The "Basics" Letter

Decide...and get a move on!

The well dressed lady had a stressed look on her face...in front of her was easily 10 - 15 different flavours of doughnuts. I can see her agonised demeanour shout out to all of us (some 20 odd) behind her...

They all look so good...I CAN'T DECIDE !!!

Well the rest of us in the queue probably shouted back in our minds : "Just take the ^%$!@#* sampler pack!"

Sometimes, standing in line I practice a lot of personal observation just to while my time away so that the wait seemed shorter. I must have been in the queue for over 45 mins but it seemed like 10.

I sometimes cannot blame the customers; retail shops try their darnedest to provide the widest  range of choice, but this creates  another set of problems - INDECISION...

Have you ever had the situation above? Frustrating isn't it? I sometime think that maybe it is better that people do not have many choices. It makes the decisions easier and better still if it was only one choice and the Decision was only to make or not make it. As the famed Jedi master, Yoda said so beautifully before: do or do not, there is no try.

The point that I am making today is that we are constantly faced with thousands of decisions everyday and we make them very quickly and unconsciously. This allowed us to get through the day easily. Imagine if we had to make a decision with some deliberation for all the choices, we will take a long time to get through our day!!! That would be crazy.

With choices and decisions, the important thing we must embrace is not the decision itself. Deliberating on it too much lead to paralysis by analysis...the point is about MOVING FORWARD. Making quality decisions is the missing link between Attitude and Actions.

Quoting General George S Patton: " The best decision is the Right one, the second best decision is the Wrong one, the worst is no decision.."

Make a Decison, move forward. Take our best shot and run!

With Gratitude,
bruce

PS. No matter how long the queue is, it really is not  worth the  calories eating doughnuts!! Why was I in the queue? Ask my mother...she HAD to try them...sigh!

Persistence

I bought my son a XBox 360 recently. It wasn't an impluse buy. In fact it was a fantastic deal...we got the whole set, along with 12 original games and a three year warranty to boot! The only snag...it was four months old. But, it looked brand new and it played like a charm! The total cost would have cost me easily SGD$1200...but we paid SGD$650. We are all thrilled and save a heck of a lot of money along the way...how did we do it?

Persistence...You must Never Give Up!!

Both my son and I applied the principle and got a fantastic deal out of it. Let me explain.

It took him 1 year to get his Xbox. I had resisted it at first as I felt that it would distract him from his schoolwork. He was disappointed, but he had persistence. He started to NAG me...daddy this, look daddy that, daddy wouldn't it be nice if YOU played this shooting game...

Then he was always on the lookout for demo sets at the malls and often dragged me into the game to play with him. He engaged me with the sales people and he asked about prices...but I said no way! Next he spoke to his grandparents about the game and his mother, then he asked what would he have to do to to "earn" a set, then he planned small chores to do to get some money, next he saved the monetary gifts he got, then he counted his  savings with me  to see how it grew...I said no. The money will go into his bank account. But the kid  -  Never Gave Up!

Our neighbour got a Nintendo Wii...he was there playing and got us interested in the interaction as well. Then the neighbours got into the act..."Oh, it's quite a family game...lots of fun...blah, blah"  I then said maybe...at that moment, I knew my son had succeeded and  quite  the same time, he stopped nagging. He somehow knew my "maybe" was already a yes. During the course of the year, I kept rationalising "maybe" he deserved an Xbox. So I started to search and ask around for one. Being a frugal guy meant that I did not intend to get one without a massive discount and to get the BEST deal, so I went to work sourcing out deals, asking friends and all sources just to find the best deal. After exhausting all that I could find, one came up with the deal that I could not say no to...the total package was at 50% off!!! Obviously,  we bought it...

Now, what basics did I learn?

Persistence is the vital key which can get you the breakthroughs that you need. it does not mean for you to keep at it every minute of the day, it just mean that you...Never Give Up! It may take a while, like in the case of my son, it took him a year, my case it took me 5 months to search...but we got it eventually.

It's the same with our dreams...it may take longer, but we will reach it as long as we don't give up.

with gratitude,
bruce

PS. I found out playing the Xbox is super addictive...so my advice, keep the controllers or power adapter away and restrict play to once a month or two. It's a great treat to reward  my son for doing a good job!

Basic Instinct

I have come full circle. After recently quitting a job that almost ruined myself, I took time off to seriously look at my journey so far and to set my compass again for my next lap of my life.

As far as I can remember, there had been three turning points in my life:

• When my dad died when I was 10 yrs old
• When I was arrested for stealing
• When I was first fired from a job I held dearly

Each of these points I felt like to wanted to to give up and end my life. However I never did. Why? My Basic instinct kicked in and I continued to face my music and turn my adversity into success. What was that BASIC?

The need to live...to survive

My mind did not allow me to end my life; difficult and tough as it is, I had to endure the issues and problems and find solutions to triumph over the challenges. At each turning point, I grew stronger. Now I looked back and realised that who and want I am today was because I stuck to the basics. Building on the fundamentals on a consistent basis gave me success. This is what this blog is about.

The Basics...in everything and it all starts with our need to survive.

We do not have to go far, search high and wide - the wisdom and knowledge is everywhere. All we have to do is see better. I saw better and continue to see even better.

I hope you will benefit from my experiences.

with gratitude,
bruce