Favourite Motivational Quotes and Books

57 Famous Alibis by Old Man IF

2012-02-01T05:41:00.000-08:00

57 Famous Alibis by Old Man IF
- Extract from "Think and Grow Rich" by Napolean Hill

IF I didn't have a wife and a family ...
IF I had enough "pull" ...
IF I had money ...
IF I had a good education ...
IF I could get a job ...
IF I had good health ...
IF I only had time ...
IF times were better ...
IF other people understood me ...
IF conditions around me were only different ...
IF I could live my life over again ...
IF I did not fear what "THEY" would say ...
IF I had been given a chance ...
IF I now had a chance ...
IF other people didn't "have it in for me" ...
IF nothing happens to stop me ...
IF I were only younger ...
IF I could only do what I want ...
IF I had been born rich ...
IF I could meet "the right people" ...
IF I had the talent that some people have ...
IF I dared assert myself ...
IF I only had embraced past opportunities ...
IF people didn't get on my nerves ...
IF I didn't have to keep house and look after the children ...
IF I could save some money ...
IF the boss only appreciated me ...
IF I only had somebody to help me ...
IF my family understood me ...
IF I lived in a big city ...
IF I could just get started ...
IF I were only free ...
IF I had the personality of some people ...
IF I were not so fat ...
IF my talents were known ...
IF I could just get a "break" ...
IF I could only get out of debt ...
IF I hadn't failed ...
IF I only knew how ...
IF everybody didn't oppose me ...
IF I didn't have so many worries ...
IF I could marry the right person ...
IF people weren't so dumb ...
IF my family were not so extravagant ...
IF I were sure of myself ...
IF luck were not against me ...
IF I had not been born under the wrong star ...
IF it were not true that "what is to be will be" ...
IF I did not have to work so hard ...
IF I hadn't lost my money ...
IF I lived in a different neighborhood ...
IF I didn't have a "past" ...
IF I only had a business of my own ...
IF other people would only listen to me ...
IF I had the courage to see myself as I really am, I would find out what is wrong with me, and correct it, then I might have a chance to profit by my mistakes and learn something from the experience of others, for I know that there is something WRONG with me, or I would now be where I WOULD HAVE BEEN IF I had spent more time analyzing my weaknesses, and less time building alibis to cover them.

The Welch Way - 24 Lessons from the World's Greatest CEO

2012-01-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

"The Welch Way - 24 Lessons from the World's Greatest CEO"
by Jeffrey A. Krames

1. Lead
"What we are looking for... are leaders at every level who can energize, excite and inspire rather than enervate, depress, and control"

2. Get less formal
"You must realize how important it is to maintain the kind of corporate informality that encourages a... training class to comfortably challenge the boss' pet ideas."

3. Blow up bureaucracy
"The way to harness the power of these people is not to protect them... but to turn them loose, and get the management layers off their backs, the bureaucratic shackles off their feet and the functional barriers out of their way."

4. Face reality
"How do you bring people into the change process? Start with reality... When everybody gets the same facts, they'll generally come to the same conclusion."

5. Simplify
"You can't believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple... Clear tough0minded people are the most simple."

6. See Change as an Opportunity
"The game is going to change, and change drastically."

7. Lead by energizing others
"We now know where productivity - real and limitless productivity - comes from. It comes from challenged, empowered, excited, rewarded teams of people."

8. Defy tradition
"Shun the incremental and go for the leap."

9. Make intellect rule
"... the desire, and the ability, of an organization to continously learn from any source, anywhere - and to rapidly convert this learning into action - is its ultimate competitive advantage."

10. Pounce every day
"Don't sit still. Anybody sitting still, you can guarantee they're going to get their legs knocked out from under them."

11. Put values first
"Early in my career... there was way too much focus on the numbers... and a lot less on the softer values of building a team, sharing ideas, exciting others."

12. Manage less
"You can't mange self-confidence into people."

13. Involve everyone
"Business is "all about capturing intellect from every person... the more people you can capture it from, the better the intellect."

14. Rewrite your agenda
"We want to be a company that is constantly rewriting itself, shedding the past, adapting to change."

15. Live speed
"Speed is everything. It is the indispensable ingredient in competitiveness."

16. Instill confidence
"Just as surely as speed flows from simplicity, simplicity is grounded in self-confidence."

17. Set stretch goals
"... self-confident people know that it is the quality of their effort toward achieving the "impossible" that is the ultimate measure."

18. Eliminate boundaries
"Boundaryless behavior evaluates ideas based on their merit, not on the rank of the person who came up with them."

19. Articulate a vision
"Leaders - and you take anyone from Roosevelt to Churchill to Reagan - inspire people with clear versions of how things cam be done better."

20. Get good ideas from everywhere
"It is a badge of honor to learn something here, no matter where it comes from."

21. Spark other to perform
"Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do."

22. Quality is your job
"Six Sigma is the most important training thing we've ever had. It's better than going to Harvard Business School."

23. Change never ends
"The wisdom may lie in changing the institution while it is still winning - reinvogarating a business, in fact, while it's making more money than anyone ever dreamed it could make."

24. Have Fun
"Leading a big company... means never allowing a company to take itself too seriously, and reminding itself constantly... that yesterday's press clippings often wrap today's fish."

Good Quote (2)

2012-01-10T07:12:00.000-08:00

凡事由其自然
遇了處之泰然
得意之時淡然
失意之時坦然
艱辛曲折必然
歷盡滄桑悟然

Business Cycles by Lars Tvede

2011-12-30T21:42:00.000-08:00

"Business Cycles" by Lars Tvede

Extract figure of "Equity market behavior over business cycles"

Henry Ford Quotes

2011-12-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

1. Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eight. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

2. As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.

3. Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

4. Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

5. If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.

6. Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our maching onward.

7. Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.

8. Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

9. Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

10. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

Winston Churchill Quotes

2011-12-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

1. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

2. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

3. Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

4. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

5. Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

6. However beauty the strategy, you should occassionally look at the results.

7. I never worry about action, but only inaction.

8. If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

9. Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.

10. Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

11. Never, never, never give up.

12. One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

13. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

14. Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.

15. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Steve Jobs (2)

2011-11-22T00:53:00.001-08:00

Extract from "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson
- Steve's thoughts about what he hoped his legacy would be

"My passion has been to build an enduring company where people were motivated to make great products. Everything else was secondary. Sure, it was great to make a profit, because that was what allowed you to make great products. But the products, not the profits, were the motivation. Sculley flipped these priorities to where the goal was to make money. It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything: the people you hire, who gets promoted, what you discuss in meetings.

Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, "A faster horse"" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.

Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple reasonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar, in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the original Mac were poets and musicians on the side. In the seventies computers became a way for people to express their creativity. Great artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo were also great at science. Michelangelo knew a lot about how to quarry stone, not just how to be a sculptor.

People pay us to integrate things for them, becuase they don't have the time to think about this stuff 24/7. If you have an extreme passion for producing great products, it pushes you to be integrated, to connect your hardware and your software and content management. You want to break new ground, so you have to do it yourself. If you want to allow your products to be open to other hardware or software, you have to give up some of your vision.

At different times in the past, there were companies that exemplified Silicon Valley. It was Hewlett-Packard for a long time. Then, in the semiconductor era, it was Fairchild and Intel. I think that it was Apple for a while, and then that faded. And then today, I think it's Apple and Google - and a little more so Apple. I think Apple has stood the test of time. It's been around for a while, but it's still at the cutting edge of what's going on.

It's easy to throw stones at Microsoft. They've clearly fallen from their dominance. They've become mostly irrelevant. And yet I appreciate what they did and how hard it was. They were very good at the business side of things. They were never as ambitious product-wise as they should have been. Bill likes to portray himself as a man of the product, but he's really not. He's a businessperson. Winning business was more important than making great products. He ended up the wealthiest guy around, and if that was his goal, then he achieved it. But it's never been my goal, and I wonder, in the end, if it was his goal. I admire him for the company he built - it's impressive - and I enjoyed working with him. He's bright and actually has a good sense of humor. But Microsoft never had the humanities and liberal arts in its DNA. Even when they saw the Mac, they couldn't copy it well. They totally didn't get it.
I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they're the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and desingers. So the salespeople end up running the company. John Akers at IBM was a smart, eloquent, fantastic salesperson, but he didn't know anything about product. The same thing happened at Xerox. When the sales guys run the company, the product guys don't matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off. It happened at Apple when Sculley came in, which was my fault, and it happened when Ballmer took over at Microsoft. Apple was lucky and it rebounded, but I don't think anything will change at Microsoft as long as Ballmer is running it.

I hate it when people call themselves "entrepreneurs" when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They're unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real work in business. That's how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will stand for something a generation or two from now. That's what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel. They created a company to last, not just to make money. That's what I want Apple to be."

Steve Jobs (1)

2011-11-13T05:59:00.000-08:00

Extract from "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson
- Note to his wife for their 20th anniversary

"We didn't know much about each other twenty years ago. We were guided by our intuition; you swept me off my feet. It was snowing when we got married at the Ahwahnee. Years passed, kids came, good times, hard times, but never bad times. Our love and respect has endured and grown. We've been through so much together and here we are right back where we started 20 years ago - older, wiser - with wrinkles on our faces and hearts. We now know many of life's joys, sufferings, secrets and wonders and we're still here together. My feet have never returned to the ground."

Who Moved My Cheese?

2011-10-26T05:27:00.000-07:00

"Who Moved My Cheese?" by Dr. Spencer Johnson

1. Change Happens - They keep moving the Cheese

2. Anticipate Change - Get ready for the Cheese to move

3. Monitor Change - Smell the Cheese often so you know when it is getting old

4. Adapt to Change Quickly - The quicker you let go of Old Cheese, the sooner you can enjoy New Cheese

5. Change - Move with the Cheese

6. Enjoy Change - Savor the adventure and enjoy the taste of New Cheese

7. BE READY TO CHANGE QUICKLY AND ENJOY IT AGAIN & AGAIN

Commencement Address by Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T03:40:00.000-07:00

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Standford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at that time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cents deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And most of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really don't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had left the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has every escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

M型窮人的PRADA

2011-09-18T00:02:00.000-07:00

M型窮人的PRADA - M型時代白手致富的33堂必修課

作者：瑞奇曼

你對錢的態度，決定你的財富有多少
富人靠獨家創意賺大錢，窮人靠體力賺小錢
M型社會𥚃，蘋果不一定是蘋果
富人和窮人的PRADA永遠差一個字
你要當火車還是變形金剛？
破產是暫時的，貧窮是永久的
卡內基和猶太人的M型選擇權
你要用多少錢買PRADA的名牌包？
M型窮人才會拿破桶子去撈水
破產兩次的“川普第二”
爛蘋果也可以變成金蘋果
董事長總經理製造機
對M型富人來說，不景氣是一張考券
M型富人的文憑，只是裝飾用的
為什麼紅綠燈只能用紅色和綠色？
M型富人要的是財富，只有笨蛋才要鈔票
窮教援也可以變成暢銷作家
實習生變成董事長
奶油桶裡的“M型富老鼠"
五星級品質＋窮人價格＝ M型市場
大方＋小費，才能買到人心
M型富人眼中只有人脈，沒有好人壞人
不景氣，是你的財務導師
M型富人不怕出身貧賤
不完美，才符合M型富人的機會成本
把魚網撒在有魚的地方
當濫好人或聖人，都是賠本生意
巴菲特在大海，我們還在池塘？
窮人視求人為罪惡，富人則視合作為契機
M型富人靠資本致富，不是靠樂透
雜貨店老闆的抓錢哲學
你的人緣指數和你的財富成正比
M型富人絕不會為了舌頭，和鈔票做對

Poet from "Think and Grow Rich"

2011-08-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't,
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will -
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!

Good Quote

2011-08-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

"你不能預知明天, 但你可以善用今天;
你不能改變容貌, 但你可展現笑容;
你不能左右天氣, 但你可以轉變心情;
你不能操縱別人, 但你可以掌握自己;
你不能樣樣順利, 但你可以事事盡力;
你不能決定生命的長短, 但你可以擴闊它的寬度."

Failure Quotes

2011-07-19T02:00:00.000-07:00

He who fails to plan, plan to fail.

Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.

There are no failures - just experiences and your reactions to them.

Success builds character, failure reveals it.

Life's real failure is when you do not realize how close you were to success when you gave up.

There are no secrets of success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

The only real failure in life is the failure to try.

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Failure is the tuition you pay for success.

"The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman

2011-06-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

Love Language 1: Words of Affirmation

This language uses words to affirm the other person. "Thanks for taking out the garbage. You are the greatest." "You look nice in the outfit." "Your smile is contagious. Did you see the way everyone seemed to brighten up when you came into the room?" All of these are words of affirmation. Yours words may focus on the other person's personality or the way they look or something they have done for you or for others. To speak this language, you look for things you admire or appreciate about the person and you verbally express your admiration.

If a person's primary love language is words of affirmation, nothing will speak more deeply of your love than words of affirmation.

Love Language 2: Acts of Service

For these people, actions speak louder than words. If you speak words of affirmation to this person such as "I admire you, I love you", they will likely think and perhaps say, "If you love me, why don't you do something to help me around the house?"

If acts of service is their primary love language, then washing the car, mowing the grass, helping around the house, and changing the baby's diaper is precisely what makes them feel loved. The key to loving this person is to find out what things they would like for you to do. Then do them consistently.

Love Language 3: Receiving Gifts

For some people, what makes them feel most loved is to receive a gift. The best gifts are those that you know will be appreciated. To give her a fishing rod when she doesn't enjoy fishing will probably not communicate your love very well. How do you find out what the other person would like to receive? You ask questions and you make observations. You observe the comments they make when they receive gifts from other family members. Listen carefully and you will discover the kind of gifts they appreciate most. Also listen to the comments they make when they are looking through a shopping catalog.

A rose, a candy bar, a card, a book - any of these can communicate love deeply to the person whose love language is receiving gifts.

Love Language 4: Quality Time

Quality time is giving the other person your undivided attention. It is not sitting in the same room watching television. It is being in the same room with the TV off, the magazine on the table, looking at each other, talking and listening. It may also be taking a walk together so long as your purpose is to be with each other, not simply to get exercise. Couples who go to a restaurant and never talk to each other have not spoken the language of quality time. They have simply met their physical need for food. Quality time says, "I'm doing this because I want to be with you." Whether you are planting a garden together or going on a camping trip, the ultimate purpose is to spend time with each other. For some people, nothing makes them feel more loved than quality time.

Love Language 5: Physical Touch

Research indicates that babies who are touched and cuddled fare better emotionally than babies who spend long periods of time without physical touch. Every culture has appropriate and inappropriate touches between members of the opposite of sex. Appropriate touch is loving. Inappropriate touch is demeaning. To the person whose primary love language is physical touch, nothing speaks more deeply than appropriate touch.

"Think and Grow Rich" by Napolean Hill

2011-06-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

13 Steps towards Riches

1. Desire

2. Faith

3. Auto-suggestion

4. Specialized Knowledge

5. Imagination

6. Organized Planning

7. Decision

8. Persistence

9. Power of Master Mind

10. The Mastery of Sex Transmutation

11. The Subconscious Mind

12. The Brain

13. The Sixth Sense

"Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married" by Gary Chapman

2011-06-18T19:45:00.001-07:00

I Wish I Had Known...

1. That being in love is not an adequate foundation for building a successful marriage

2. That romantic love has 2 stages

Stage 1 - Being in love. In this stage, the couple doesn't have to work on the relationship. Research indicates that the average life span of the "in love" obsession is 2 years.

Stage 2 - When we come down off the emotional high, our differences begin to emerge and we often find ourselves arguing with the person whom we once thought to be perfect. Couples need to learn how to express love effectively by understanding the primary Love Language of you and your partner.

3. That the saying "Like mother, like daughter" and "Like father, like son" is not a myth

We are far more like our parents than we realize. Couples are encouraged to have enough exposure to each other's parents to get to known their personalities, communication patterns, values and especially how they relate to each other. If you observe things that trouble you, then discuss thoroughly with your dating partner.

4. How to solve disagreements without arguing

5. That apologizing is a sign of strength

6. That forgiveness is not a feeling

7. That toilets are not self-cleaning

8. That we needed a plan for handling our money

9. That mutual sexual fulfillment is not automatic

10. That I was marrying into a family

11. That spirituality is not to be equated with "going to church"

12. That personality profoundly influences behavior

Confusion Quotes (English & Chinese versions)

2011-05-19T00:54:00.000-07:00

1. 性相近也, 習相遠也
By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.

2. 過而不改, 是謂過矣
Not to mend the fault one has made is to err indeed.

3. 己所不欲, 勿施於人
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

4. 言必信, 行必果
Keep what you say and carry out what you do.

5. 君子以文會友, 以友輔仁
The superior man on grounds of culture meets with his friends, and by their friendship helps his virtue.

6. 三軍可奪師也, 匹夫不可奪志也
The commander of the forces of a large State may be carried off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from him.

7. 後生可畏, 焉佑來者之不如今也?
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?

8. 有朋自遠方來, 不亦樂乎?
Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?

9. 人不知而不愠, 不亦君子乎?
Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?

10. 人無遠慮, 必有近憂
If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.

11. 非禮勿視, 非禮勿聽, 非禮勿言, 非禮勿動
Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.

Rich Dad Poor Dad

2011-05-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

"Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki

The author had two dads. One was highly educated (Poor Dad) and the other had never finished the Eighth Grade (Rich Dad). Both dads had conflicting views on money.

1. Rich people don't work for money

2. Learn financial literacy
If you want to be rich, you need to develop financial literacy. An asset earns you money and a liability burns your money. One example of liability is a car, it loses 25% of its value the day you drive it off the lot. In addition, you have many other expenses such as loan repayments, insurance, registration, running and maintenance costs.

Learn the difference between asset and liability and think how to create income generating assets.

3. Mind your own business
Along with your day job, start some business side by side.

4. Taxes
The way rich people protect themselves from heavy taxes is by corporations.

5. The rich invent money
Learn how to manage risk. An investment is not risky. Not knowing how to manage an investment is risky.

6. Work to learn - not for money

7. Action plan for getting started
These are the steps to awaken your financial genius:
a. You need a big dream.
b. Use the power of choice. You could sit at home and watch TV all day or you could take a course of financial planning. The choice is yours.
c. Choose your friends carefully.
d. Keep learning.
e. Pay yourself first - spend money on assets before you do anything else with your pay cheque.

Why Mars and Venus Collide?

2011-04-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

"Why Mars and Venus Collide?" by John Gray

Our greatest challenge today is that men and women cope with stress differently.
Men tend to work best on projects rather than in routines.
A man loses interest when he senses that he can't continue to meet a woman's expectations.
Men’s need for space to be alone, and woman’s need for more time to be together are rooted in our biological makeup. l Men need to feel needed, and women need to feel they are not alone.
Real love does not demand perfection but actually embraces imperfection.
A woman’s greatest challenge is to begin caring for herself as much as she is caring for others.
A man’s brain is single-focused, while a woman’s brain tends to multitask.
Leaving a man alone and ignoring him is sometimes the best way to support him.
While women tend to reach out to take in more information, under stress men tend to focus on determining the most important thing to do.
Success or the anticipation of success in a relationship fuels the rise of a man’s testosterone and sustains his interest in her.
Appreciating and accepting what he does, or forgiving him for what he neglects to do, is the most supportive way a woman can treat a man.
Depressed men have low testosterone levels.
Shifting from one problem to an easier problem to solve can help rebuild a man’s testosterone levels.
When a man’s workday is over, a switch turns off in his brain, and he shifts to a passive, relaxed mode.
Oxytocin, the feel-good hormone from Venus, is the love and bonding hormone.
Oxytocin decreases when a woman feels alone, ignored, unsupported, or that she does not matter.
Trust and the anticipation of getting needs met is a potent oxytocin producer.
A woman thinks her to-do list is causing her stress, but her low oxytocin levels are to blame.
Easy victories motivate a man to do more.
When a man can do little things and get a big response, he gets the energy and the drive to do more.
When a woman is not getting wha she needs, she feels an urge to give more.
Whatever makes a man feel successful will grab his attention and give him energy.
Men love to solve problems but when their efforts are misdirected and go unappreciated, they lose interest over time.
A man looks for someone he can be successful in loving.
Men can fulfill only a small portion of the support woman need for oxytocin production.
When a woman is already almost full, a man is highly motivated to bring her to the top.
When doing little things for her makes a difference, a man does more little things.
On Venus, every gift of love scores equal to every other gift of love, no matter how big or small.
Talking without solving any problems can create a profound change.
Just as women recovering from stress have difficulty taking time for themselves, men under stress have difficulty being there for others.
When he has one clear thing to do, without a lot of decisions to make that involve his partner, a man is energized.
Men need to avoid correcting a woman’s feelings, and women need to avoid making disapproving comments about a man’s thoughts and actions.
It makes it much easier to talk without blaming when we remember that we speak different languages.
Knowing when to hold your tongue is more powerful than saying the right things.
Learning to say we are sorry is one of the most important relationship skills.
90/10 solution à by taking 90 percent responsibility for their own happiness and only expecting 10% from men, woman can set up themselves and their partners for much greater success in the relationship
A better way to nurture a man is to give him lots of space to do things the way he wants to do them. Rather than look for ways to change and improve him, look for things that he does right and appreciate him.
To experience the excitement of coming together, you must spend time apart.

If Love Is a Game, These Are the Rules

2011-04-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

"If Love Is a Game, These Are the Rules" by Dr. Cherrie Carter-Scott

The Ten Simple Rules:

You must love yourself first. It is a prerequisite to creating a successful and authentic union with another.
Partnering is a choice - the choice to be in a relationship is up to you. You have the ability to attract your beloved and cause the relationship you desire to happen.
Creating love is a process. Moving from I to we requires a shift in perspective and energy. Being an authentic couple is an evolution.
Relationships provide an opportunity to grow. They serve as an unofficial life stop in which you will learn about yourself and how you can grow on your personal path.
Communication is essential - it is the lifeblood of the relationship.
Negotiation will be required - there are times when you and your partner must work through impasses. If you do this consciously and with respect you will learn to create win-win outcomes.
Your relationship will be challenged by change. Life presents turns in the road. How you maneuver those twists and turns determines the success of your relationships.
You must nurture the relationship for it to thrive. If you give it your time, attention and effort, it will continue to grow with each passing day.
Renewal is the key to longevity. Happily every after means the ability to keep the relationship fresh and vital.
You will forget all this when you fall in love. We know these rules inherently. The challenge is to remember them when you fall in love.

Dale Carnegie Quotes

2011-04-12T23:25:00.000-07:00

Quotes from Dale Carnegie

1. "Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to success."

2. "The successful man will profit from his mistakes and try again in a different way."

3. "Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."

4. "Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn't you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn't most of them turn out all right after all?"

5. "Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress our birds and horses."

6. "You never achieve real success unless you like what you are doing."

7. "An old man was asked what had robbed him of joy in his life. His reply was, "Things that never happened."

8. "Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves."

Napolean Hill Quotes

2011-04-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

Quotes from Napolean Hill

1. "A goal is a dream with a deadline."

2. "Whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

3. "Every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit."

4. "Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."

5. "Strong, deeply rooted desire is the starting point of all achievement."

6. "Do not wait; the time will never be "just right". Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along."

7. "All achievement, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea."

8. "Any idea, plan or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought."

Randy Pausch Quotes

2011-04-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

Quotes from Randy Pausch

1. "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."

2. "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand."

3. "The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."

4. "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity."

5. "Be good at something. It makes you valuable. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome."

6. "Do not tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories. And they will figure out how those stories apply to them."

7. "You can always change your plan, but only if you have one."

8. "It's important to have specific dreams. Dream Big. Dream without fear."

9. "A lot of people want a shortcut. I find the best shortcut is the long way, which is basically two words: work hard."

10. "It's not how hard you hit. It's how hard you get hit... and keep moving forward."

11. "Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I've always believed that if you took one tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out."

The Tipping Point - How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference

2011-04-11T00:18:00.001-07:00

"The Tipping Point - How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference"
by Malcom Gladwell

Three Major Components of Tipping Point
a) Law of the Few
b) Stickiness Factor
c) Power of Context
Law of the Few
There are exceptional people out there who are capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is to find them. There people can be categorized into:
1. Connectors (People Specialists) - persons who know lots of people
2. Maven (Information Specialists) - persons who accumulate knowledge
3. Salesmen

Stickiness Factor
E.g. 1) Creators of Sesame Street just add Blue Bird and he made all the difference in the world.
E.g. 2) Didn't redouble his efforts to terrify his students into getting a tetanus shot, he just threw a map and a set of appointment times.

Lesson of Stickiness -> There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstance, can make it irrestible -> all you have to do is find it. ->
Ideas must be memorable and move us into action.

Power of Context
1. Broken Window Theory -> Crime is the inevitable result of disorder. If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes. In a city, relative minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, aggressive panhandling, are equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crime.

2. Win the battle against graffiti Graffiti was the symbolic of the collapse of the subway system.

3. Crack down fare-beating, which is a signal that invited much more serious crime.

4. Rule of 150
e.g. Gore Associates
-> An organized mechanism that makes it far easier for new ideas and information moving around the organization to tip -> to go from one person / one part of the group to the entire group all at once -> You can exploit the bonds of memory and peer pressure

5. Paradox of the Epidemic In order to create one contagious movement, you often have to create many small movements first.

6. We are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context and the personalities of those around us.