Helping the Homeless

  The video above is a documentary made by ABC. I haven't seen such an inspiring and heart warming video in quite some while. The documentary is a psychology experiment and the purpose is to find out how people will react when they see a stranger bring a homeless person into the bar and treat him lunch. Some people are offended as they think they are more superior while some Samaritans actually stood up for the homeless person when the bartender (also an actor) gave the homeless person a hard time.

Caring is Sharing

 I am going to go through the 5Ws and 1H of caring today~

   Who to care? Everyone. Family members, friends, helpless people on the street, basically we can care about any human being we come into contact with. There is no limit to the amount of care we should share. We should care about ourselves too.

  Why care? Caring makes the world a better place. What goes around comes around. Everyone in a point of their life would feel down. During those times, we all wanted someone to care for us. The same applies to others.

  When to care? All the time, unless you're sleeping :P

  Where to care? Any place you can think of. Be creative.

  What to care? Emotional feelings - make others happy and be a good listener. Physical - facilitate others so they can be in a well state of mind.

  How to care? From a range of small to big actions. For instance, simply give a stranger a smile. Tell someone they're beautiful. Help someone who forgot to bring an umbrella when it is raining, tag them along your journey so they don't need to get soaked up. Facilitate a kid who is looking for his/her mum. Countless possibilities.

  I would like to end my sharing by a habit of mine's. At the end of the day I will write down 9 things in a journal. 3 wins (things that I am proud of achieving) 3 improvements (areas that I can work on) and 3 good deeds (actions that helped someone in someway). What are your 333s for today? :)

5 apps to thrive

  Nowadays most people have a smart device. We often use them to browse the internet, find tasty restaurants, book movie tickets etc. Do you know they can be used to learn as well? I would love to share 5 apps we can all download in order to make 2013 a fruitful year.

1. SUCCESS magazine

Price: $158 HKD for 12 issues

- Easy to read and carry
- Key ideas and strategies to help you excel in every area of your personal and professional life
- Composed of articles, videos and audio interviews
- Up to date
- Attractive interface (a lot of visuals)

2. HBR tips

Price: Free

- Updated everyday
- Capitalize this app by loading it on our spare time (queuing for bus/ using the washroom etc)
- Spend 3-5 minutes everyday to learn something new

3. Stumbleupon

Price: Free

- This app will randomly show you popular sites on the subjects that you are interested in
- Not only for business
- Categories you can choose from include: computers, arts/history, regional, commerce, hobbies, music/movies, home/living, health, media, society, sports, outdoors, religion, sci/tech
- In each category there will be sub-categories
- You might stumble upon some mind blowing sites
- If you don't like the site generated, you can quickly stumble to the next one

4. Business secrets

Price: $23 HKD

- There is an app called Mindtools that is similar to this app which is free
- But hands down this app is much more superior
- Superior on its design and also scope of knowledge
- This app covers topics from NLP to dealing with difficult person
- For each category, we can choose to learn new things in 4 different ways
- Secrets, case studies, insights, quotes and 1 min wonders
- A knowledge meter is at the bottom of the screen to indicate the level of our knowledge

5. Gorilla workout

Price: $8 HKD

- Having a healthy body is extremely important
- 4 different difficulties to choose from
- 175 different fun workouts
- Videos to teach us how to complete the exercises are included
- Don't need excercise equipments
- Fun exercises include "pistols", "supermans", "tuck jumps" etc

  I would update the list if I find more apps that are value for money. If you have apps that you highly recommend, please feel free to share as well.

Soccer and success

  Today's weather is fabulous. Along with some friends I went to play soccer. During intermission, I thought to myself, how cool would it be to write a blog on how soccer could be related to success. Let me give it a try.

1. Like soccer, if you want to succeed, you need goals

  In anything you do, it is very important that you have goals. Short-term, mid-term and long-term goals are crucial. The reason we need goals is that we have to know where we are going. Can you imagine if suddenly two of the goals disappeared on the football pitch? All athletes will not know what to do and the game will be over as there is no way to determine who will win the match. Therefore setting smart goals can help us to achieve our dreams.

 2. Know your position

  In soccer, there are many different positions - goalie, defenders, midfielders, strikers, managers and cheerleaders etc. There is not a single player that can excel in everyone of these roles. This shows us that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. In order to shine, one should be able to determine what position suits himself/herself best. According to the Pareto principle, everyday 20% of your action determines 80% of your results. By focusing on your strengths, you can achieve more. Things that you are weak at, try delegating them to others. This will save you time and energy. A great example will be in a soccer game, defenders will focus on defending their goal, from time to time they might attack and score a goal, but most of the time they will leave this to the strikers as that is their caliber.


3. Shoot as much as you can

 When will a striker stop shooting the ball in a match? Never! Why? The reason is that if the striker stops shooting, there will be no more goals for his team, which might lead to a comeback or a draw. No matter what you do, one should not be complacent and get satisfied with his/her achievement. If you managed to close a deal, complete a project etc, fantastic, go for the next one. One shall not stop once they get a brief taste of victory. Instead, we should ride on the success wagon. Success is all about momentum and when you are winning, keep doing the right things that will ensure that you can keep on winning and winning and winning and winning :)

Build your foundation right

  Recently I read an article on the internet that talked about 5 fun facts about Dubai. It mentioned its constant increasing population, the existence of an indoor ski resort, there is no street addresses in Dubai and like in Hong Kong, people are not required to pay tax. Out of the 5 fun facts, 1  fun fact particularly caught my eye. Fun fact no.5 - It has the tallest building in the world! What an astonishing accomplishment.


 

  The name of the building is Burj Khalifa. The building is in its own league and I am not crediting its uniqueness only to its height (829 meters tall). Some of Burj Khalifa's outstanding achievements include:

- World's tallest and fastest elevator
- World's highest nightclub (144th floor) and restaurant (122nd floor)
- Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was shot there
- Won Middle East Architect Awards 2010, CTBUH Awards and awards by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat

  The list can go on and on. We just have to write "Highest (insert here)" and 9/10 it would apply. Despite the glamorous appearance. Today I would like to investigate and share what is beneath the building. Have you ever wondered what is beneath this remarkable complex?




  To our amazement, It actually took over two years to just build the foundation, which included placing large rocks in a honeycomb pattern and setting deep foundation (50 meters) using hundreds of 130 foot foundation piles

  This proves a point that it is important for us to build a deep foundation for ourselves. This world class building took 5 years to complete and 2 years were used to build the foundation. The importance of a good foundation is that it gives support to the building and makes sure that it can stand tall. The same would apply to us. If we want to succeed in life, we shall have a strong foundation to support us. This ensures that we will have what it takes to win. Below are some suggestions on how we can build a strong foundation:

- equipping ourselves with new knowledge frequently
- from time to time review on our current situation
- hitting our goals and setting new goals
- get along with the best people in the field you want to succeed in
- getting the right attitude

  Visiting Dubai is one of my goals. Looking forward to build a strong foundation alongside with everyone in order to one day travel to Dubai and take a picture with the tallest building in the world!