Be Flexible and Change on a Dead-End

Have you ever met with a dead-end when it comes to achieving goals in life, no matter it is losing weight or making money?

I bet you have.

But what are you going to do in this situation?

Simple.

One word - CHANGE.

You may have seen the story like this:

A bird or a fly just insist bumping its head on the same spot of the window. It is obvious that the solution should be change the route.

But not many people do this when they meet with the same situation in life.

For example, I have lost a lot of weight TWICE by jogging over 35 minutes, respectively in the  morning or on a treadmill.

But this time when the weight rebounded back for a long time. I decide to use the same methodology to come up with the same result.

After two months, 7 kg was lost successfully.

But another one month has passed with me doing the same thing everyday, without skipping any day even rainy days, no progress has been made.

I still have 16 kg to go.

That is when I came across the Truths about Six Pack Abs, a book that blew my mind.

It did not only changed my views about the whole weight-loss thing, but also put my mind to change or adaption.

I also learn that you don't have do work harder to lose weight, you are going to just have to work smarter, like everything else you want to do with your life.

Being stubborn at your own cost, being flexible would open a brand new world in front of you.

Plateau or anything else that it may be called is a sign that you should try something else.

When it comes to making money, you may have tried everything online including blogging, affiliate marketing, Google Adsense, social networking, or even foreign exchange.

If you are not having success, you might want to try something else like providing services on websites like fiver.com or PeoplePerHour.

When learning a language, if you are bored with the grammar rules. Why not watch a movie in that language?

Making Extra Cash with Free Methods - Starting Over

When it comes to making money online, I have been playing around for over 5 years. But I haven't beaten it yet.

After trying everything from SEO, Adsense to PPC, now I have decided to start over by using piggy-back method.

Piggy-Backing

It means that I will use a platform that is built by others and try to take advantage of all their features by providing content to them. In this way, I can tunnel their traffic to the products pages that I am affiliated to.

For starters, I will use slideshare.net as the first stop. I will make PPT files and upload to Slideshare.

When people see my shared slides and like them, hopefully they can share or download or click the link at the end and come to the product page I want them to go.

I will do this everyday.

All I will do is just making content and upload.

I will not do SEO to the slides.

I will not make backlinks to them.

I will not do anything to them, except checking on them from time to time.

Just like this blog.

A Beggar Turned into a Giver in No Time

Yesterday, at the parking lot in front of Choppies, one of the large supermarkets in Botswana, a black man with a towel in his hand came up to me when I parked the company pickup.

"I see there is a crack on your windscreen. I can block it."

"I don't have time today. What's your number? I'll call you later"

When I came out with the bought grocery, he caught up with me and said proudly that he was already done with the blocking and he wanted 30 Pula.

A little bit irritated, I checked what he did. He just put a bit of silicon-like glue at the end of the crack, which is not how I thought it should have been done.

"I didn't ask you to do that. Besides, this is a company car. If I pay you, nobody will pay me."

"I understand, Sir. How about 20?"

It's not about the money indeed.

I had just bought a can of Minute Orange, which is the best drink that I have ever tasted. I was thirsty and I only bought one. But I made the hard decision.

"How about I giving you this drink?"

"No. Me, I don't drink drinks. I drink alcohol."

"Just take it and I will see you next time."

He took the drink as reluctantly as I handed it over. But before I realized it, he gave it to a lady who was opening the door to the car beside.

This really pissed me off. I gave the best thing in my life to him. What did he do?

If you don't want it, give it to me back! But you didn't. You just gave it to a passerby without any hesitation.

I don't understand the guys in Botswana.

They always ask for money when they meet you. But they are incredibly generous when they are in church and giving tips even if it means that they will have nothing to eat for lunch.

Talked with Friends Yesterday about Some Cultural Differences

Yesterday, my roommate and I entertained a friend who had just come back to Botswana from China. We cooked for him. After eating, we talked around the table. It is a rare but rewarding conversation, which doesn't happen these days.

We talked about the food that he ate back at home during his holiday in China.
We talked about how scarce the things that you can have a bite here in Botswana.

We talked about the people in Botswana, black and white, and those in China.
We talked about the weather, air and sky and their difference between that in China and that in Botswana.

What he said made me nostalgic. The good thing is that I am going to leave for China in February, which not that far away. I will experience what he has experienced, but with a little bit of difference, because I live in the countryside in a different place.

He talked about the changes that China and Chinese people are experiencing. He mentioned how his parents are using WeChat on smartphones all day everyday without looking away.

I can imagine and sympathize with him because each time I went to see my parents in the past I was always see no less of surprises.

If he, one who comes from one of the big cities in China, was surprised, I am sure I can get my mind boggled even more. That is the difference between the urban area and the countryside in China.

Now that we mentioned about cultural difference, we must also talk about the different categories.

1. As talked about before, the difference between the city and the country within the same province;

2. The difference between cities in the same country (no of much if you must say);

In China, all cities grow similar with each other. And even some were built after some modern cities around the world. When I first went abroad to South Korea, I didn't find much of a difference in it from Shanghai. Maybe that is why I didn't learn much about the local cultures there, no more than what I see on Korean TV plays, that are put on throughout the TV stations of China.

3. The difference between the North and the South, the East and the West within the same country;

There is much cultural differences between the North and the South of China. I firstly experienced this difference when I went to college.

I grew up in the North, so to speak, until I graduated from high school. I lived my entire adult life in the South, however, studying and working.

I grew up eating steamed bread as the staple food. In the south, people eat rice instead.

People speak different languages in the South.

They cook foods in different styles.

4. The difference between home and abroad.

This category might be of the biggest difference among the above. People in different countries speak different languages, cook different foods, and even think in a different way.

Thinking differently sometimes causes problems. But when you agree with it, you are going to love it. And talking with people from different cultures is amazing, making yourself an open-minded person.

Being able to have come to other countries have expanded my horizon, thanks to the companies that I worked with and sent me abroad.

I should also thank the fact that I learned English.

Starting to Learn German Seriously

German is one of the languages that I have tried to learn a lot of times. There has been some progresses that are encouraging. (Others include Japanese, Cantonese and Korean.) But it hasn't become the language that I can use proficiently.

Two hours a day is not a period of time that I can pull out without cutting other items off. As everyone, I am occupied with some trivial things such as working, shuttling from home and work, exercising, reading books (English and Chinese) and writing. You name it.

Some people say that it all comes to time management. When it comes to one routine, it is pretty easier to try and test. For example, when I decided to exercise everyday, I started with running 15 minutes in the morning. But due to the earliness of my work starts in the morning, I changed my exercising time to the evening after work because I knocked off early in the afternoon. Now I fix it at 7-8pm. That is good because I can have a shower and get to bed around 9:50pm, giving me a good sleep.

But to insert another two hours into the hard-packed schedule, I will start with those hours before exercising, i.e. 5-6 pm. I will try for a week or two in order to see if this works while maintaining my existing schedule.

Do With the Subconscious

I have taken running serious and been doing it everyday for almost three months now. On some days, I run like a breeze, finishing my sessions without feeling it. On others, I feel tired and would rather stop half way.

I have pondering why that is.

After trying to feel and observe what is going on within my body and my mind, the answer has become clearer.

Running with conscious mind, I would be tired. Running with subconscious, I would be free.

It's like breathing.

Normally, we don't pay much attention to our breath, with our conscious. We just let the body, the lung in particular, to take care of it.

Just try to think about each breath, each inhale and exhale. It is okay to do it for a few minutes. Try to do it for half an hour.

What did you found? In fact, it's not necessary to watch each time we breathe. Just taking a few minutes everyday is enough if you want to.

When it comes to running, at first we use our conscious to take care of the steps we take and the speed we run at. After sometime, the body, or the subconscious, would take it over.

It's like taking a burden off the conscious mind. You will not feel tired at all. Being tired is mostly from the mind, not the body.

Of course, it's not every time that you can get to that state when you run. But you are going to come to enjoy what you are doing with practice.

This does not only happen when I run. It happens when I do simultaneous translation. It happens when I am in the zone of writing.

Just experience it when you do something and prolong the time you are in the zone. It is fantastic, trust me.

The Law of Attraction - Money or Partner If You Were Me?

Do you believe that girls will come when you have money? Which of them comes first when you apply the Law of Attraction?

These are the questions that are making me crazy.

I am a male and still single at the age of 35. It is not because I don't want to get married. But something huge happened a few years ago in my life.

Three years ago, my ex girlfriend who lived with me for over six years broke up with me. She was my first love, so to speak.

Three years later, I am still recovering myself, i.e. trying to forgive and forget her.

Such a catastrophe happened to me, you may think that I may have lost faith in love. The truth is I did, for sometime.

But I came across a lot of books about the Law of Attraction, regarding money and relationship.

So the signal I send out to the grace is to ask for a life partner, a soul mate who would live with me happily forever.

I think I did that because deep in my heart, I may think that I would not believer the love would be real if I met with someone after I get rich.

There are always fighting voices within. I think I would continue requesting a life partner, instead of money, because money would be a side result of real love.

What about you?