How to optimize your product photos for e-commerce websites
Jan 24
Lessons Learned From 15 Days of the Lucid Dreaming trial
So what’s happened half-way through my 30 days lucid dreaming trial?
Have I managed to lucid dream? Not yet, but I very nearly managed to twice. The first time I was dreaming, then consciously remembered I needed to wake up for work and then woke up.
The second time I dreamed someone was holding a baby crocodile close to my friend’s face (I know, it doesn’t make sense but hey, that’s dreaming for you), I was so agitated I started willing myself to push his hand away. I could feel the will and emotion to move welling up stronger and stronger – which caused me to wake up.
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Jan 10
What Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Said On Courage & Death
In 2004, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer, was diagnosed with pancreas cancer. The doctor told him it was almost certainly incurable and told him he no more than 3 to 6 months to live.
What would you do if you were told today you had less than 3 to 6 months to live?
The reality of death, limited time and chances is a very real one we have to face every single day. We tend to forget, and bask in the glow of our comfort zones, letting each day go by and conveniently forget that one day, this too shall pass.
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Jan 9
How To Make All Your Dreams Real
Yes it’s true. I know how to make all your dreams real…but there’s a catch 😉
Back in November I shared the 9 Rules To Get Out Of Plateaus in which I realized why I was stuck in one and how to get out of it.
One of the 9 rules was to constantly improve, and I had to ask myself: in what do I want to improve myself and how?
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Jan 7
Start Your New Year In The Best Direction
I know, I’m 7 days late. Remember that rough patch I was telling you about? I’m still roughing it out, but I’m feeling better and better as time goes by. Some of you already know – I broke up with my girlfriend. Maybe one day I’ll share the lessons I learnt from that, but not yet.
Today, we kick-start your new year in the best direction forward – because it’s never too late to start a new year 😀 And I won’t be doing it alone, I’m bringing along luminaries like Steve Pavlina, Christine Kane, Senia and Tony Robbins to help you along.
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Dec 28
The Monk Talks: How Understanding Death Teaches Us To Care
(Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraordinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammar tweaking is mine 😉 Enjoy!)
The death of a friend or of a loved one changes our life forever. Even the deaths of those we don’t know, such as the thousands who died in the Tsunami at the end of last year, alters the way we think. Death is a fact of life and, when understood, teaches us how to care.
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Dec 21
What Would A Modern-Day Magician Say About God?
As a student of the esoteric science, specifically the western mysteries, I come across interesting questions from close friends regarding what I do and what I believe in.
One of the most recent questions posed to me was an age-old popular one: do I believe in God and is there a ˜divine plan™? It™s a loaded question that requires some clarification instead of a œyes or œno answer. (more…)
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Dec 18
Why Go On When Life Is Meaningless?
I was re-watching The Matrix Revolutions the other day during a nice little party with my friends.
We were just finishing the chicken wings when we got to this scene near the end of the movie (spoiler alert if you haven’t already seen it!). I loved it because it highlights the key to the question; why go on if you feel life is meaningless?
Read MoreAgent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson, why? Why, why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting?
Dec 14
The Monk Talks: How To Have A Harmonious Marriage
(Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraordinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammar tweaking is mine 😉 Enjoy!)
It is said that there are three rings to a marriage: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffer-ring!
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Dec 11
Igniting The Fire Within
How do you lead a life of fulfillment instead of disappointment?
By focusing on your human needs. Not human wants, like a brand new iPod, but human needs, and here is a method that helps you live a life of fulfillment and ignite the fire within.
Here Is A Powerful Method To Direct The Time Of Your Life
A time-tested way to manage the time of our lives is to compartmentalize the different areas of our lives into easy-to-manage, bite-sized pieces. You can think about these areas like career, family, health, finance, studies, relationships, the list is endless. (more…)
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Dec 8
The Monk Talks: What Would Buddha Do When Bored?
(Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraodinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammer tweaking is mine 😉 Enjoy!)
If you find one thing boring,
You’ll find everything boring.
Dogen, ‘Guidelines for Studying the Way’
Boredom lies in our character, not in the world. “If you’re bored,†I’ve heard it said “you’re boring”. Think about this. (more…)
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Dec 5
The Monk Talks: What Would Buddha Do When A Loved One Dies?
(Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraordinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammar tweaking is mine 😉 Enjoy!)
What Would Buddha Do When A Loved One Dies?
Read MoreNot through weeping and grief do we obtain peace of mind. We increase misery; we increase misery; we harm our bodies. We become thin and pale, destroying ourselves by our own power:
Sutta Nipata 584
Nov 27
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also
This is weird. I went to a friend’s beautiful wedding last Saturday, and first heard the proverb “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mathew 6:21)
On Friday night, I saw it in big bold letters on the building across from the seat I’d randomly managed to secure in the food-court, plastered in shining letters as part of Christmas decorations (CK Tangs, for those of you in Singapore. You can’t miss it on the front of the building).
Now, just reading through my RSS feed, I saw it mentioned in the comments of The Happiness Project’s post on a major epiphany about the nature of happiness.
Maybe there’s a message in all of this.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.“
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Nov 23
Lessons from the Road: Are You Rich or Poor in Spirit?
I was walking through the forests near Chiang Dao Nest, breathing in the fresh air and enjoying being in the moment.
As I was looking at the sun shining through the treetops, something Paul McKenna wrote in his book I Can Make You Rich sprang to my mind (more…)
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Nov 22
The Monk Talks: What Would Buddha Do If Someone Hated Him?
Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraordinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3-month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email sharing the conversations he’s had with his teacher. The words are his, the grammar tweaking is mine 😉 Enjoy!)
What would Buddha do if someone hated him?
Read MoreNot by hate is hate defeated;
Hate is quenched by love.
This is the eternal law.Dhammapada 5
Nov 17
Pay Yourself First
If you won a million dollars today, would you spend it all immediately buying loads of stuff so that by this time tomorrow, it’d be all gone?
I’d bet you wouldn’t, but that’s what a lot of people are doing; not with the money they win, but the money they make. (more…)
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Oct 20
How To Deal With Someone’s Anger
(Alvin’s Note: Our dear fellow Life Coach, and passionate personal development extraordinaire, Paiboon Busayarak, has embarked on a 3 month initiation into Buddhist monkhood in his native Thailand. He just sent me this post via email to share the insights he’s gleaming from this unique experience. The words are his, the grammar tweaking is mine 😉 Enjoy!)
Other people will sometimes get angry with you, even your loved ones. It happens to all of us. Some people even got angry with the Buddha!
So what can you do when you are on the receiving end of someone else’s anger? The answer can be found in the following story: (more…)
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Oct 19
What Are You Grateful For Today?
After watching The Pianist, the true story of how Vladislav Spelman survived the Holocaust as a Jew living in occupied Poland, I wasn’t only struck by the horrors he endured, but also by how privileged I was living my own life.
One of the most effective ways to stop worrying and boost your personal power is to simply focus on what you can, right now, with what you have.
Another way is to acknowledge what you already have in your life right now that you’re grateful for. The little things that you take for granted in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, that already make your life sparkle if you’d only see them with renewed eyes.
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Oct 4
What To Do When You Make Mistakes
Taking a leaf from Senia’s wonderful quotes posts, and because I seem to have made a few this past week (ouch!), here’s what greatness has had to say about what to do when you make mistakes.
Cicero:
We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.
George Bernard Shaw:
Read MoreA life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Oct 2
Who Binds You?
This Zen parable is for someone for whom I’ve been talking for a while.
A man once went to a Zen master and asked; ‘Master, I must seek liberation.’
The teacher asked, ‘Who binds you?’
The student answered; ‘I do not know. Perhaps I bind myself.’
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Aug 15
9 Steps to Transform Stress into Strength
If you’ve noticed I didn’t write much the previous week, it’s because work has been crazy and I’ve been under a lot of stress.
I’m sure you’ve been there too, haven’t you?
So how do we thrive in the midst of stress? How do we transform stress into strength so that when the going gets tough, the tough get going?
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Aug 7
NLP 101: 10 Plus 3 Beliefs That Create Wild Success
What is the Structure of Magic?
In the 1970s, Richard Bandler and John Grinder set out to answer the questions: ‘how do wildly successful people create their success?’ and ‘can these methods of success be replicated?’.‘can these methods of success be replicated?’.
They studied the best therapists of their time, and through observation, testing and trail and error, codified what they found into sets of prinicples and techniques. When they taught and used these strategies and found that they could reproduce the success these therapists had, they knew they were on to something.
Aug 5
NLP 101: So Dark The Con Of NLP
Throughout history, NLPers have been hunted down by the Evil League of Anti-NLPers, who have waved the Torches of deBunk (+2 agility) at us and angrily shouted big, big words like ‘pesudo-science’, ‘quackery’ and ‘you’re too hot for NLP’ (I get this one all the time).
For every claim for NLP, you can find one against. What’s going on?
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Jul 13
NLP 101: Life Is A Series of Systems
It was confusing; here was this bright, strong young woman who clearly had goals she passionately wanted, but somehow something held her back from going after them.
As I worked with her through the roots of her beliefs, I thought we were almost on the way to breaking her limiting patterns and on to action, when her face fell and she said she couldn’t continue.
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Jul 9
NLP 101: There Are No Resistant Listeners, Only Inflexible Speakers
This belief which enabled master therapists like Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir to help people whom other people had labeled ‘hopeless’ is also known as:
There are no resistant clients, only inflexible coaches/ therapists/ salespeople/ teachers
Also phrased sometimes as:
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Jul 7
NLP 101: Everyone Already Has All The Resources They Need
Had enough rolling your mind over the Pygmalion effect? Because the next NLP presupposition ties in nicely with it:
Everyone already has all the resources they need or the ability to get them
which also complements nicely the presupposition that people are not broken.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming believes that experience has a structure, and that structure is composed out of 5 senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory or gustatory. And if every experience is composed out of these same building blocks, so is every state or resource.
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