I guess this is officially my last post for the year…

Reality check: If someone were to ask me again, would I ever imagine how the entire 2008 will be like one year ago?

It’s hard to say…

It’s been a VERY interesting year, I must say…

If I were to sum up the whole year, I’d say it’s more LEARNING than ever…

I don’t know about you, but I used to think that those who are out ‘fighting and battling’ it out in the big bad world of business was tough… I mean, I always knew it was tough… but honest to God I never realized how DIFFICULT it really is UNTIL the day I’ve experienced it MYSELF.

The sacrifices especially was something I never expected.. and til this day, I still feel it’s particularly difficult to swallow..

It gets one thinking sometimes, why go through it all in the first place when you see everyone else going with the easy route, playing it “safe”, slowly lurking, slowly looking around for that one “perfect” opportunity to strike gold.

It can be pretty disturbing sometimes, to sacrifice so much, not knowing whether this “decision” of yours will be the right one..

To lay out soooo many things on the table, to risk so much, without the slightest inkling of what might happen in the end…

Someone once told me that life is all about taking risk… I constantly wonder… is it really?

Worth it meh?

Honestly, I don’t know.

I’ve consulted a number of experienced old “war horses” on why it’s so… and usually their reply is “Aiya, normal-lah. This is where you’ll know what you’re made of. So you think so easy one ar?? If you want to play business, this is the game. If you scared of risk, if you want stability, go get a job”

Niama, char me until like that.

But I’ve got to admit, VERY true.

Whenever I run into crossroads like these, whenever fear strikes in, doubts, etc… I always remind myself of what Shifu Ooogway taught me…

“When you’ve crossed the bridge, burn it, and keep walking ahead. You die die also you must make it.”

Done.

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested. “Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live life.” I reflected on what Jerry said.

Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business. He left the back door open one morning and was held up at gun point by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma centre. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he said, “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?” I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,” Jerry replied. “Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live. “Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

Jerry continued, “The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.” I knew I needed to take action.” “What did you do?” I asked. “Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Jerry. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied.

The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.” Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

I stumbled upon this from MindValley. And I liked it.

Short and sweet… Check it out:

I received an email today, random stuff really. But just as if the universe wanted to tell me something, the lesson I learned in the past three weeks hit me hard. And here I use the main ideas from the email and elaborate them a bit further…

You might already have heard about the fact that extraordinary results come from doing something different… from challenging the status quo and shaking things up. So for quite a while now I have been trying to figure out what that really means… what does get me on a path to innovation, extraordinary progress and extreme success? Here are five things that I stumpled upon over and over again

1) Uniqueness

The ultra successful companies and people are aware of their difference. In fact they even use it to their full advantage. As long as I tried to please most people it did not only hurt myself, it also made me look beige. I am different - so what?! Being afraid that by being polar will alienate your friends, family or market is like killing your most valuable sales point. Only if you are true to yourself you start attracting the most specific group of people around you. The kind of people that make each other feel comfortable and focus their power on the facts and energy that can move mountains.

I don’t want a one size fits all, “canned” solution. I don’t want to be surrounded by people who want that. “Meike, you are annoying sometimes”, someone told me. “I know.” I answered. Maybe this is also because I am never to afraid to

2) Ask Better Questions

Many people think that super successful people have all the answers. Maybe - but they didn’t get them from just divine intervention or from guessing. They get the answers from asking better questions.

Finding what to do takes asking hard questions to yourself, your friends, your co-workers, boss, peers and family. I read that average people tend to shy away from asking the tough questions because they are afraid of the answers they might get. I was compared to not going to the doctor because being nervous about what he might find out. Most successful people face new challenges head-on, ask the tough questions and tackle them regardless of the answers. If that makes me annoying - that’s good…

3) Take Risk

Risk tolerance is a success trait that is hard to ignore. You know about the saying: “no risk - no fun”. That makes so much sense… Who takes great risk can loose a lot… can also win a lot. Now don’t go overboard with risk. Hedge your bets with high quality information and research. Put the work and time necessary to plan for and research the viability of a risky decision. This way, risk becomes calculated and you won’t loose it all…

And in case you don’t win (simply because life isn’t a wishing list) you might understand that with every failure comes a learning experience. Make it a lesson leaned experience and gain extremely valuable information from you mistakes and failures. Do so by analyzing the situations and extract as many lessons as possible from the disaster. Then synthesize this information and create better plans for going forward. The super successful people don’t wallow in the misery of their failures and stick their head in the sand to hide. They pick themselves back up and move ahead again. This time armed with new information.

4) Fight

… as if you were right. But listen as if you were wrong. Most average people try to avoid confrontation at all costs. They hate to cause trouble, make a scene or have to get in someone’s face. This happens even to the point of missing out on something they are entitled to, paid for or are owed just so they don’t have to confront the situation. They’re happier practicing avoidance than strength. The overachievers on the other hand don’t follow that thinking. They make it a point to engage in battle to get what they want, deserve or are passionate about.

The successful people are not afraid to hurt some feelings and be open, honest and blunt about what they think, want or need from anyone. They are willing to fight for what they believe in, their passion and their ideas. This is a leadership quality that allows them to achieve more, accomplish more and have others working for them and with them to accomplish everything they need to give achieve high degree of success and happiness in life.

Truth been told: that all reads very easy but is hard to actually turn into action. It is true though. Think about it. A few weeks ago Khailee sent me an article about practicing brutally honesty. And I can tell you: it feels darn good…

5) Leverage Time

We all have the same amount of time in a day. Some people just do more with it than others. I am not talking about the g-t-d tricks or force of being extra efficient 24/7. I believe that just doesn’t feel natural to everybody. The “Trumps” of the world know the value of time and how to leverage it to get more accomplished. The average person thinks about time as a renewable resource not a precious raw material to

success.

So the next time, why don’t you leverage time and stop trading it for dollars? Stop buying into a tit for tat mentality when it comes to the exchanging of time for money. Instead create systems that you build one time that work for you for eternity. Do it like the super successful and seek out and get involved with opportunities that are scaleable and deliver returns for long periods of time. Action and ideas are the currency of the rich.

So the next time everybody jumps off the bridge… at least think twice before you jump, too.