Happiness

Make Your Day!

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One of the easiest ways to make your day is to make someone else’s day. It’s not possible to make someone else happy and not feel great about it yourself. And it doesn’t take much to make someone happy, especially strangers. Try a genuine compliment or a thank-you e.g.

  • Wow, very clean taxi!
  • You guys are really good; the queue is moving so fast! (Check-in counters at the airport)
  • Good job. Thank you! (Try that with a toilet cleaning staff and see what happens)
  • The food was nice, service was great and prices were OK too! (Ever asked to see the manager at the end of a great dining experience?)
  • Thank you so much; I really appreciate that!

Most people haven’t been complimented (or even talked to by a customer) in a long time, so it would mean the world to them. And how would you feel seeing that you have had such a positive impact on someone’s day/life? Of course, there will be some people with such low self-image that they won’t believe you or think you are being funny.

If you are fortunate enough to be in love with someone, remember the power of the three magic words. I love you! can help switch negative emotions to positive ones in a heartbeat.

Try it today. And tell us about your experience with compliments – both giving and receiving.

Man with no limbs – very inspiring video!

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If Nick can be happy, anyone can…

Don’t Eat the Marshmallow, Yet!

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In this short talk Joachim de Posada shares a landmark experiment on delayed gratification – and how it can predict future success. With priceless video of kids trying their hardest not to eat the marshmallow.

Favorite Quotes: Paulo Coelho

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“When every day seems the same, it is because we have stopped noticing the good things that appear in our lives.” The Alchemist

“Profound commitment to a dream does not confine or constrain: it liberates. Even a difficult, winding path can lead to your goal if you follow it to the end.” Maktub

“When there is no turning back, then we should concern ourselves only with the best way of going forward.” The Alchemist

Price of Starbucks coffee can feed many!

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povertyOn my recent visit to Manila, I stopped at a Starbucks on my way from the airport to the hotel. I bought one latte for the driver too. Besides being extremely grateful, here’s what he told me:

  • The price of that cup of coffee was equivalent to his weekly salary – USD3.5!
  • The last time he had coffee from Starbucks was over six months ago, under a similar situation. And had longed for another one ever since!

I was reminded that over 1 billion people live below the international poverty line, earning less than a dollar per day! About 25,000 people die every day due to poverty and hunger-related causes. That’s one every 3.5 seconds!

That helps put our problems in prospective, doesn’t it?

Do You Live in the Past, Present or Future?

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Most of the advice we get from experts is that we should live in the present, because ‘past is gone and nobody has seen the future’. I think thinking about all three is equally important:

Thinking of your past successes can boost your self image in times of disappointments. Reliving the happy memories of the past can provide instant happiness and shift your emotions. Going back in time and forgiving anyone who ever hurt you can be very liberating!

Living in the present allows you to notice the good things in your life, right now. It makes you grateful. Staying focused on what needs to be done right now, today, is the only way to achieve your goals. The only way to change your future is to change your present!

Dreaming of the future is vital too. That’s the only way to set and achieve meaningful goals in life. The most common success formula is still: dreams, goals, plan and action!

Where do you spend most of your thoughts: past, present or future?

Relationships Make Us Happy!

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Our poll on What Makes You Happy? has got over 200 votes so far. And ‘relationships’ has continued to be the winner, followed by health and career. Interesting, isn’t it? Question is, why most of us don’t spend most of our time, energy and money trying to enhance our relationships?

happiness-results

Hamza’s Recommendations

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I wait for, and read with great interest, Hamza’s weekly recommendation of reading material. Here, I have expanded parts of few of last week’s recommendations:

From Uncluttered Aphorisms:

  • The less you own, the less you have to clean. This applies to quantity of objects as well as square footage in your home.
  • One in, one out. If you buy something new, you need to get rid of whatever it’s replacing.
  • If you get it out, put it back. An especially great rule to implement to keep your home and office orderly.
  • Guilt is not a reason to keep something. This one is self explanatory.

From 9 Lists to keep Updated:

Gift Ideas list: If I think of something that would be a great gift for a person I might some day buy a gift, I write down something like “Mom – Rollerblades”. That way, when my Mom’s birthday comes up and I realize I haven’t been paying attention for a whole year, I’ve got some backup ideas. This one, more than all the other lists here, has come in handy over and over in my life.

Watch, Read, Listen List: Another critical one for me, as a music and movie junkie. If a movie gets suggested to me, or I’m told I absolutely have to hear a particular band, they go on the list. If I have some time, I’ll go through the bands and see if there’s anything good. If I’m in need of another book, I try to pull one from my list rather than just reading whatever is nearby. These lists are populated by friends, blogs, and any other source you can think of, and they’ve provided me with a ton of great movies, music, and books.

Why You Should Unclutter, Play, and Keep Lists

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Here it is, your weekly fix of useful posts on everything from uncluttering (is that a word?) to the swine flu.

For the week ending Sunday, 03/05:

Enjoy.

LIFE by Paulo Coelho (Selected Quotations)

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lifeA book full of selected quotes from Paulo Coelho’s many top selling books, including The Alchemist, The Zahir, Brida and Manual of the Warrior of Light. Some of the quotes from the chapter, The Path:

  • In order to have faith in his own path, a warrior does not need to prove that someone else’s path is wrong.
  • In order to arrive you must follow the signs. God inscribed on the world the path that each man must follow. It is just a matter of reading the inscriptions he wrote for you.
  • When we postpone the harvest, the fruit rots, but when we postpone our problems, they keep on growing.
  • In order to live fully, it is necessary to be in constant movement, only then can each day be different from the last.
  • There are moments in life when we need to trust blindly in intuition.

What makes you happy? Preliminary results!

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Here’s what it looks like, so far:

poll-resultsBut that’s just based on 81 votes! Do you think the results would change much if we had 800 votes instead? Please help get some more votes, and let’s find out.

A respected friend of mine asked me the purpose of this survey, and whether I guarantee confidentiality. Yes, absolutely. I can only see this chart – no names or anything else. And the purposes of the survey are a) personal curiosity and b) obtain interesting statistics to share with my readers. Fair enough?

Six things for happiness!

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What do you think really makes people happy? I have wondered this question for years. Is it money that allows you to buy the things and do the things that you like? Or is it strong relationships – people you love, and people who love you? Or is it success in your chosen career and the recognition that comes with it? Or optimum health, fitness and energy to enjoy life to the fullest? Or a religion that connects you to a higher being and guides you to do right? Or does it come from contribution to community or society or mankind or other life or our planet earth?

What makes you happy? Please take this poll and tell us. Please limit to three of the six choices. Get your friends to take this poll too. The more participants, the clearer the answer.

Leadership, Uncluttering, and Your Worst Enemy…

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Another week has gone by, and with another week comes another interesting list of posts that you should check out in your spare time.

Here are 5 articles worth reading for the week ending Sunday, 19/04.

Enjoy.

Leo Buscaglia’s quotes

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Early in my sales career, I had watched an inspiring video by Leo Buscaglia called The Politics of Love. His powerful presentation had a lasting impression on my heart and mind. Later, I read one of his books – Living, Learning and Loving – which was also one of the best books I’ve ever read. Today, I was searching for more of Leo’s work on the Internet and found lots of really inspiring stuff – books, quotes, audios, videos, sites! Some quotes:

  • Don’t hold to anger, hurt or pain. They steal your energy and keep you from love.
  • Don’t spend your precious time asking “Why isn’t the world a better place?” It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is “How can I make it better?” To that there is an answer.
  • Our talents are the gift that God gives to us… What we make of our talents is our gift back to God.
  • Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Watch one of his popular Born for Love lectures here.

The Weekly Round-Up: An Introduction

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First post by our new contributor, Hamza:

How’s it going readers? Starting from today, I’ll be putting up a couple of links from around the blogosphere of articles that are either a must-read, extremely useful, or just plain interesting. These will of course be sticking to the themes of healthy living, productivity, business, personal finance, inspiration and life in general.

Without further ado, here are 8 interesting articles for the week ending Sunday, 12/04.

Stay tuned for the next weekly round-up!

The Dash by Linda Ellis

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This poem continues to be one of the most inspiring pieces for over ten years. It’s been published in many forms. Here’s part of it:

I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth…
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;
the cars….the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

Read the full poem here. And watch a short movie here.

Randy Pausch’s last lecture

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I am sure most of you have heard or read about Professor Randy Pausch by now. But just in case you haven’t… his work is not to be missed!

Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the Carnegie Mellon University on Sept. 18, 2007. In his moving presentation, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. His book, “The Last Lecture” which was based on this presentation was also a bestseller. You can watch that lecture here. It’s about an hour, but very inspiring from beginning to end:


Great day or lousy day?

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It was one of those days when I was able to notice most of the good things in life – big and small.

Waking up to a new day – alive and healthy! Running water, hot and cold! Nice clothes to wear! Fresh juice to drink! A job to go to! Beautiful weather – neither hot nor cold! Train station close to home! Train that’s always on time! My favorite corner seat! An hour of thinking and reading time! Nice office – with a sea view! The old cleaning lady who cleans with a passion and greets with enthusiasm! Clean pantry with filtered drinking water! Lots of work to do – mostly enjoyable! A Mac that’s always reliable – no virus, no spam, no hanging up! High-speed Internet access! An email from Hamza recommending another productivity software! Lots of people who trust me with their problems and impossible deadlines! An unexpected lunch meeting in a nice and quiet restaurant with the most divine tempura! New things to learn! Central air-conditioning to keep us cold, and a portable heater under the desks when it gets too cold! Lots of things to laugh about! Coming home to a loving family! Still being in love with the same person after almost 30 years! Kids (many) that we are proud of! Amazing home-cooked food for dinner…WOW!

What kind of a day do you think I had? Amazing, exciting, wonderful, of course! There were some problems for sure and a few challenging situations, but somehow they all looked small and insignificant! On any given day we all have more good things than bad things. But when we fail to notice and acknowledge them, even small problems and challenges look big and we end up having a lousy day! If our days make up our life, we can pretty much control the quality of our lives, can’t we?

Make Today Count by John Maxwell

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maketodaycountI was just looking; I wasn’t going to buy anything. Until I saw this little book with a bold red and white cover and an interesting title. In fact, I liked the subtitle even better. I read it on the flight back from Singapore last month, and started re-reading it this week. Here’s a piece from the Introduction:

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. You see, success doesn’t just suddenly occur one day in someone’s life. For that matter, neither does failure. Each is a process. Every day of your life is merely a preparation for the next. What you become is the result of what you do today. In other words… you are preparing for something. The way you live your life today is preparing you for tomorrow. The questions is, What are you preparing for? As my father used to tell me when I was growing up, “You can pay now and play later, or you can play now and pay later. But either way, you are going to pay.”

The book has twelve chapters – a dozen to focus on daily: Attitude, Priorities, Health, Family, Thinking, Commitment, Finances, Faith, Relationships, Generosity, Values and Growth. I’ll be happy to give my copy to the first person who asks.

Favorite Quotes – Dreams

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It is precisely the possibility of realizing a dream that makes life interesting. (Paulo Coelho)

When you really want something, the whole universe conspires to help you realize your dream. (Paulo Coelho)

Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream of things that never were and say, “Why not?” (George Bernard Shaw)

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. (Goethe)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. (Mark Twain)

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold. (Khalil Gibran)