I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Phil. 4:11-13
This was today's reading, and you know what? I'm so excited as I read it, because I can affirm its truth in my life. Starting over in a new country has given me the grace of learning what Paul learnt - the meaning of contentment, the humbling, crushing vulnerability of being in need, the joy of abundance, and the ultimate breathtaking revelation: that I can do EVERYTHING (live more fully, learn more, do more, earn more, relate better, love unconditionally, set goals and reach them) through HIM (not me, thank God).
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
A Wow! Moment
Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-Marianne Williamson
[Often said to have been quoted in a speech by Nelson Mandela. The source is Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992. -Peter McLaughlin]
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-Marianne Williamson
[Often said to have been quoted in a speech by Nelson Mandela. The source is Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, Harper Collins, 1992. -Peter McLaughlin]
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Week 34: Update on Bub
Saw Dr Calandra 2 nights ago for my fortnightly checkup. He analyzed the results of my 2-weeks-ago blood test (my 2nd prescribed by him) and said I (still) have low haemoglobin (97), and in addition I've low B12 (what's that?) and high folate.
Recommendation:
Go easy on the folic acid.
Buy B12 shots from the pharmacy so he can inject me and boost my B12 levels quickly.
Start taking a B complex supplement.
Told Dr C I've switched to a liquid herbal iron extract in hopes that it'll be better absorbed. Didn't get to tell him the brand (Floradix) as he didn't seem terribly interested.
When I mentioned the unbearable belly itch that can't be cured by Dermaveen or Medihoney, he didn't even ask to see it. He started scribbling on his notepad and scratched out a prescription for yet another blood test, this time for Liver Function Disease. Read on www.babycenter.com that this is called PUPPP (pruritic uticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy) which is harmless, but you need to let your doc know just in case it signals a liver problem, so he's done the right thing.
Strangely, he sounded like he'd never heard of Medihoney, which is one of those products that gets written up a lot in health mags. Worse, when I told him it's supposed to be "natural" as in made from honey and steroid-free, he snorted and said nothing's natural; everything's a drug. Instead, he prescribed calamine lotion, to which hubby and I (later) responded with a "Whaaat? So basic?" My O&G in Sg had prescribed a mild steroid gel, Egocort, which I use sparingly (when I absolutely can't take the itch anymore) just in case there are side effects. You never know with steroids.
From 36 weeks on, we'll be seeing Dr C once a week. Hopefully, I'll be able to take better control of the proceedings from now on instead of just feeling annoyed after every session because I expect more sympathy and support from my O&G.
Recommendation:
Go easy on the folic acid.
Buy B12 shots from the pharmacy so he can inject me and boost my B12 levels quickly.
Start taking a B complex supplement.
Told Dr C I've switched to a liquid herbal iron extract in hopes that it'll be better absorbed. Didn't get to tell him the brand (Floradix) as he didn't seem terribly interested.
When I mentioned the unbearable belly itch that can't be cured by Dermaveen or Medihoney, he didn't even ask to see it. He started scribbling on his notepad and scratched out a prescription for yet another blood test, this time for Liver Function Disease. Read on www.babycenter.com that this is called PUPPP (pruritic uticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy) which is harmless, but you need to let your doc know just in case it signals a liver problem, so he's done the right thing.
Strangely, he sounded like he'd never heard of Medihoney, which is one of those products that gets written up a lot in health mags. Worse, when I told him it's supposed to be "natural" as in made from honey and steroid-free, he snorted and said nothing's natural; everything's a drug. Instead, he prescribed calamine lotion, to which hubby and I (later) responded with a "Whaaat? So basic?" My O&G in Sg had prescribed a mild steroid gel, Egocort, which I use sparingly (when I absolutely can't take the itch anymore) just in case there are side effects. You never know with steroids.
From 36 weeks on, we'll be seeing Dr C once a week. Hopefully, I'll be able to take better control of the proceedings from now on instead of just feeling annoyed after every session because I expect more sympathy and support from my O&G.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Formed for God's Family
From Chapter 15 of The Purpose Driven Life
- You were formed for God's family.
- Every human was created by God, but not everyone is a child of God. The invitation to be part of God's family is universal, but it comes with one condition: faith in Christ Jesus.
- When you become part of God's family, you receive some astounding birthday gifts: the family name, the family likeness, family privileges, family intimate access, and the family inheritance. The Bible says, "Since you are His child, everything he has belongs to you." (Gal. 4:7b)
- What is this family inheritance?
- "My God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." (Phil. 4:19)
- On earth, we are given the riches of His grace, kindness, patience, glory, wisdom, power and mercy. In eternity, we will be given even more. For one, we will get to be with God forever. Two, we will be completely changed to be like Christ. Three, we will be freed forever from all pain, death and suffering. Four, we will be rewarded and reassigned positions of service. Finally, we will get to share in Christ's glory. => We are far richer than we realize!
- Our eternal inheritance is priceless, pure, permanent and protected. It cannot be taken from us, nor destroyed by war or a poor economy or natural disaster. This eternal inheritance - not retirement - is what you should be looking forward to and working for. Retirement is a short-sighted goal. You should be living in light of eternity.
- Being included in God's family is the highest honour and the greatest privilege you will ever receive. Nothing else comes close. Whenever you feel unimportant, unloved, or insecure, remember to whom you belong.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
The Purpose of Work
Work is not primarily a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do.
It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.
Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos
Comment
I am still searching for the one thing, or things, that God has purposed for me to do. I want to live fully aligned with my life purpose, but how does one discover one's purpose?
Through prayer, petition and thanksgiving?
Through realizing that everything that happens is part of God's bigger plan for my life?
Larry Julian in GOD IS MY SUCCESS recommends that we adopt a 2-fold approach in our partnership with God. There is the Surrender Posture, which requires us to shed things in order to be useful to God, and there is the Take-Charge Posture, which is one of personal responsibility.
Interestingly, he has observed from his experience working with business executives that leaders have a tendency to control the things they should surrender to God (business outcomes, economic conditions, stakeholder expectations) and to relinquish the things they should take charge of (confronting difficult issues, being fiscally responsible, doing the right thing regardless of consequences, putting people and purpose over profits).
I believe the same can be said for our personal lives. I know I have a tendency to avoid pain, weakness and anything that is unpleasant. I also habitually put off anything that requires hard work and discipline: goal setting, goal attainment, being responsible in how I use my resources (my mind, my $).
Action Exercise:
To adopt the Surrender Posture and the Take-Charge Posture for my career direction and dreams.
It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental, and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.
Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos
Comment
I am still searching for the one thing, or things, that God has purposed for me to do. I want to live fully aligned with my life purpose, but how does one discover one's purpose?
Through prayer, petition and thanksgiving?
Through realizing that everything that happens is part of God's bigger plan for my life?
Larry Julian in GOD IS MY SUCCESS recommends that we adopt a 2-fold approach in our partnership with God. There is the Surrender Posture, which requires us to shed things in order to be useful to God, and there is the Take-Charge Posture, which is one of personal responsibility.
Interestingly, he has observed from his experience working with business executives that leaders have a tendency to control the things they should surrender to God (business outcomes, economic conditions, stakeholder expectations) and to relinquish the things they should take charge of (confronting difficult issues, being fiscally responsible, doing the right thing regardless of consequences, putting people and purpose over profits).
I believe the same can be said for our personal lives. I know I have a tendency to avoid pain, weakness and anything that is unpleasant. I also habitually put off anything that requires hard work and discipline: goal setting, goal attainment, being responsible in how I use my resources (my mind, my $).
Action Exercise:
To adopt the Surrender Posture and the Take-Charge Posture for my career direction and dreams.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Evolution of Choice (Excerpt from Coaching Inspirations, Issue 40)
From Life Coaching Institute of Australia (www.lcia.com.au), Ezine Central
To subscribe, email ezine@lcia.com.au
Understanding Yourself
If you wish to improve yourself, you must first and foremostly recognise that all change stems from within. You have the ability to modify your thoughts and behaviours. You and only you can determine your personal rate of evolution.
Think for a moment of the people you hold in high regard. They may have certain enviable behaviours, or have attained admirable end states. The vast majority of those people have developed their behaviours through awareness and cognitive determination. They recognised who they wanted to be or what they wanted to achieve and willingly aligned their thoughts with their objectives. High level performance in individuals rarely transpires as an occurrence of chance.
You cannot keep doing the same things and expect a different result.
You have the power and the ability to change in order to produce a more positive result. You have the power to choose your attitude. The consequence of this simple and under-utilised reality is mind boggling.
Each and every day people go about their duties as servants to themselves. They are subservient to subconscious attitudes that are most often not acting in accord with their best interests. When most people are forced to bring their negative and destructive actions into consciousness, and asked why they acted as they did, they most often cannot provide an explanation. They honestly do not know why they acted in the manner they did. This is because their untrained and unemotional subconscious invoked their actions without cognitive intervention. In the absence of cognitive intervention the subconscious directs our actions. What's the problem with this? Nothing, if your subconscious has been trained to know how to appropriately act. But in most situations it hasn't, and hence it turns to old patterns that have been learned subliminally. These actions are invariably not constructive, and are very rarely aligned with your conscious desires.
You are not a servant to your emotions. With cognitive intervention you can establish your attitude at any point in time. By establishing your attitude, you determine how you feel and how effectively you are able to operate. Imagine how empowering and life changing this simple possibility can be to you.
We often use communication as though people or circumstances "make" us feel or behave a certain way. This is not the case at all. It's actually your absence of action that leaves you feeling frustrated and submissive to your feelings.
You only need to recognise that different people react dramatically differently to the same stimulus to know this is true.
Attitudes and Actions
As you go through each day you experience a plethora of attitudes. And your attitudes largely determine your level of effectiveness and emotional comfort. If you can manage your attitudes, you can dramatically influence how you feel, behave and perform.
For instance, you may regularly wake up and think to yourself: "I feel really tired today. I wish I didn't have to go to work." As you're driving to work someone cuts in front of you and you think "How dare that person cut in front of me." When you get to work there's no milk for your coffee and you think "There's no milk AGAIN! I'm not going to be able to work effectively unless I get my morning coffee."
These simple scenarios are a representative start to the day for many people. And let's face it, they're negative, low performance attitudes. They are not conducive to high personal performance or a state of personal wellness.
Progressing through life allowing yourself to acquiesce to less than optimum attitudes invariably creates an enormous amount of unnecessary stress. That stress compounds over time and is a catalyst to substantially more complex issues.
In the absence of cognitive attitude management, your mind literally does not have a framework by which to assess environmental influences and relies on instinctual emotional responses. By aligning your attitudes with your desired performance, you are able to assist your mind to cope with external influences and frame your responses accordingly. In effect, you tell your mind how to respond in accordance with your consciously established value-based framework.
Making a Positive Choice
Most people believe their attitudes are a result of external pressures such as people or negative experiences. But whilst external pressures often trigger your attitudes, you are the one that ultimately decides your resultant attitude (or allows yourself to have an inappropriate attitude in the absence of a decision). You can either acquiesce to external pressures, which you have little or no control over, or you can control your response by choosing what attitude you'll take. From the moment you wake to the moment you sleep, you have the power to choose your attitude.
Choosing your attitude starts with a mental intervention. Initially you'll need to think about your attitude and choose appropriate attitudes throughout the day. As your mind becomes more aware of the attitudes you deem congruent, attitude selection will become second nature.
Greater efficacy in attitude selection starts by becoming more aware of your attitudes and the affect they have on your effectiveness and wellbeing. This is usually most apparent in stressful situations. When you're feeling 'negative,' frustrated or anxious, make the cognitive decision to vary your attitude.
NEXT time you are in a stressful situation and you FEEL yourself becoming more anxious, take a brief moment, and a deep breath or two, then make the conscious decision to select a more appropriate attitude. One that will place you in a positive state of mind and assist you better deal with the situation and environment.
To subscribe, email ezine@lcia.com.au
Understanding Yourself
If you wish to improve yourself, you must first and foremostly recognise that all change stems from within. You have the ability to modify your thoughts and behaviours. You and only you can determine your personal rate of evolution.
Think for a moment of the people you hold in high regard. They may have certain enviable behaviours, or have attained admirable end states. The vast majority of those people have developed their behaviours through awareness and cognitive determination. They recognised who they wanted to be or what they wanted to achieve and willingly aligned their thoughts with their objectives. High level performance in individuals rarely transpires as an occurrence of chance.
You cannot keep doing the same things and expect a different result.
You have the power and the ability to change in order to produce a more positive result. You have the power to choose your attitude. The consequence of this simple and under-utilised reality is mind boggling.
Each and every day people go about their duties as servants to themselves. They are subservient to subconscious attitudes that are most often not acting in accord with their best interests. When most people are forced to bring their negative and destructive actions into consciousness, and asked why they acted as they did, they most often cannot provide an explanation. They honestly do not know why they acted in the manner they did. This is because their untrained and unemotional subconscious invoked their actions without cognitive intervention. In the absence of cognitive intervention the subconscious directs our actions. What's the problem with this? Nothing, if your subconscious has been trained to know how to appropriately act. But in most situations it hasn't, and hence it turns to old patterns that have been learned subliminally. These actions are invariably not constructive, and are very rarely aligned with your conscious desires.
You are not a servant to your emotions. With cognitive intervention you can establish your attitude at any point in time. By establishing your attitude, you determine how you feel and how effectively you are able to operate. Imagine how empowering and life changing this simple possibility can be to you.
We often use communication as though people or circumstances "make" us feel or behave a certain way. This is not the case at all. It's actually your absence of action that leaves you feeling frustrated and submissive to your feelings.
You only need to recognise that different people react dramatically differently to the same stimulus to know this is true.
Attitudes and Actions
As you go through each day you experience a plethora of attitudes. And your attitudes largely determine your level of effectiveness and emotional comfort. If you can manage your attitudes, you can dramatically influence how you feel, behave and perform.
For instance, you may regularly wake up and think to yourself: "I feel really tired today. I wish I didn't have to go to work." As you're driving to work someone cuts in front of you and you think "How dare that person cut in front of me." When you get to work there's no milk for your coffee and you think "There's no milk AGAIN! I'm not going to be able to work effectively unless I get my morning coffee."
These simple scenarios are a representative start to the day for many people. And let's face it, they're negative, low performance attitudes. They are not conducive to high personal performance or a state of personal wellness.
Progressing through life allowing yourself to acquiesce to less than optimum attitudes invariably creates an enormous amount of unnecessary stress. That stress compounds over time and is a catalyst to substantially more complex issues.
In the absence of cognitive attitude management, your mind literally does not have a framework by which to assess environmental influences and relies on instinctual emotional responses. By aligning your attitudes with your desired performance, you are able to assist your mind to cope with external influences and frame your responses accordingly. In effect, you tell your mind how to respond in accordance with your consciously established value-based framework.
Making a Positive Choice
Most people believe their attitudes are a result of external pressures such as people or negative experiences. But whilst external pressures often trigger your attitudes, you are the one that ultimately decides your resultant attitude (or allows yourself to have an inappropriate attitude in the absence of a decision). You can either acquiesce to external pressures, which you have little or no control over, or you can control your response by choosing what attitude you'll take. From the moment you wake to the moment you sleep, you have the power to choose your attitude.
Choosing your attitude starts with a mental intervention. Initially you'll need to think about your attitude and choose appropriate attitudes throughout the day. As your mind becomes more aware of the attitudes you deem congruent, attitude selection will become second nature.
Greater efficacy in attitude selection starts by becoming more aware of your attitudes and the affect they have on your effectiveness and wellbeing. This is usually most apparent in stressful situations. When you're feeling 'negative,' frustrated or anxious, make the cognitive decision to vary your attitude.
NEXT time you are in a stressful situation and you FEEL yourself becoming more anxious, take a brief moment, and a deep breath or two, then make the conscious decision to select a more appropriate attitude. One that will place you in a positive state of mind and assist you better deal with the situation and environment.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Reward Yourself - After You Succeed
Comment
When I first read the Jim Rohn article article, I thought to myself, "Wow! This seems to go against what all the other success gurus are saying. Live within your means. Pay yourself first. Invest conservatively. Spend on luxuries only after you have first generated passive income from your investments."
Then I read it again and noticed key phrases, like "when success started to happen" (and others that I've taken the liberty of italicizing). I realized that the core message hasn't changed: Work hard, Succeed, then Spend. The modern mentality is the reverse: we tend to Spend before we've Succeeded.
So here's to your success, and may you spend the rewards the way you're meant to....with unbridled joy and vigour!
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, [c] where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. (Ecclesiastes 9)
From Making a Living to Creating a Lifestyle by Jim Rohn (excerpted from the Day That Turns Your Life Around)
After having struggled for so long, it took a shift in attitude for my family and me when success started to happen. When I started making a little extra money at age 25, Shoaff taught me to also let it serve as a new inspiration for lifestyle. To take my family to dinner after I'd had 2 or 3 pretty good weeks and it looked like it was going to continue. I would say, "Today we get to order from only the left hand side of the menu, we don't have to look at the right hand side". Didn't cost much, just a little extra. But you can't believe the effect on the family, wow, that these are new days.
It's called changing your life as well as changing your skills and earning more money. It's best to invest some of that early money in lifestyle. Go to the movies. Take two vacations instead of one. Just some little extra things that now the family gets inspired by this new commitment to earning more and becoming more and learning more, taking some night classes, whatever you have to do. Now you make it more worthwhile for the family by thinking of lifestyle changes that now become very exciting. Go to the concerts. My parents said don't miss anything. Don't miss the play, the music, the songs, the performances, the movie - whatever is happening.
When I started making some extra money I opened up an account for my wife and I called it the "No Questions Asked Account". I said, "here is the checkbook for a new account and it's called no questions asked". I'll just keep putting money in there and you spend it for whatever you wish. It was life changing. It wasn't a fortune. But she didn't have to ask for money any more. I could sense that it was a little embarrassing at times when she had to ask me for money. I thought, that's not good, so the first time I get a chance, here's what I'm going to do. And sure enough, I did it. The "No Questions Asked Account". You can't believe what that did. It was absolutely amazing.
With that little extra money, work at creating lifestyle. Social friendships, church, community, country. All those things that make a composite of our overall life. Start furnishing that with new vigor, vitality, money, whatever it takes to expand your life into what I call the good life as well as economics.And it doesn't always take a lot of money. How much is a movie? Even for a person of modest means. $8 or $10? It might cost $60 million to make it and it only costs $8 to see it.
When I discovered those kinds of concepts at age 25 you can imagine it was hard for me to sleep nights that first year. I got so excited about changing everything. And one discipline leads to another. One change leads to another. Feeling good about yourself and starting to make the turn to do something you've never done before, then it starts to work, wow, and then you get excited about changing other areas of your life as well.
Now after you have made your fortune, the money and extravagance might not seem as big a deal. And fortunately you can then create even more powerful opportunities, in particular, opportunities for benevolence, philanthropy and giving.Now I'm certainly not saying to focus only on external pleasures and rewards. Your relationships, health and spirituality are all of more consequence.
But in the beginning, when the rewards of your hard work begin paying off, make sure and treat yourself and those closest to you to a new world of lifestyle and celebrations.
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
When I first read the Jim Rohn article article, I thought to myself, "Wow! This seems to go against what all the other success gurus are saying. Live within your means. Pay yourself first. Invest conservatively. Spend on luxuries only after you have first generated passive income from your investments."
Then I read it again and noticed key phrases, like "when success started to happen" (and others that I've taken the liberty of italicizing). I realized that the core message hasn't changed: Work hard, Succeed, then Spend. The modern mentality is the reverse: we tend to Spend before we've Succeeded.
So here's to your success, and may you spend the rewards the way you're meant to....with unbridled joy and vigour!
7 Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do. 8 Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. 9 Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, [c] where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom. (Ecclesiastes 9)
From Making a Living to Creating a Lifestyle by Jim Rohn (excerpted from the Day That Turns Your Life Around)
After having struggled for so long, it took a shift in attitude for my family and me when success started to happen. When I started making a little extra money at age 25, Shoaff taught me to also let it serve as a new inspiration for lifestyle. To take my family to dinner after I'd had 2 or 3 pretty good weeks and it looked like it was going to continue. I would say, "Today we get to order from only the left hand side of the menu, we don't have to look at the right hand side". Didn't cost much, just a little extra. But you can't believe the effect on the family, wow, that these are new days.
It's called changing your life as well as changing your skills and earning more money. It's best to invest some of that early money in lifestyle. Go to the movies. Take two vacations instead of one. Just some little extra things that now the family gets inspired by this new commitment to earning more and becoming more and learning more, taking some night classes, whatever you have to do. Now you make it more worthwhile for the family by thinking of lifestyle changes that now become very exciting. Go to the concerts. My parents said don't miss anything. Don't miss the play, the music, the songs, the performances, the movie - whatever is happening.
When I started making some extra money I opened up an account for my wife and I called it the "No Questions Asked Account". I said, "here is the checkbook for a new account and it's called no questions asked". I'll just keep putting money in there and you spend it for whatever you wish. It was life changing. It wasn't a fortune. But she didn't have to ask for money any more. I could sense that it was a little embarrassing at times when she had to ask me for money. I thought, that's not good, so the first time I get a chance, here's what I'm going to do. And sure enough, I did it. The "No Questions Asked Account". You can't believe what that did. It was absolutely amazing.
With that little extra money, work at creating lifestyle. Social friendships, church, community, country. All those things that make a composite of our overall life. Start furnishing that with new vigor, vitality, money, whatever it takes to expand your life into what I call the good life as well as economics.And it doesn't always take a lot of money. How much is a movie? Even for a person of modest means. $8 or $10? It might cost $60 million to make it and it only costs $8 to see it.
When I discovered those kinds of concepts at age 25 you can imagine it was hard for me to sleep nights that first year. I got so excited about changing everything. And one discipline leads to another. One change leads to another. Feeling good about yourself and starting to make the turn to do something you've never done before, then it starts to work, wow, and then you get excited about changing other areas of your life as well.
Now after you have made your fortune, the money and extravagance might not seem as big a deal. And fortunately you can then create even more powerful opportunities, in particular, opportunities for benevolence, philanthropy and giving.Now I'm certainly not saying to focus only on external pleasures and rewards. Your relationships, health and spirituality are all of more consequence.
But in the beginning, when the rewards of your hard work begin paying off, make sure and treat yourself and those closest to you to a new world of lifestyle and celebrations.
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
Lessons from a Muffin Mishap
The recipe looked innocuous enough.
Blueberry, Cocoa and Buttermilk Muffins
2 cups self-raising flour (check)
1/2 cup caster sugar (check)
1 1/2 tablespoons coca powder (I didn’t have any, so I did what I assumed any self-respecting baker would do, substitute with what I had on hand, which in this case was Ovaltine powder.)
2 eggs (check)
100 ml buttermilk (Again, this wasn’t something in my pantry, so I made do with regular milk.)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive oil.)
1/2 cup milk choc bits (check)
1 cup blueberries (skip – no berries of any kind on hand!)
With such an introduction, perhaps I was setting myself up for a culinary disaster.
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 190 degrees (fan-forced). What’s fan-forced? I know there’s a difference of 20 degrees between FF and conventional ovens, but what oven do I have? It didn’t occur to me to do the obvious i.e. check my manual…So I blithely assumed it’s a conventional oven, and upped the temp to 210 degrees.
Grease a 12-hole, 1/2 cup capacity muffin pan with butter or line with paper cases. I dutifully greased my 12-hole, mini muffin pan with olive oil (surely the effect should be the same?).
Sift self-raising flour, caster sugar and cocoa into a large bowl.
Oops, no sieve, so I simply poured all 3 ingredients into bowl and stirred them up with a wooden spoon.
Whisk together eggs, buttermilk and vegetable oil in a separate bowl. Add the choc bits and blueberries. The whisking was fine, except I then forgot part 2…
Use a large spoon to fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until they are just combined.
I couldn’t get my head around this one – fold what into what? - and proceeded to pour the wet mixture into the dry one (it was easier that way), only remembering belatedly to add the choc bits.
Afterwards, I had a deal of a time mixing everything together. The result was lumpy, stiff and uncooperative.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin pan so the holes are about 3/4’s full. Bake for 20-30 minutes until muffins are firm with a crusty top.
There was quite a lot of mixture left over after the 12 holes were filled, so I got out a baking tray from the by-now well-heated oven, covered it with baking paper, and dropped lumps of sticky muffin mix as far apart as possible to fill up the tray. The result was 5 or 6 really ugly, misshapen lumps. But no matter, I thought, they might turn out to be beautifully tasty, chewy biscuits.
I set the timer for 20 minutes and went about my other business, confident that I would soon be able to set the table for a nice tea with the husband and daughter.
The first hint something had gone awry was when the hubby went: “I smell something…” at the same moment the smells of acrid burning wafted through the open plan kitchen into the front lounge, where he and daughter were hard at work sorting catalogues for distribution.
I opened the oven door and braved the heat long enough to gingerly lift out the tray of blackened muffins and bikkies. There was one redeeming point though. For the first time in my baking career, the muffins actually lifted clean away from the holes. Who cared if they were hard enough to pass as paper weights and completely charred beneath?
As for the bikkies, let’s just say we had a lot of fun, the daughter and I, trying to see just how much there was left to eat between the charred top layer and the bottom that was now practically inseparable from the paper. You know – the nice perfect soft middle layer with choc chips. We just couldn’t let that go to waste now, could we?
The girl was a great sport about it all. No condemnation or smart alecky wisecracks. In fact, she seemed to enjoy stuffing herself silly on the middle bits and running off to show Daddy her choc-stained fingers. Good on her.
So – one spectacular culinary disaster, and many more, no doubt, to come. We can’t all be Nigella Lawson, but to be able to celebrate the simple beauty of choc chips amid the overdoneness of daily life? That’s something I could do more of.
Bon Appetit!
Blueberry, Cocoa and Buttermilk Muffins
2 cups self-raising flour (check)
1/2 cup caster sugar (check)
1 1/2 tablespoons coca powder (I didn’t have any, so I did what I assumed any self-respecting baker would do, substitute with what I had on hand, which in this case was Ovaltine powder.)
2 eggs (check)
100 ml buttermilk (Again, this wasn’t something in my pantry, so I made do with regular milk.)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil (I used olive oil.)
1/2 cup milk choc bits (check)
1 cup blueberries (skip – no berries of any kind on hand!)
With such an introduction, perhaps I was setting myself up for a culinary disaster.
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 190 degrees (fan-forced). What’s fan-forced? I know there’s a difference of 20 degrees between FF and conventional ovens, but what oven do I have? It didn’t occur to me to do the obvious i.e. check my manual…So I blithely assumed it’s a conventional oven, and upped the temp to 210 degrees.
Grease a 12-hole, 1/2 cup capacity muffin pan with butter or line with paper cases. I dutifully greased my 12-hole, mini muffin pan with olive oil (surely the effect should be the same?).
Sift self-raising flour, caster sugar and cocoa into a large bowl.
Oops, no sieve, so I simply poured all 3 ingredients into bowl and stirred them up with a wooden spoon.
Whisk together eggs, buttermilk and vegetable oil in a separate bowl. Add the choc bits and blueberries. The whisking was fine, except I then forgot part 2…
Use a large spoon to fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until they are just combined.
I couldn’t get my head around this one – fold what into what? - and proceeded to pour the wet mixture into the dry one (it was easier that way), only remembering belatedly to add the choc bits.
Afterwards, I had a deal of a time mixing everything together. The result was lumpy, stiff and uncooperative.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared muffin pan so the holes are about 3/4’s full. Bake for 20-30 minutes until muffins are firm with a crusty top.
There was quite a lot of mixture left over after the 12 holes were filled, so I got out a baking tray from the by-now well-heated oven, covered it with baking paper, and dropped lumps of sticky muffin mix as far apart as possible to fill up the tray. The result was 5 or 6 really ugly, misshapen lumps. But no matter, I thought, they might turn out to be beautifully tasty, chewy biscuits.
I set the timer for 20 minutes and went about my other business, confident that I would soon be able to set the table for a nice tea with the husband and daughter.
The first hint something had gone awry was when the hubby went: “I smell something…” at the same moment the smells of acrid burning wafted through the open plan kitchen into the front lounge, where he and daughter were hard at work sorting catalogues for distribution.
I opened the oven door and braved the heat long enough to gingerly lift out the tray of blackened muffins and bikkies. There was one redeeming point though. For the first time in my baking career, the muffins actually lifted clean away from the holes. Who cared if they were hard enough to pass as paper weights and completely charred beneath?
As for the bikkies, let’s just say we had a lot of fun, the daughter and I, trying to see just how much there was left to eat between the charred top layer and the bottom that was now practically inseparable from the paper. You know – the nice perfect soft middle layer with choc chips. We just couldn’t let that go to waste now, could we?
The girl was a great sport about it all. No condemnation or smart alecky wisecracks. In fact, she seemed to enjoy stuffing herself silly on the middle bits and running off to show Daddy her choc-stained fingers. Good on her.
So – one spectacular culinary disaster, and many more, no doubt, to come. We can’t all be Nigella Lawson, but to be able to celebrate the simple beauty of choc chips amid the overdoneness of daily life? That’s something I could do more of.
Bon Appetit!
Sunday, November 05, 2006
God Meets Our Needs...Not Our Desires
From www.crosswalk.com comes a devotional on the very same issue that I've been pondering:
November 4, 2006
Is it a Need or a Desire?
Romans 8:32
In the fourth chapter of Philippians, Paul declares that God will “supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (v. 19). When we read that passage and apply it to our daily lives, we must be careful to interpret it correctly. For that to happen, we must understand the difference between “needs” and “desires.”
A need is something that is essential for us to develop into who God wants us to be or to accomplish the things He calls us to do. On the other hand, a desire is something we think will bring enjoyment to our lives. The key word here is “enjoyment.” It describes a temporary pleasure. We tend to want things that will bring us happiness for a season and then fade away. It’s important to note there’s nothing wrong with a desire, as long as it is within the will of God and is an outflow of a Spirit-filled life.
Our wonderful, adoring heavenly Father loves to shower His grace upon us (Matthew 7:11). However— and this is critical—we must remember that God never promises to supply all of our desires. He surely provides many of them, but only at His discretion and for His own glory. So, your inability to acquire a large-screen television, for example, is certainly no indicator that God is unfaithful!
What do you need in order to become the person God has called you to be? What do you desire that will help you gain more enjoyment in life? Make a list of these things, and make both categories a regular part of your prayer life.
Reflection
How true this is! God really has been faithfully meeting the needs of our family right here in Werribee, Melbourne. Here's a sampling of what He has blessed us with:
November 4, 2006
Is it a Need or a Desire?
Romans 8:32
In the fourth chapter of Philippians, Paul declares that God will “supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (v. 19). When we read that passage and apply it to our daily lives, we must be careful to interpret it correctly. For that to happen, we must understand the difference between “needs” and “desires.”
A need is something that is essential for us to develop into who God wants us to be or to accomplish the things He calls us to do. On the other hand, a desire is something we think will bring enjoyment to our lives. The key word here is “enjoyment.” It describes a temporary pleasure. We tend to want things that will bring us happiness for a season and then fade away. It’s important to note there’s nothing wrong with a desire, as long as it is within the will of God and is an outflow of a Spirit-filled life.
Our wonderful, adoring heavenly Father loves to shower His grace upon us (Matthew 7:11). However— and this is critical—we must remember that God never promises to supply all of our desires. He surely provides many of them, but only at His discretion and for His own glory. So, your inability to acquire a large-screen television, for example, is certainly no indicator that God is unfaithful!
What do you need in order to become the person God has called you to be? What do you desire that will help you gain more enjoyment in life? Make a list of these things, and make both categories a regular part of your prayer life.
Reflection
How true this is! God really has been faithfully meeting the needs of our family right here in Werribee, Melbourne. Here's a sampling of what He has blessed us with:
- Helping us through the maze of paperwork for getting established as new migrants
- A brand new affordable rental home near the town centre and amenities, which has lots of space for our child and our dog and a neat open plan layout that makes upkeep easy
- A 14 y.o. car that gets us around
- Our supportive family back home: CA's brother, the latter's girlfriend, and his sis-in-law, who help us collect and go through our snail mail, advise on our dealings with the govt agencies back home, and track the rental proceeds from our flat; my aunt who texts us regularly to find out how we are and who will be visiting at the end of the month
- A church whose hospitality amazes and touches us and where we hope to serve
- Internet access and lots of magazines and store catalogues that help us make informed buying decisions
- Warm, hospitable locals who accept us as one of the community and make us feel welcome
- Friends of friends who extend our network here and offer tips on how to make the transition painless
- My cousins here who provide kinship, support and a sense of rootedness
- A library that supplies us with regular nourishment for our minds
In short, we have a roof over our heads, clothes to wear, a car to get around in, food on the table everyday. What was it St Paul said? "If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with these"? And about learning how to abase and how to abound.
New Ways To Reach Out
I started out titling this piece "A New Way To Reach Out", then when I thought about it some, I realized I'd actually been shown more than 1 way.
As I write this, I'm on Windows Live Messenger chatting with 2 friends, one here in Melb (an undergrad) and the other at Harvard (grad student). In the course of chatting about exams and visa requirements, I found myself in a position to encourage them in the situations they were facing. One of them wrote, "Thanks so much for the encouragement....needed that so badly." That made me feel really good, to know that God had used me at this time to meet another's need in such a beautiful, practical way!
Gal 6:10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
At our new church here in melbourne, we've come to know many lovely individuals with fascinating life stories and situations. At Mon playgroup, I've met with several other mums and am regularly impressed by how they manage the chores, ferrying the kids to school, doing the grocery run...all by themselves, with no live-in maid or mother-in-law coming over to help. (Makes us in Sg seem pretty pampered, huh?)
Post-service, we've been privileged to chat with members over coffee fellowship and to be touched by their stories: the seniors who still serve faithfully in church/do their own chores/live on their own/drive themselves around, the musical family with a Down's child who plays the tambourine enthusiastically during worship time, the lady who lives in Point Cook and has great confidence that there will always be someone willing to fetch her home, the pastor who has no hesitation rolling up his sleeves to help out in the playroom or kitchen...
Somewhere in there is an opportunity to listen, to empathize, to pray, to encourage, and I am looking out for it.
As I write this, I'm on Windows Live Messenger chatting with 2 friends, one here in Melb (an undergrad) and the other at Harvard (grad student). In the course of chatting about exams and visa requirements, I found myself in a position to encourage them in the situations they were facing. One of them wrote, "Thanks so much for the encouragement....needed that so badly." That made me feel really good, to know that God had used me at this time to meet another's need in such a beautiful, practical way!
Gal 6:10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
At our new church here in melbourne, we've come to know many lovely individuals with fascinating life stories and situations. At Mon playgroup, I've met with several other mums and am regularly impressed by how they manage the chores, ferrying the kids to school, doing the grocery run...all by themselves, with no live-in maid or mother-in-law coming over to help. (Makes us in Sg seem pretty pampered, huh?)
Post-service, we've been privileged to chat with members over coffee fellowship and to be touched by their stories: the seniors who still serve faithfully in church/do their own chores/live on their own/drive themselves around, the musical family with a Down's child who plays the tambourine enthusiastically during worship time, the lady who lives in Point Cook and has great confidence that there will always be someone willing to fetch her home, the pastor who has no hesitation rolling up his sleeves to help out in the playroom or kitchen...
Somewhere in there is an opportunity to listen, to empathize, to pray, to encourage, and I am looking out for it.
7 Ways to Business Success (Brian Tracy)
Here's a new thought I learnt this week. (This is my version of continuous learning and improvement. Best of all, it's free!)
Seven Formulas for Business Success
By: Brian Tracy
Visualize Your Goals
There are seven formulas for business success.
Number one, set a specific goal and visualize it as a reality. Play the picture of your goal as already realized on the screen of your mind over and over again.
Number two, look for a problem you can solve with a product or service that is high quality and good value. All successful businesses are based on products or services that are high quality and good value.
Number three, start small and learn your business thoroughly. Be patient. Invest time rather than a lot of money.
Bootstrap Your Way to Success
One of the best ways to build a business is to start off on a bootstrap. This means that you start off with very little money and you grow your business with the money that you earn in the business, rather than outside financing, borrowing, loans from friends and so on.
Test, Test, Test
Number four, test every major move before you invest in it. Test, test, test. Don't plunge into a business. Move ahead carefully, one step at a time.
Number five, expand on the basis of your successes, out of your profits, as you move along. In other words, only expand your business on money that you've earned in the business, not on borrowed capital.
Pick Your People Carefully
Number six, carefully select the people to help you expand and grow. The biggest mistakes you'll ever make will be in picking the wrong people to work with, so be very, very careful in picking the people you're going to work with in your business.
Use Financial Leverage
And number seven, use financial leverage. Financial leverage is business borrowing, lines of credit from the bank, which are based on the cash flow from your successful business. The whole aim of starting a business is to develop a consistent, predictable source of cash flow in excess of cost and expenses and then to hold to the money. Banks will lend you all the money that you can service as debt with your cash flow.
Start Off Part Time
One final thing that you can do, and I've recommended that many people do this over the years, is if you're starting off with no money, go to work part-time for a business in a field that interests you. It's a valuable form of on-the-job training. Work evenings or work weekends. Or work on your holidays if you like. Sometimes a business that looks tremendous from the outside will look terrible once you start working for it. But sometimes when you start working for a business, you start to get an intimate understanding of how it works and you get insights on how you can improve it.
Learn What You Need to Learn
Remember this, though, most businesses fail because of managerial incompetence. So take the time to learn what you need to know to succeed. Be patient. The time you invest before you start will pay off over and over again in the months and years ahead.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to implement these formulas for business success: First, be prepared. The number one reason that people succeed in starting their own businesses is that they have the knowledge and experience, in advance that they need to succeed. Do your homework.
Second, start small. Some people think that they can be successful faster by putting all their savings at risk at the very beginning. The opposite is true. Start small and grow out of your cash flow from successful operations.
My biggest learning point?
Start off part time. It's great advice for someone like me who's starting out with very little $ and yet dreams of doing great things sometime in the future. I'm going to start looking around for p/t or even volunteer positions in the fields that interest me (i.e. counselling and coaching) and see what I find. Cheers!
Seven Formulas for Business Success
By: Brian Tracy
Visualize Your Goals
There are seven formulas for business success.
Number one, set a specific goal and visualize it as a reality. Play the picture of your goal as already realized on the screen of your mind over and over again.
Number two, look for a problem you can solve with a product or service that is high quality and good value. All successful businesses are based on products or services that are high quality and good value.
Number three, start small and learn your business thoroughly. Be patient. Invest time rather than a lot of money.
Bootstrap Your Way to Success
One of the best ways to build a business is to start off on a bootstrap. This means that you start off with very little money and you grow your business with the money that you earn in the business, rather than outside financing, borrowing, loans from friends and so on.
Test, Test, Test
Number four, test every major move before you invest in it. Test, test, test. Don't plunge into a business. Move ahead carefully, one step at a time.
Number five, expand on the basis of your successes, out of your profits, as you move along. In other words, only expand your business on money that you've earned in the business, not on borrowed capital.
Pick Your People Carefully
Number six, carefully select the people to help you expand and grow. The biggest mistakes you'll ever make will be in picking the wrong people to work with, so be very, very careful in picking the people you're going to work with in your business.
Use Financial Leverage
And number seven, use financial leverage. Financial leverage is business borrowing, lines of credit from the bank, which are based on the cash flow from your successful business. The whole aim of starting a business is to develop a consistent, predictable source of cash flow in excess of cost and expenses and then to hold to the money. Banks will lend you all the money that you can service as debt with your cash flow.
Start Off Part Time
One final thing that you can do, and I've recommended that many people do this over the years, is if you're starting off with no money, go to work part-time for a business in a field that interests you. It's a valuable form of on-the-job training. Work evenings or work weekends. Or work on your holidays if you like. Sometimes a business that looks tremendous from the outside will look terrible once you start working for it. But sometimes when you start working for a business, you start to get an intimate understanding of how it works and you get insights on how you can improve it.
Learn What You Need to Learn
Remember this, though, most businesses fail because of managerial incompetence. So take the time to learn what you need to know to succeed. Be patient. The time you invest before you start will pay off over and over again in the months and years ahead.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to implement these formulas for business success: First, be prepared. The number one reason that people succeed in starting their own businesses is that they have the knowledge and experience, in advance that they need to succeed. Do your homework.
Second, start small. Some people think that they can be successful faster by putting all their savings at risk at the very beginning. The opposite is true. Start small and grow out of your cash flow from successful operations.
My biggest learning point?
Start off part time. It's great advice for someone like me who's starting out with very little $ and yet dreams of doing great things sometime in the future. I'm going to start looking around for p/t or even volunteer positions in the fields that interest me (i.e. counselling and coaching) and see what I find. Cheers!
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