Appreciation

Showing an appreciation is not something that can be done easily, especially to the person that we do not like. Nevertheless, it is the most powerful act that we can do if we need to have friends in our life. Everybody needs to be felt appreciated. You'll never know that a small praise of yours can brighten someone's day. So don't be a cynical person, don't be too quick to judge without knowing the facts.
Here is a story about a barber who is very cynical and hope we'll learn something from it and start to show appreciations and praises whenever we can.

A man was getting a haircut prior to a trip to Rome. He mentioned the trip to the barber who responded,"Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It's crowded and dirty and full of Italians. You're crazy to go to Rome! So, how are you getting there?"
"We're taking TWA," was the reply. "We got a great rate!"
"TWA?" exclaimed the barber.
"That's a terrible airline. Their planes are old and their flight attendants are ugly, and they are always late. So, where are you staying in Rome?"
"We'll be at the downtown International Marriott."
"That dump! That's the worst hotel in the city. The rooms are small the service is surly and they're overprices. So whatcha doing when you get there?"
"We're going to go see the Vatican and we hope to see the Pope."
"That's rich," laughed the barber.
"You and a million other people trying to see him. You'll be at the back of St. Peter's Square and from that distance he'll look the size on an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You're going to need it."
A month later, the man again came in for his regular haircut. The Barber asked about his trip to Rome. "It was wonderful", explained the man. "Not only were we on time in one of TWA's brand new planes, but it was overbooked and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful and I had a beautiful 28 year old stewardess who waited on me hand and foot. And the hotel was great! They'd just finished a $2.5 million remodeling job and now its the finest hotel in the city. They too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us the Presidential Suite at no extra charge."
"Well," muttered the barber, "I know you didn't get to see the Pope."
"Actually, we were quite lucky, for as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder and explained that the pope likes to personally meet some of the visitors, and if I'd be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet me. Sure enough, five minutes later the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down as he spoke a few words to me."
"Really?" asked the barber.
"What did he say?"
He said, "Where did you get the ugly haircut?" !!

"Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well."
- Voltaire -

Excellence

To live your life to the fullest, you need to develop a thinking with excellence. In everything you do, you need to think how to do it with excellence.
A good description for excellence is "To be superior in QUALITY, greater in QUANTITY, to TRANSCEND your job description, and to OUTDO yourself each time"
And I believe that everytime you do something with excellence, you'll enjoy life more. The reason why people are bored with life is because they let everyday passes by with the same motivation and same action. Boring people will do the same using the same method achieving the same thing again and again. The moment you think with excellence and do thing with excellence, your life will automatically be changed.

Below story is an example of a person who has a spirit of excellence.
One day, the boss of Mercedez Benz had a problem with his wash basin. The pipe was already broken and water keep flowing out to the floor and he afraid it will be dangerous to his kids.
Upon his friend recommendation, Mr.Benz called up a plumber to fix it. The plumber make an appointment to fix it 2 days later because he is quite busy. The plumber has no idea that the caller is the boss of the largest car company in Germany.
One day after called by Mr.Benz, the plumber contacted Mr.Benz and thanked him because he has willingly waited for one day. After fixing the broken pipe, the plumber then received the payment for his service.About 2 weeks later, the plumber contacted Mr.Benz to check if the pipe was well fixed or there's some problem that he need to come down and fix again. Mr.Benz thought that this person must be a great man even tough he is a plumber. Mr.Benz answered on the phone and said that the wash basin is working perfectly fine and thank the plumber for his service.
Few monts later, Mr.Benz recruited this plumber to work in his office? Yes, his name is Christopher L.Jr. He is now a General Manager for Customer Satisfaction and Public Relation in Marcedez Benz!
Always add cheese and best service even if it's not required from you!

Excellence is not a skill, it is an attitude. That means everyone can excel in everything they do. So, let's start to have excellence in whatever you do.
Excellence can be obtain if :
...care more than others think is wise;
...risk more than others think is safe;
...dream more than others think is practical;
...expect more than others think is possible.

"Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.”
-John W. Gardner-

Attitude towards life

Recently I received a video link from my friend. The video is basically about a last lecture given by a professor in America who is dying from pancreatic cancer. I was totally amazed by the attitude he has towards life. Even tough he only has months to live, he didn't live in self pity. Instead he uses the remaining time he has on earth to inspire his students, the people around the world and especially his 3 children with his last lecture on how to live life.
And I believe that's the attitude that everyone of us should have. Imagine if today is your last day on earth, you will have lots of things to do and you will do everything that you can with excellence.
Below is the 10-minute length video of professor Randy Pausch. Hope all of you will be inspired.



"Live everyday as if it is your last day on earth."
- Unknown -

Build your Confidence

All of us want to start the year right. But along the way, we might find it more and more difficult to achieve the goal that we have set early of the year. And very often, we may lose our confidence to continue pursuing our goal. We start develop a view of low self-esteem about ourselves,that we are not good enough, we should not do this and that. Eventually we lost our self-confidence.
I was someone with a low self-esteem and afraid of doing anything new. I was totally afraid to talk to strangers. There was a time that my Dad asked me to buy medicine from a pharmacy.I was so afraid that I just told the seller the medicine that I wanted, passed the money, and get the change without asking how much the medicine actually cost. I was so afraid that the seller will argue with me if I said something.
If you consider youself as a low self-esteem or no self-confidence person, I hope following guidelines can you build up your self-confidence.

1.Create a positive view about yourself
Steve Chandler said that the best way to change your belief system is to change the truth about you.Some ways you can do to create a positive view about yourself are:
- Make a positive conclusion/opinion about your ownself. "Positive" means something that build up not pull down.
- Learn to look at positive sides/strength that we have. Even if washing dishes is your skill, because not everybody can washing dishes well.
- Open a self-dialog on positive things that can be done. From the smallest and something that we can do today.Other than that, you need to stop all negative thoughts that coming into your mind, e.g: I don't have any skills, I'm useless, I'm good for nothing, etc. After stopping the negative, we need to replace it with positive and constructive thoughts.

2. Fight for positive will
Next is to come out with a program or agenda for self-contructive action. This can be in the form like having a new goal that we want to accomplish and can be done.It doesn't matter big or small, the main thing is that there must be a change or upgrade to a positive side.The more positive things that we can do, the stronger our self-confidence.

3. Handle problems positively
Self-confidence can be strengthen by telling ourselves that we can overcome our own problem.The more problems we tackled, the stronger our self-confidence. Eventually, we become a person that are not easily give up when problems come.

4. Have a basic positive decision
Nobody can always be confidence that one can handle all problems well.Even Mahatma Gandhi was stumble when his reality changed. But there is something in Gandhi that we can learn from.He said, "Remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS."This means, Gandhi self-confidence booseted up when he knew that his path has been laid with a right principles.

5. Have a positive role model
Another important thing is to find someone with positive attitude that we can learn from.This will always required us to continuously open up our eyes and look at those people around us that we can learn from.Someone said we can improve ourselves by learning from 2 things:
a. Life experiences, and
b. Duplicating (learn from other people)

"It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not."
-Author Unknown-