONLY they themselves can defeat them. NONE others. So for the one who starts with the first steps and stop along the way, they are not losers. They are just the group of people who are not winners. AT least they moved. They tried. Only thing they are not there with the package of a winner.

FIRST STEP. SECOND STEP. THIRD STEP and it continues till u reach the top.

WHATS the LIMIT? The SKY!

Secret recipe of success - you, dream, motivation, believe, support system and actions.

WHAT HAPPENS IF FAIL? Try again with a better action plan. Remember one thing. GREAT people are not created in a day. one action. They try and try till they forgot they have achieved what they wished for.

If you guys are reading this, do take note that you are at the first point of reaching the success.

NOW grab a paper, a pen and draw what you wish for. All the best!

How many of us strive to be a good muslims? We all are created and designed to have big dreams such as big cars, nice house, branded clothes, loads of cash etc. How many desired to wake up late at night for Tahajud? How many of us take 5-10 minutes to pray Duha? Or how many of us actually pray 5 times a day? Ask yourself.

"A dreamer will not reach him dream unless he wakes up and start taking action." - Mr Anas

A year ago I made an attempt to quit smoking and managed to actually quit for 50 days. Well, I thought I had won the battle but no! I made a wrong move by smoking a ciggie when I was out for an office trip with my colleagues. I thought a stick wouldn't effect my cravings but I was wrong. I once again become a smoker from there on.

I was told by my mother in law to quit smoking when I was engaged with her daughter. She asked me to promise to quit and I said I'll try to quit 2 months after marriage and yet, I was still smoking and it furiates her badly. I asked myself should I continue making someone angry or should I quit. Ok, if i quit because of her, I will tend to smoke again isn't it? Then its not about her. I've always wanted to quit. Well, whatever it is, smoking is not good. It's NOT COOL either. So for whatever reason it may be, I just ought to quit!

Well, I told Mrs that I will smoke the last ciggie on my birthday which was on 15th April. So from 16th of April to 18th of April, I have managed to stop. 3 days it is. So now my target is to complete the whole week of not smoking. All the best Mr! That's how I keep telling myself.

"I am stronger than The Great Wall of China".

All the best to you guys who is trying to quit as well. Let's keep on supporting each other.

A few things that I learned from the past failure:-

1) keep the mind occupied with something else;
2) DO NOT TALK ABOUT CIGARETTE. the concept is simple. e.g. You break up with your partner and you keep on talking about your x. Doesn't that means you missing him/ her? Being ignorant is the key.;
3) Do not tell the whole world you are quitting. The more people knows you are quitting, the more they'll try to bring you down. Logic behind this is smokers will not support their friends to quit as they themselves are unable to quit;
4) Drink more plain water. Less coffee, less sugar. This will detox your body and flush out the bad chemicals inside your body;
5) Eat less as well. When we eat less, the less we want to smoke. (this is just me trying to diet as well);
6) Pray and pray. By increasing our spiritual, we will not be tempted to smoke. (again, this is just something that I'm trying to do at the moment).

Well, I'll keep on posting about the progress and let's see if I can beat the crave to smoke for real this time.

May God be with me this time. Amen.

I was having a short conversation with a friend of mine while futsalling earlier and he was sharing a few tips with me.

He said, his principle in life is simple. He is motivated by DUIT or money in english.

I was like, money? Well, I guess everyone or almost all human being is motivated by money. Anyways, the interesting part about the DUIT is it is actually Dua' (prayers), Usaha ( effort), Istiqamah (steadfastness) and Tawakkal (trust and reliance on God's will). So there it goes. It has a wonderful hidden meaning under the duit (money) principle. Kinda cool it seems. I believe it is practical and doable. I'll try and see if this principle can work for me.

This article is taken from the Young Corporate Malaysia website.

CEO Series 4 – Seelan Singham, Managing Partner, McKinsey & Co Malaysia
Writing credits: Chen Chow Yeoh

Thanks to the Young Corporate Malaysians for organizing the 4th CEO Series of Talk. This 4th talk on 26th February at Rumah UKEC featured Mr. Seelan Singham, Managing Partner of Mckinsey & Company, Malaysia.
Seelan brought with him 15 years of exposure at Mckinsey & Co, besides 18 months at restructuring ANZ Bank in early 1990s, when it was saddled with $600 million of losses. Seelan went to MBA at University of Chicago and before that, he was in Investment Banking. Seelan talked about Leadership as the most crucial issue facing Malaysia and he mentioned that we currently lack about 4,000 leaders here in Malaysia.

Seelan shared on 5 Things that he thinks are crucial for someone to be a leader. He says that it is our obligation to ourselves, to our family and to our nation, to be a good leader.

The first quality is to have dreams that scare yourself.

He talked about big dreams. One of the guys he showed is Sir Edmund Hillary, the first guy to climb Mount Everest. And Sir Edmund Hillary was a 6 feet 5 inch guy. Very hard for him to climb. But he managed to do it with sheer determination. So, we should really have very scary dream. Dream that we are scared for ourselves to even think about it. Dreams that make us shiver.

Seelan talked that those who are old, are those who look behind and talk about history. However, those who are old biologically, but young mentally, are those who continue to look forward. His father is one of the example. He is still working very hard, looking forward, although he is already 81 years old. He talked about courage to fail. We really have to try our best. At our age, especially for those of us in our 20s, there is nothing much for us to fear. We have the least obligation now. So, we should just go all out to try things that we might not try it later. No harm try and fail. He talked about how we should go against the flow and try things that no one wants to try. He turned down a Mckinsey offer after his MBA, although that’s what he really wanted to do. During that time, the then CEO of ANZ Bank called him to do a turnaround for ANZ Bank when it is saddled with losses, and Seelan took it as a great challenge and learned through the experience.

He talked that it is very easy for us to achieve goals, if we know what is the goals. What is tough, is to determine the right goals. He shared about a 15-year-old American who listed down 127 goals, and many of those are really crazy goals. But as of now, he has achieved 110 of those goals.

This brought us to his second point Stretch Opportunities.
He wanted us to really pursue those opportunities that others are running away from. We should go for those kind of opportunities, as it is the best training ground for us. He talked about how in his 2nd year of Business School at University of Chicago, he really wanted to go for Mckinsey and they are using point bidding system to get interview. He put all his points for Mckinsey. Then, when he went for his 1st interview, he really flung it. The partner told him that he flung it very badly, but they are giving him chance, and it is their first time doing so, as he put all his hope on Mckinsey only.
Eventually he got it.

But he turned it down after a few months of thoughts, as he took out the opportunities to turn around ANZ bank. After 18 months, he joined back Mckinsey. He just contacted back the partner and asked for it, and he got in. Seelan thinks that it is not mere coincidence. Over hte past 15 years, he does not always just choose the safe path. Sometimes, he would take the toughest path and he has failed several times. In his annual performance review, he has gotten all 4 types of ratings. Distinctive, tracking plus, tracking and issue. In fact, he got “Issue” twice and those are potential time to get sacked, as Mckinsey practices Up or Out. He cited that those periods when he went through hell, the support that he got is tremendous and he learned from those failure. His quote is that “Fall that doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”.

The third point is caring mentor or partner .

Mentor is somebody who thinks that you can accomplish more that what you think you can do, and the person would tries hard to motivate you. In Business School, he has always wanted to go into Investment Banking. However, his mentor told him that he is much more suitable to be consultant instead of joining Investment Banking. At that time, Seelan was very upset with his mentor, but his mentor really cared to advise him, although it might hurt his feeling. Seelan said that the best way is that for us to see our dream, and from there, assess who should be the best person to mentor us. We should really go out to pursue our mentor.

The fourth point is giving .
Seelan says that giving would make us keep things in perspective. Eventually, the world is a very small place, and everything would come around. If we give, we would get back the reward one day. And if we do bad deed, it would come around too. He talked about how his 8-year-old son wanted to donate all his ang pows away to others in need, although he himself won’t be doing exactly like what his son does.
The fifth point is Mental Resilience .

It is that when things are very tough, are we able to stand and not give up. Seelan talked about how he tried to influence his 4-year-old daughter, but she has very strong mental resilience. On advice of how to develop mental resilience, he said that one aspect is on intellectual curiosity. The urge to find out why things happen. The second aspect is on divine intervention, as 50% of things are beyond our control. If we think so, then whenever things go wrong, we can always say that 50% of it is beyond our control, but it is so too, if things go right, it could be just beyond our control and it turns out fine.

Seelan asked about how many does mental exercise vs physical exercise, and interestingly 50% does physical exercise vs 10% who does mental exercise. That shows that we lack mental exercise. Our mind is very powerful and we focus a lot. But we need to work on our subconscious mind. He showed us a video and asked us to count how many ball passes went through. All of us just keep on counting, and we didn’t even realize a furry guy who walked through it, and it was just so obvious. I miss it. In total, only 1 person found it.

He also said that we tend to go through failures very often, but we tend to lack to spend time to go through our successes.

He leaves us with 5 questions:
1. Are we exercising our mind enough?
2. What more can we give?
3. Have we identified the right mentor? Are we pursuing our mentor?
4. Are we putting up our hand when we see stretch opportunity?
5. Does our dream scares us?

I just completed reading a book, " The Soul of A Butterfly" from Muhammad Ali and Hana Yasmeen Ali. I was amazed and touched by Muhammad Ali. The words, ideology and thinking is great. It makes me wonder, if he embraced Islam and were proud to his new religion, what am I then? I was born a Muslim and still a Muslim. What have I done that shows that I am a Muslim?

Today, I stopped over Mr's studio during my weekend master class lunch break.
Tampak Karya rented their studio for a maternity shoot today!




Any photographers interested in renting their studio may do so by contacting them at 012-331-5322 or you may find them at their facebook page here:

WonderPixs Studio | Promote Your Page Too

HOW MANY OF US HAVE THE Malaysian Football National jersey in our wardrobe? If we look at the statistics of Malaysian who watches or plays football, there are only a numbers who actually owns this jersey.

TODAY, 13th July 2011, Malaysian football team will be up against the so called- Barca of the Premier League. This is the 1st Game of the Asia Tour by the other giants such as Chelsea F.C and Liverpool F.C. This tour is very good for our football team as for the first time after 20 years, we are in the second round of the 2014 World Cup qualifying.

"Kalau hendak berubah, berubahlah bukan kerana manusia tetapi berubah kerana Allah.Kalau berubah kerana manusia, takut satu hari nanti, kita kalah.Kalau berubah kerana Allah, Insya Allah bleh menang."

Kesimpulan dari ayat di atas :

Ada je orang yang kita nampak berubah sebab manusia bukan sebab Allah. TAPI, pernah tak kita terfikir sekiranya Allah hantar manusia itu untuk membantu seseorang itu berubah? Memang ada orang yang berubah sebab manusia dan akhirnya kembali ke jalan hitam seperti sebelum itu kerana hubungannya dengan manusia itu berakhir.

Apa gunanya akal fikiran? Akal adalah untuk kita membezakan yang baik dan yang buruk. Sekiranya kita dapati sesorang itu berubah disebabkan manusia, kita sepatutnya buka mata dan bersyukur dengan perubahan itu. Itulah dinamakan hidayah. Hidayah Allah ini ada bermacam- macam.

Manusia ini memang susah hendak tengok perubahan orang lain. Pelik, tapi benar. Lagi- lagi kaum Melayu kita. Aku tak suka hendak bercerita buruk pasal kaum sendiri, tapi itu adalah hakikatnya.Sekiranya kita hendak jadi kaum yang berjaya di negara sendiri atau di dunia, kita kenalah buang dan kikis jauh-jauh sifat- sifat keji yang tuhan tak suka,

Buang yang keruh, ambil yang jernih. Cermin- cerminlah diri itu sebelum hendak memberi nasihat.

I wonder why do I fail in reaching my goals. What is wrong. To list down all the wrong things, I assume it will be a lot actually. Some how rather, I managed to notice one thing which is the highest culprit of all of the reasons.

DELAYS

Delays is the culprit of achieving our desired goals. Consequences of delays are:-

1. Will not be able to reach datelines;

2. No result; and

3. Waste of time and goals set up

Having goals is important in life but without any discipline, goals are just goals. People tend to focus more on planning, executing , organizing etc. when reaching for the goals. How long can someone really maintain the drive and persistence in us? I assume 10 - 20 % out of the total goal setter.

Comes New Year, we tend to see many people who will set goals (new years resolution). Every year there will be new goals. However, looking back at he goals, have we noticed that some of the goals are actually the same goals from previous goals? Most common goals will be :

1. Planning to quit smoking;

2. Get rid of debts (credit cards or any other debts);

3. Planning to settledown;

4. Planning to slim down ( this is so common and yet every year people will still put this in their goal setting) ;

5. and the list go non stop from here.

If we look at item number 4 especially, why does this goal being repeated every year? Something related to this goal:-

a. Gymming;

b.Diet;

c. Discipline;

d. Monitoring result

If we stick to all that, we shouldn't be worry about getting the result. However, have we ever wonder what happen if we delay the process? e.g. delay going to gym? delay of dieting? All this delay will lead to laziness in keeping fit and will eventually delay the process of slimming down.

I have been having this "delay problem attitude" since forever and since I have noticed about this problem, I will ensure there won't be anymore set backs to my goals. Am targeting 2011 to be the first year where I will eventually reach my goals by deleting the "love to delay attitude" in my life dictionary.