Meditation

I have been practising meditation about 6 months ago. After practising meditation, I realised I have reaped a lot of benefits from meditation.

Initially, I have difficulties to concentrate on how to meditate. After I have done my research in the internet, I found my way through on how to meditate.

Of course, the best time to meditate will always be in the morning or late in the evening. The morning session will always the best especially after you have just woke up because you are still very fresh. The reason to do it in either in the morning or evening because it is quiet during this session.

My favourite timing is usually after my morning walk at the park. After relaxing for a while, I will usually start of meditating.

When I newly started meditating, I found that it is very difficult to concentrate for meditation because the mind tends to sway away. I started to meditate for very short period of about 5 minutes. Now, I can easily meditate for about 20 minutes.

When you want to meditate, it is very important to find a good location which is quiet and calm.

Then sit comfortably. The way we sit is to make sure that our body is straighten up and breath easily. I prefer to sit up right rather than sitting with crossing legs.

After that, I will close my eyes. I will first concentrate on my breathing. Then I will start to dream on my OBJECTIVES of my life. One by one I will try to picture it as clear as possible in my mind.

I will do it basically for about 15 to 20 minutes each day after my regular exercise.

After practising meditation, of course the benefits I gained are tremendous.

1) Since I have practised meditation as suggested in the SECRET, I found that my financial situation is getting better and better.

2) During the course of my job, I am getting full satisfaction and reaped better achievements.

3) My health is getting better each day.

4) My mind work much better and so much more organised.

5) My family relationship getting better each day.

6) I appreciate things better.

7) My temper is getting so much better.

Good Lesson In Life : Fresh Fish Head Failure

On the 1st Aug 2009, I started my claypot curry fish head business at Tasty Corner, Taman Connaught, Cheras. It was a Saturday.

On this very first day, I only manage to get one outsider customer. The rest of it are my friends who came to support me.

On the second day, as it was Sunday, it was totally very quiet. I sell nothing the whole day.

The third day is Monday. I told myself, this is the most important day as this is actually my main aim. Very unfortunately, again throughout the day no business at all.

So, here I want to share with you one of my biggest mistakes.

1) Too Rush : Did not have proper surveying on the location

All the while I knew that a location for a business is the utmost important and I kept on telling Joanne about it. But then I am doing this business without realising it.

When I went out scouting the location for my business on the first week of July 2009, I come to this coffee shop by the name of Tasty Corner at Taman Connaught. It was at about 3pm.

I went to ask the owner if there is any stall for rental. The owner said yes and the rental is RM45o per month. Without much consideration, I immediately gave him RM100 as a deposit to rent the stall. I told him I haven't decide on the date to operate the business. I will inform him when I am ready.

I was very happy to find such a good location as it is located in a commercial and banking district. So, this is the reason why I am very confident that the business will be successful.

The location turned up to be my biggest mistake. I did not spend time on surveying the area and the consumer well. I depend solely on my instinct only.

A few days later, Taksina called me take groups. Consecutively I took 2 groups. I have planned to operate the stall on the 27th July. The last day I sent off the group was on the 24th. I have only 3 more days to start the business.

2) Poor Planning

I haven't clean the stall. I haven't buy any utensils for the business. And worst of all, I haven't even ready for the fish head curry recipe.

So, within those few days, I started to try out the fish head curry everyday. And I do the things which I need to do a step at a time.

Then I realised, I am not ready for the business yet. After discussing with Joanne, we decided to operate the business on the 1st August 2009.

So, within those few days, I tried out and improve my fish head curry recipe.

I went to look for fish head supplier. I clean up the stall and purchase what ever needed.

On the first day of running the business, early in morning, upon waking up, read the sms that my supplier could not supply me the fish head. So, I have to go to Pudu wet market to purchase the fish head.

So, I went to Pudu market to purchase the fish head and by the time I reach home, it's about 8.30am.

I haven't prepare all the herbs and spices for slicing.

Everything was in such a rush.

Due to the rush, I calculated wrongly on the ingredients for the curry. The curry is too watery and tasteless. There are so much scales on the fish head. The first day is totally in disaster.

After few days of operating of business, I realised that the location is not suitable for these few reasons:

3) Customers' Spending Power And Habits

Due to too immensed with the good location in mind, I totally forgot to survey on the clientele background of the coffee shop.

So, the mistake here is that I did not spend some time in the coffee shop to survey on the customers background.

Most of the customers would prefer to eat the economic rice or chicken rice. Even if those who order food from the a la carte stall, they will be ordering fry noodles most of the time.

Due to office hours, their time for lunch is rather limited. They will go for fast, convenient and cheap food.

4) Feng Shui of the coffee shop

When I clean up the stall, I personally don't quite like the stall because of the shape of the area of the coffee shop. It is triangular in shape. I feel rather awkward when I am in the coffee shop.

5) Competitor

The owner of the coffee shop operates the economic rice, prawn noodle, hakka noodle and chee cheong fun. She rented out the stall to chicken rice stall and also a la carte stall. When I went to the coffee shop, due to too excited about the location, I did not check on the number of stalls and what they are selling there.

6) Environment

The coffee shop is actually an extension at a corner row of the shop. It looks like it is located in the corner but then if we properly look at it, it is actually located in the middle. It looks like in the corner because there is a road cutting through the row of shops.

Due to the extension, and the roof top of the coffee shop is mainly made of iron awning. the whole coffee shop is very hot and humid.

Joanne also mentioned that there is not enough lighting in the coffee shop.

7) Pricing

I am selling the fish head curry for RM15 (Small), RM25 (Medium) and RM35 (Large). As mentioned just now, the purchasing power of the consumer is low. So, I am still contemplating whether this is also one of the reason which causes my curry fish head failure.

The price is actually the one which I copied from the JB curry fish head. So, according to Joanne, the price should not be a problem.

8) Did not want to admit mistake earlier.

On the day when I went to clean up the stall, I was there from 10.30 am to about 2pm. While cleaning the stall, I started to realise that there is not a big crowd of customers in the coffee shop.

From 11am to 1pm, there is hardly any customers. The crowd will only come at about 1pm. And after 1.45pm, the crowd dispersed. It will be a very quiet business from then on.

Even I have feelings that this small crowd of customers will cause failure to my business, but I still carry on and did not want to admit this mistake.

Should I have decided there and then, I would not have started this business after all.

CONCLUSION

Even though this is a failure of my business attempt, I will and still very determine that I will try it again if the tour season is low again. I will never give up so easily on this business. Joanne and Kim Hoe told me that the main fault is the location. It is definately not the taste of the curry fish head because there are nobody trying the fish head curry at all.

Anyway, I will take it as a lesson in life and will move forward.

I will learn from these mistakes and will not repeat them. I will have a thorough research on the location once I found a new stall.

Feeling Proud With Dad

Today is the second day dad is spending his time with me. I promised him that I will wake up early in the morning to go for jogging with him every day. So, thats why he come over to my house to spend time with me.

When I was at the Permaisuri garden walking him, suddenly I felt so proud and happy that I can have such a golden opportunity to spend more time with dad. When I look around, I found that most of the old people are together and the young ones are together as well. I can hardly find any children bring their parents to go for morning walk. So, this really made me feel proud indeed that I can spend such a wonderful time with him.

While at the garden, I also found that its really great that I can communicate with him easily. He always wanted to share his experience with me.

In my opinion, we as the children should spend more time with our parents. Actually, I found that there are a lot of lonely old folks around.

I am very sure spending more time with our parents will definately brighten up their days more than what we spend for them on either Mother's day or Father's day.

In fact I always hope I can do more for my parents so that they will be more happier. But then I know, no matter how grown up I am, I am still a kid in their eyes.

I LOVE YOU GREATLY PA AND MA...

One Has To Learn To Love Oneself First...

One has to learn to love oneself first... Why do I come to this topic?

This is because I found that in the society, there are so many men who could not even take care of himself. If he does not know how to take care of himself, how can he take care of his loved ones?

They ended up themselves in such a mess mainly due to their uncontrollable habits and bad self management. One of the main culprit for bad self management is addicted to gamble.

In order for one to know how to take care of himself, it is important that he must have:

1) Healthy Mind And Healthy Body
2) Self Improvement
3) Good Financial Management

I found that majority of the men failed to take care of themselves in so many ways. First of all, of course, it is very important for men to have a healthy mind and a healthy body. I am saying healthy mind first because I believe that if we have healthy mind then we will have healthy body and vice versa. It is the mind which controls the body. So, if we have a healthy mind, naturally we will have a healthy body.

When I say that we must have a healthy mind, naturally it means we must know which direction we are heading to. Are we doing the right thing in our career or are we just wasting our time lazing around or just doing something which did not benefit us at all for example gambling, drinking, smoking, etc?

It has been proven that if a person keeps his mind busy, he will not only lead a better life but also prolonged his life. Successful people like Mr Lee Kuan Yew or Tun Mahathir Mohammed who are in their 80's, are still in their great health.

Mom once told me that a faithful son sends his mother to play mahjong everyday for the son wanted his mother's mind busy thinking while playing mahjong for this will prolong his mother's life.

2) Self Improvements

Nowadays, there are so many youngsters who love to indulge in gambling, clubbing, taking drugs, etc. They do not realise that they can spend so much valuable time on learning some skills or doing something which interest them which will benefit them later.

There are so many things for someone to learn if one has put in some effort and interest.

Now, I have realised, while waiting for my SPM and STPM result, my parents disagree I work outside to gain some experience. They would rather I go to learn some skill instead. Its very lucky that I listened to my mother that I went to take a typing course. Due to this, I am able to type so much faster than majority of the people.

During these school holidays, I learned my computer skills. Due to having these basic computer skills, I am more advantage than most of my classmates because I am able to surf the net for information and doing my projects by using the computer.

Even I am a grown adult, I am so proud that with this computer skill, it leads me to self study on learning the computer softwares like Words, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. I bought books to learn all these softwares myself.

Most of my friends really envy me for I know how to operate these computer softwares. I am so much at advantage for I know how to use these softwares for my personal usage.

3) Good Financial Management

Everyone wants are unlimited. So it is very important that we must know how to control on our wants. Sometimes, when we have the urge to buy something, it is wise to ask ourselves that are we buying the item out of need or wants?

Of course, we have various crave for wants. However, the financial for everyone is always limited. So, it is good that we should be able to control our wants.

I believe that if one knows how to take care of himself, then he will definately be able to take care of his parents, wife and children. He will lead a successful life.

Females Should Be The Phoenix...

My wife, Joanne, read this interesting article which she found in the China Press to me.

According to the article, before marriage, a lot of females tend to put importance on their appearance in order to attract more males.

But as time gets along, usually after marriage and having a few children, the females will no longer put importance into their appearance.

They will give all kind of excuses saying :
1) The fat due to hormonal changes after few pregnantcies.
2) No time to put on make up due to attending to house chores and children.
3) No longer emphasise on the clothings because want to help the husband to save money.

So, as time gets along, the husband will do well in his career and turns up into a dragon.

Unfortunately, the female is no longer attractive to the husband. As the husband has better income and status, the husband will feel that the wife is lagging far away in terms of attractiveness, social status, etc.

So, this is one of the reason why so many husbands tend to stray.

According to this article, it is very important for the females to be a phoenix before the husband turn into a dragon. This will prevent the husband from straying around.

Something Special Will Always Win The Hearts of People

An inspirational encounter with a rickshaw driver in Mumbai

This article is doing its rounds on email and I thought it was ideal to put it here. This is by Mr. Suvendhu Roy of Titan Industries

Last Sunday, my wife, kid and I had to travel to Andheri from Bandra. When I waved at a passing auto rickshaw little did I expect that this ride would be any different.

As we set off, my eyes fell on a few magazines (kept in an aircraft style pouch) behind the driver’s back rest. I looked in front and there was a small TV. The driver had put on the Doordarshan channel.. My wife and I looked at each other with disbelief and amusement. In front of me was a small first-aid box with cotton, dettol and some medicines. This was enough for me to realise that I was in a special vehicle. Then I looked round again, and discovered more – there was a radio, fire extinguisher, wall clock, calendar, and pictures and symbols of all faiths – from Islam and Christianity to Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. There were also pictures of the heroes of 26/11- Kamte, Salaskar, Karkare and Unnikrishnan.

I realised that not only my vehicle, but also my driver was special. I started chatting with him and the initial sense of ridicule and disbelief gradually diminished. I gathered that he had been driving an auto rickshaw for the past 8-9 years; he had lost his job when his employer’s plastic company was shut down. He had two school-going children, and he drove from 8 in the morning till 10 at night. No break unless he was unwell. “Sahab, ghar mein baith ke TV dekh kar kya faida? Do paisa income karega toh future mein kaam aayega.”

We realised that we had come across a man who represents Mumbai – the spirit of work, the spirit of travel and the spirit of excelling in life. I asked him whether he does anything else as I figured that he did not have too much spare time. He said that he goes to an old age home for women in Andheri once a week or whenever he has some extra income, where he donates toothbrushes, toothpastes, soap, hair oil, and other items of daily use. He pointed out to a painted message below the meter that read: “25 per cent discount on metered fare for the handicapped. Free rides for blind passengers up to Rs50″.

My wife and I were struck with awe. The man was a HERO! A hero who deserves all our respect. Our journey came to an end; 45 minutes of a lesson in humility, selflessness and of a hero-worshipping Mumbai-my temporary home. We disembarked, and all I could do was to pay him a tip that would hardly cover a free ride for a blind man.

I hope, one day, you too have a chance to meet Mr Sandeep Bachhe in his autorickshaw MH-02-Z-8508

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This is something we ought to learn from Mr Sandeep Bachhe.

First of all, no matter which profession we are in, it is very important that we always put in the heart to do and provide something special, be it service or product. From what Mr Sandeep did on to his rickshaw for example by providing magazines, tv, first aid box, fire extinguisher, etc. is really something extraordinaire to be learnt from.

This is what I call it as putting in the heart to do something that is by putting in the brain to be more creative to provide something special.

With a meagre income, Mr Sandeep has to work more than 12 hours a day. He did not complain but yet he has a big heart for providing special prices for the handicapped.

He is striving so hard to live but yet he still manage to donate part of his income for charity. This is something we should learn.

A Strongly Recommended Book To Read : The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

After finishing reading the book, The Secret, I decided to write in the blog about this book. This is also one of the best book which I ever read. So, I decided to write about it.

All the while, I read two books which influenced my life greatly are Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus by John Gray and also The Seven Habits of Successful People by Stephen Covey.

Ms Amanda Lai, Joanne’s boss even asked her employees to read this book. Initially I was quite reluctant to buy this book. But after for a while, I manage to buy the book. This book did not really arouse my interest. So, after buying it, I put it in the book shelf.

Of late, I started the reading habit again. After reading Dale Carnegie’s , I thought I must read The Secret.

While reading through the book, I was so greatly amazed by the content of the book. I started to practise some of the skills thought.

I was so influenced by the book that I thought I should buy the dvd as well. When I went to the bookstore, I got a shocked. The price of the book is RM135.00. Initially, I was quite reluctant to buy it as it is very expensive. But after thinking for a while, I decided to buy the dvd because I believe that the dvd can help me as much as the book.

After watching through the dvd, I found that the content of the dvd is actually the same as the book. But then I found that it is better to read to book for it is easier to understand.

From this book The Secret, I really found a lot of advantages by practising and applying what have been taught from this book.

My financial suddenly getting better and better. I was able to pay all my house and car instalments on time. I have even cleared up all my credit card and closed the credit card account. I found that while taking tour groups I started to earn more money and money comes to me easily as well.

I even started to learn and practice to meditate. I will try to meditate twice a day and for about 10 to 15 minutes a day. I found that my health is getting so much better and I even have better concentration.

As for my health, I will go to the gymnasium whenever I can find the time. Ever since I go to the gym, I have built up my confidence and stamina tremendously.

Even though all the while I was having good relationship with my wife, Joanne and my kids, after reading the book, I found that my relationship with them is even better.

Ever since practising the Secret, I really found lots of fulfilment in my life. I really felt that I am more organised and also do things which I like.

The book by The Secret by Rhonda Byrne has indeed influenced me greatly and I certainly encourage any one to read this book and get the benefits from this book.

While I was reading this book, I keep on reminding myself that I should read this book again and again till I fully understand the contents of the book. Now, I am on my way reading this book for the second time and I am also writing down the important notes from this book.