Thursday, September 28, 2006

18 habits to make this Ramadan a WoW!

It is the time of the year again, when Muslims around the world fast - the month of Ramadan. It is the month of greatest meaning to Islam and Muslims around the world fast throughout the day to strengthen one's self-discipline and to be reminded of those less fortunate in their existence.

Let's try to make it a good one, the best ever:
  1. Make this Ramadan a real great WoW
  2. Be tolerant to yourself and others, even when you think that your opinion is the right one
  3. Donate to those that you know are less fortunate than you
  4. Be friendly to yourself and those around you, speak relatives, friends, neighbours
  5. Love yourself and your neighbours
  6. Walk the talk
  7. Be polite
  8. Show vulnerability. It is okay to show feelings even as a guy :)
  9. Share your knowledge with others, freely
  10. Give up at least one addiction - what about smoking?
  11. Get to know someone that you haven't known before
  12. Invite those of other religions and share your thoughts and opinion. Learn from them
  13. Break fast with someone who is clearly different from you
  14. Learn something new this Ramadan, develop a new hobby
  15. Spend more time with your family
  16. Find time for reflection on you and develop a real great plan of what you want to change in your life
  17. Overcome at least some of the bad thoughts and feelings inside of you. Eliminate anger and hate and create tolerance and patience
  18. Take more care of your body. Don't engulf yourself in loads of food and other habits (e.g.; smoking), after the break of fast
  19. Keep the positive habits developed during Ramadan going until the end of your life.
How is this for a start? Do you want to add on some more?

(NLP in Asia)










Monday, September 25, 2006

The ecology of success

What a title. But how important is it for you to define your final outcome and when do you know you have reached success (didn't you know that there is more to success, always?). Have you put in place the write measurements? A SMART Goal? Steps to achieve your goal?

Very good. What will it be? More rewards, awards, more money, a better position, a more beautiful car, may be a new husband, boyfriend, wife and girl? Your own company? How great your goals are, really!

But one thing we as humans like to forget in the chase for success. Something that we in NLP call "ecology". So you defined your success - and hopefully it is what YOU decide is success, and not your boss, neighbour, the tax department!!

You have a clear plan forward - Grrreeeaaat.

So ask yourself:

What will happen when you are there? How will the world around you look like? Or, you personal surrounding? What has changed, after you have reached your goal?

Remember the movie "Click" that I wrote about? Adam Sandler reached his goals but destroyed everything around him. So when you have reached your goal, how does this then influence your family, your friends, your job, your competition, your city, country, the planet?

Think about it for a moment.

When George Bush Jr. announced the war on terrorism, he had good intentions, and the world was with him, initially. But look at the ecology now, and the effects and outcomes of his actions. Did he actually reflect on his actions, initially? While it is good to be focused on your outcomes, when you see that the results don't come in in the way you want them to be, or the ecology changes, you better change your strategy.

This is what George Bush Jr. doesn't do! He doesn't change his strategy, even so it is not working. The ecology around him collapses and clearly, there are more and more critics that doubt that he can reach his goals in the way he currently pursues them.

So, what about you? After spending 15 hours per day on the job, trying to build a better future for your family, secure the education of your child, how does your ecology look like? Inside of you - has stress build up, did you have a first heart attack, do your kids still remember you, and your wife loves you?

If you see that the ecology doesn't reflect positively on your success, stop for a while, look around you, and may be change strategy or your plans. Don't beat around the bush!

(NLP in Asia)











Thursday, September 21, 2006

Leadership interviews at nPost - GoDaddy founder Bob Parson

nPost has plenty of interviews with leaders about their success, challenges, dreams and failures/ learnings when building up their enterprises.

These interviews are not conducted with the "normal type of CEO", such as Jack Welsh, or Donald Trump or whoever. Refreshingly, these interviews are conducted with other, lesser known CEOs.

I just read one interview with Bob Parson, the CEO of GoDaddy.com. I know I had my issues with them, a while back, but in the meantime, they have improved a lot. At least on servicing my side and x.

He tells the story about GoDaddy and how he and his friends tried to meddle their way to success in the end of the 1990s. The company nearly went bankrupt - losses of US$300,000-400,000 a month and it was all his cash since he was the only investor. Okay while this is not the typical start-up (who can afford such personal losses, even in Malaysian Ringgit?).

What I liked is the part when he was close to giving up and took a final trip to think through about ways to close down the company and related procedures.

Coming back from the trip, he says that he "saw a guy parking cars one day and the guy seemed really happy doing that and I decided that if the business went broke then I could always park cars."

Okay - it is not the dream of every entrepreneur to end up like this, but what I believe he is trying to say is that there is always a way forward. Fail Forward Fast, one of Tom Peters favourite saying comes true here. The spirit of gung-ho, let's do it, go for it etc. Or, in a different manner, that the universe will take care of you, in the end.

(NLP in Asia)










Monday, September 18, 2006

The Apprentice - is it possible to copy the Donald ?

I watched the first couple of seasons of The Apprentice pretty diligently always hoping to learn something - what I did.

I wonder if someone actually realises the similarities between the candidates that get hired. Energetic, robus, getting things done, standing up for themselves and straight to the point.

Now ask yourself - are these the characteristics that make up a winner? Or are these the characteristics that make up a winner for Donald Trump? Looking at the types of personalities that populate his organisation, it is clear that these are the ones that are liked by him, because that is how he is.

Nothing wrong with that because believe me, these are propbably the right candidates (even so I wonder, watching the series, if these are really the creme de la creme in the US? Some candidates are really below the level that I would consider suitable for a corporate life, but this is my perception, of course!!).

Now imagine the people who buy his books, looking for solutions in his approach to business. If they are similar to his personality - energetic, robust etc - well, they might learn something. If not and you are too different, you set yourself up for a new learning.

Because, while it is possible to model big Donald, and assume his personality, it takes a giant step for someone who has not mastered the art of modelling (something that NLP teaches you, by the way!).

The inner workings of a Donald are just too different from the one who picks up his book.

PS: I discovered (and I am probably not alone), that Donald Trump is not perfect. Lucky for the rest of us. I wanted to check his blog and the last entry visible is from May 29, 2006.

Interestingly, that entry talks about decision and procrastination. May be they just decide about the next perfect entry :) (Just Kidding, mah!)


(NLP in Asia)









Saturday, September 16, 2006

Revenue numbers, project development and the entrepreneurial mindset

It is budgeting time in many companies. The thousands or millions are thrown all around us. There are the good and the bad salespeople. The ones that met their target and those that still glamour to meet the numbers to secure their bonus.

Forecasting is also in the air. Again, numbers, heavier than before (is it true that every year, you get kind of punished when you achieved your goals? Your numbers to achieve get higher?).

Anyway, this is also the time I always start to wonder.

There are those that are good in their business, and they sell a lot. So let's assume (and the numbers are made up, as are the names) that there is a business developer called Mr. X, who is able to secure 12 million Ringgit in 2006. Great number, he beat all the goals that he set out for last year. And now, Mr. X plans for may be 15 million.

Mr. X is happy. He gets a salary increment and a bonus of may be one month or two months salary. Let the story continue and assume that his salary is very, very high, for Malaysian standards - let's assume that Mr. X gets a salary of RM240,000. (I put in this number because it is easily dividable by 12 moths, lor!). So, he generates RM12 million - speak: RM 1 million per month - and is awarded with RM20,000. The ratio is 0.02%. Or, to put it differently, for every one dollar he earns, he generates RM50 dollar.

Now, Mr. X is also very much favoured by his clients. They love him and they would go with him, if he changes company. If he changes, he might get a little salary increment.

What I don't really get is the following:

Why is Mr. X, so successful, staying with this company? Why is he not jumping and opens up his own business? If he is able to take along just 50% or even 10% of the value that he originally generated, wouldn't he feel better?

Is this loyalty? Someone stays because he loves a company so much that he earns to the ratio of 1:50? Is this the plain old fear, that holds someone back? The fear of what? Because clearly, if Mr. X doesn't deliver anymore, he will get fired, right?

Or do I just have a wrong point of view?

I am interested - so help me out, dear reader, because I am lost!

(NLP in Asia)









Controlling artificial arm via the brain

Do you know that all the movements of the body are stirred by the subconscious mind? How else is it possible that you can move your hands, or get into a car or go around somehow?

Do you tell you body to move? Muscle number one, please contract, number 2 expand, number 3 do this .... and so on? Nope - it is all stirred from parts in your brain, automatically and since we are born or even earlier.

But here comes the exciting news. How about the news that someone is able to move an artificial arm via thoughts?

26-year-old Claudia Mitchell is just doing this. She lost her arm in a motorcycle accident and recently received an artificial limp, or, better, a bionic arm.
The medical team "found a way to use chest muscles to connect the prosthetic to nerves that once sent signals to the hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder. After an amputation, the brain still thinks the arm is there. It feels sensations and sends signals to move. But those signals are too weak for modern mechanics to detect from the surface of the skin, so Kuiken's team amplified them."

"First, plastic surgeon Greg Dumanian of Northwestern Memorial Hospital moved the targeted nerves into muscles in Mitchell's chest. Then, the nerves that cause the motion of those muscles were disconnected. Mitchell can no longer send a signal to flex her pectoral muscle, but when she wants to close her hand or bend her elbow, the nerve impulse moves her "pec.
When that muscle moves, it sends a signal strong enough for a sensor on the skin to detect. After some rewiring by Dumanian, six muscles in Mitchell's chest now move six motors in the bionic arm.

And nerve data flow up, too. When Todd Kuiken, who heads neural engineering, touches a certain spot on Mitchell's chest, she feels him touch her hand, even though it's no longer there."
There is more work that needs to be done but this is only the beginning of exciting times for those that struggle with losses of limps.

(NLP in Asia)

Monday, September 11, 2006

Just another day - Time Thieves all around us

Wow, what a great entry by the Slacker Manager about Time Thieves.

Do you know who they are, those, that steal your time? Those, that waste your time? Just realise that this day is gone, gone forever and will never, ever return.

You just grew one day older, got one day closer to death.

Well, did YOU, who reads this entry, just manage to get over this week, this day, this year so far, may be by chance survived a great amount of mishaps? Think and realise how many hours you wasted, enjoyed. I know already what my colleagues at work will say when I ask on Monday - "So, how was your weekend." What do you think?

Reminds me of one of my all time favourite song by Pink Floyd - Time.

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull dayYou fritter and waste the hours in an off hand wayKicking around on a piece of ground in your home townWaiting for someone or something to show you the way.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rainYou are young and life is long and there is time to kill todayAnd then one day you find ten years have got behind youNo one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinkingAnd racing around to come up behind you againThe sun is the same in the relative way, but youre olderShorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the timePlans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled linesHanging on in quiet desperation is the english wayThe time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say"

So - focus on what you are doing. Be clear about what you are doing. Do what you have to do to get it done. And do it NOW! Not tomorrow, or next year, but now. Because you never know what tomorrow will bring!

And hey - I have a great, wonderful and fulfilling weekend so far. Now I tell you what my colleagues will say about the weekend. "Nothing special", or "so, so." "Sleeping, resting, eating."

Is this not sad?

(NLP in Asia)










Overwhelmed

Overwhelmed. Who cannot relate to this?

There are 20 projects on your table, with 10 deadlines (only?) closing in fast, the phones are constantly ringing, preventing you from finding the time you so urgently need, your child is sick, your car broke down on the Federal Highway and your partner asks you to help you, your boss calls for a short meeting, your executives queue up outside your office.

Sounds familiar? In one way or another?

Then the feeling inside of you - creepy, crawly, coming out of its mousehole.

I CANNOT DO THIS.

THIS IS TOO MUCH!!!!

HOW TO MANAGE?

I WILL GET FIRED, FOR SURE.

Panic.

Wahhhhh - step back. Do something else. Real quick, because with THAT feeling, you will not get through the day and waste some more valuable time. Hey - remember, you had this before, it is possible to manage!

Helaine Iris is a Small Business Coach of Path of Purpose has written a piece about being overwhelmed (currently it looks as if the post has been moved) at Solostream.

She summarises it in a couple of interesting points (with some few comments from me):

  1. Start with a powerful shift of awareness or - being overwhelmed is only a feeling or state in your mind (I now sound like Stephen Covey :));
  2. Remember that the overwhelm is usually triggered by a perception - true or untrue, like: not enough time, money, resources, confidence;
  3. Recognize your personal symptoms of overwhelm - what happens to your mood when you are overwhelmed.
  4. Call a time out and admit that you are overwhelmed. Sometimes simply naming the obvious is all you need to stop the cycle. How true, isn' it?
  5. Prioritize. Easy to say, right, with all the work, but hey. You are doing it anyway. You have to start with one piece of work - and this is then probably the one you decided to be the most important one. Remember, you cannot work at many things at once! This is sometimes forgotten in this age of multi-tasking!
  6. Breathe life into your time management system. You only have 24 hours a day. If you have more, give me a call!
  7. Read your vision statement for your business. Or your personal vision. But find your purpose. When you are burried, you can forget your mission and purpose of your life and work
  8. Get back to basics - Stop what you’re doing and take ten deep, full breaths. Walk outside and notice five beautiful things around you. I love it as a tip.
  9. Get outside perspective. Being alone doesn't help much. Get a coach (my e-mail address is at the right upper side :))
  10. Imagine in full detail how you would rather feel. How would you be if you weren't overwhelmed?

I would add on - make your tasks manageable. Manage - able. The opposite of overwhelmed. Break all these tasks down into very small details and tasks. Initially, it really shows you how much there is that is to do. But then, it is easy to handle small, written down tasks, right?

Have fun!!

(NLP in Asia)










Friday, September 08, 2006

There is more to success

Ahh - there is already so much to success but to become successful is a never ending story, isn't it?

There is the saying of Bill Gates or was it Ford (correct me if I am wrong -) who said that you can take away everything from them - cash, company, everything, but if he is able to keep his people, he will get back on track.

Similar, I found this online - and it really depicts another ingredient to become successful.

"The formula for success = your human capital (what you know) times your social capital (who you know) times your reputation (who trusts you)."


There are plenty of books available on networking, building your reputation and creating trust. And you know what you know, already.

But do you know how to create trust, develop your reputation, and build your networking skills?

It is not that easy, really. Because very often, our own fear comes in between. The fear to become successful and happy. Or, you are not able to network - too shy, or way too bold, both not always helpful (okay, you can join an online network, so but is it successful for you or just a presence?), while networking should be fun. Then there is the challenge to get into rapport with your conversational partner and build the relation ongoingly!

Now, the question is - do you know how to build rapport, get out of your mental shell and be great in what you are doing? What ways do you use to get moving forward? Or what is holding you back?

Tell me, since I am curious to know.

Or, if you want to get better at it, send me an email to set up an initial coaching conversation.










Monday, September 04, 2006

What Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) can do for you

Ask yourself:

Have you ever wondered, why some people are able to just create success as if it takes nothing to do it, while others hesitate, all the time? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be successful anytime, anywhere? Do you know that you have all the resources and strength inside of you, buried deep, deep down inside of you, and that all it takes is to find a way to rediscover your strength?Do you know that NLP is offering you just that? Offers you the Art and Science of Personal Excellence!

What is NLP:

N-L-P -? Huh?

Neuro refers to the nervous system/mind and how it processes information and codes it as memory inside our body, and neurology. By neuro we refer to experience as inputted, processed, and ordered by our neurological mechanisms and processes.

Linguistic indicates that the neural processes of the mind come coded, ordered, and given meaning through language, communication systems, and various symbolic systems (grammar, mathematics, music, icons).

Programming refers to our ability to organise our sensory-based information (sights, sounds, sensations, smells, tastes, and symbols or words) within our mind-body organism which then enables us to achieve our desired outcomes.

Huh? Huh? I still don't get it!

There is a way to define NLP easily and understandably:

  • NLP is the Art and Science of Personal Excellence
  • NLP is and Attitude and a Methodology leaving behind a Trail of Techniques
  • NLP provides a User Manual for the Brain

Better, but still!

With NLP, you can easily learn:

  • How excellent people do what they do
  • How you can model this behaviour and use it over and over again
  • How you can consistently get great results in every situation and whenever you need it
  • How to manage your thoughts

Adoh! Any example?

Sure there are - Whatever we do, we have a certain program running in our mind that uses the same way in coming to a conclusion, over and over again. Let’s call this internal program processing strategy, can we?

Do you know that every external behaviors is controlled by such internal processing strategies. All of them!

That means that we use strategies for love, strategies for hate, strategies for learning, strategies for math, parenting, sports, communication, sales, marketing, wealth, poverty, happiness, death, sex, eating, disease, creativity, relaxation, attention and fun. Really, there are strategies for everything (ah, these are some examples from Tad James).

You will identify those strategies when you become aware of your behaviour. How do you start your day, how you meet and approach new people, how you eat, how you communicate, what you do for fun .... Can you identify a certain repetition in certain task settings already?

It wasn’t always like this, so. There was a time, when we were free of these programs or strategies, a long, long time ago.We first develop a set of particular strategy when we are young. A

t an early age, perhaps you put a series of internal and external experiences together, and made (for example) a decision, probably subconscioulsy (sounds heavy, I know). Then, at some point when you knew it worked, you generalized the process that you used before in making the decision and said, either consciously or unconsciously, "OK, this is a good way to make a decision", and you then probably used it over and over and over again.

Let's say, for example, you made a picture in your mind and talked to yourself or someone else about it, until you had enough information, and that was how you made the decision. If that worked for you, then at some time you began to use it over and over again – you entrenched a strategy in your subconscious mind to achieve what you want to achieve (or avoid) in these situations.

Over time however, as situations change, some of the strategies might not work anymore to the extend they did earlier. Others simply handicap you nowadays in your development.

Have you ever thought of the command that we give little children: “Finish the food on your table?” Over and over again. Until it is deeply entrenched in our subconscious mind that we are no longer aware of it. Now – little children do lots of things – and burn the calories off very quickly.

But they also grow up and don’t run around that much anymore. Still the program in their mind is still running and running and running? This is happening!

Now, can you identify any program in your mind that is outdated?

Wouldn’t it be great if you find a way to update and eliminate your own limiting programs and may be others that you come across as well – just think anger, sadness, fear, hurt, guilt and doubt?

And, while we are at it – do you know that you can create your future – today? What will happen when you do this?

That is the easy part – you will become magnificent and tremendously successful.

How would it be for you, if you can:

  • Attract and have people like you, immediately
  • Speak your ideas in the client’s language – and become successful in client servicing• Influence others, without even opening your mouth?
  • Increase your sales and/ or income, by knowing, what’s your client’s or bosses internal strategy?
  • Suddenly find personal strengths and create positive feelings?
  • Generate new habits and behaviour to solve old problems and new challenges
  • Negotiate better contracts, close deals without buyers remorse• Become the leader you always wanted to be
  • Learn how to handle objections
  • Let go of negative emotions in an instant

Sure you can get this – if you are willing to change.

But then, change is everything anyway. And you don’t want to be left behind, right?

So send me an e-mail, now, if you are interested to know more. Write to Andreas at always_wow@yahoo.com.sg, will you?

(NLP in Asia)

How to become successful?

Want to know how to become successful? Well, I am going to show you one way and this is a very important step to do. Something that you don't necessarily learn anywhere else.

So lets get started, shall we?

Most people (and I know I generalise) think that dreaming along, setting your goals, and doing nothing will bring them somewhere.

It won't happen. You still need to have an actionplan. And, you still need to take action. Massive action supports success.

Do more than the average aside of you and you can succeed. I said, you can. It is not a sure-win success fomula.

But what you can also do is looking to others, learn, what they do. Model them as much as possible. That is why people read business books. To learn from others. Or self-help books. To see how it can be done. The challenge with those books? I tell you, but don't tell anybody else - these books don't show you how to do all the things - the process of doing things is missing.

Business Week has a series on competition, currently.

In one of the articles, they describe the exhaustive work of talented musicians in a music school.

Listen to this:

"Students must be awake and practicing by 8:30 a.m., and they must spend five hours a day in their tiny, un-air-conditioned bedrooms in individual practice. There's no lake to swim in, few extracurricular activities, and only five working phones. Galamian built the camp with as few distractions from music as possible." That is hard work, isn't it?

Next, in order to succeed, besides your own hard work, one needs to refine the skills - speak: break the habits or the patterns.

One girl says that one day, she fall on her shoulder, while jogging. "It hurt so much I could only play with the shoulder very far back. [I realized] that was where my shoulder should be." Everything, even an injury, leads her to examine how she plays."

And of course, where there is success there are scientists to measure it to find differences between the "normal being" and the "unusual one" (dare I say unhuman??):

"In one study, researchers led by Florida State University professor K. Anders Ericsson studied musicians at a Berlin conservatory. Students were divided into three skill levels, including one the faculty had identified as having the best chance of becoming world-class soloists. The researchers had the students keep diaries of their schedules and looked at such information as when they started playing and their practice habits as children."

Ericsson says that "The only striking difference between experts and amateurs is in this capability to deliberately practice." The group even determined the number of hours musicians must play to compete at the highest professional level -- about 10,000, the equivalent of practicing four hours a day, every day, for almost seven years."

That is how long it can take, does it?

And there is one more: "Psychologists found a second attribute in elite players that is less obvious than sheer hours of practice. While most of us think of practice as the repetition of tough spots (and this is how many young people do practice), elite musicians, they found, took a different approach. They were intensely self-critical, identifying weaknesses at an incredibly detailed level. They examined the pattern in which they put their fingers down, the way their muscles tensed -- and they continually experimented with ways to improve. In other words, they were not only musically creative, they were creative about solving problems."

And now it comes to one more point:

"This is what the teachers at Meadowmount call "knowing how to practice," something Galamian helped pioneer. In his classic violin exercise book he breaks playing into several dozen fundamental skills. Each exercise is a targeted workout, a particular rhythm in the bow or finger pattern. Once all of these are mastered, the reasoning goes, you will have a complete set of skills to play any piece with relative ease. Says Ronald Copes, a violinist with the Juilliard String Quartet who had lessons with Galamian in the 1960s: "Meadowmount was training in how to listen, and methodically figuring out how to train yourself to reach what you were hearing in your head." Ronald Lantz, a professional violinist who also studied with Galamian, says he found he "could learn passages in 10 minutes that used to take me three weeks."

See that? Something that takes long can take a short while, if duplicated correctly. As I said - model them. How do you do that? Well, the story is not really told in the article.

But NLP states that it is also important to find out, what the person that you model thinks, sees, believes, feels, hears, when he or she is doing their practice. How do they hold their body? What is going on in their mind? What do they believe, when they do the exercise?

Once you have that - you can start to follow, imitate and get good at it. So good, that you might be better than the original creator.

So - what kind of behaviour are you model today? Look around you and find someone who can do what you want to do. And then, start talking to the person, how they do it. Follow their advice and you will succeed. But practice until you get it. It doesn't need to be that long until you get it. Because you can do it, because you are also a magnificent being.

How is that?

(NLP in Asia)










Sunday, September 03, 2006

Kevin Federline to give up smoking via hypnosis

The article reads:

"Kevin Federline is turning to hypnotherapy to help him quit smoking. Britney Spear's rapper husband is desperate to kick the habit for the sake of their son Sean Preston and their unborn second child - but he insists his addiction is strong.

He says, "To me it's probably the equivalent of being addicted to heroin. I'm going to try hypnotism. Matt Damon did it."

Will he succeed? Probably not. Why do I say so? He does not express enough internal motivation. He sees others that have done it, he wants to do it for his kids.

Okay, nothing wrong with that, but what I miss is the statement - "I stop smoking, now and forever, and hypnosis is giving me the last kick to do so."

Instead, I hear a lame - Matt Demon did it and I will try.

Try?
Try?

You cannot try, can you? You can either do it or you don't! There is no such thing as try - try presupposes failure, and giving up.

The intention is positive, Kevin, but trying is simply not good enough!!!

(NLP in Asia)