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Feng Shui – Man Luck (part 2 of 2)

Personal Development

1.       Goal. What is your ideal life, what do you want, put this as a Goal? Develop a vision of what you want – relationships, wealth and health. There are no limits. From my experience, the main limitations have been placed by the people themselves.

Make the vision simple and clear; not fuzzy and vague,

Ideas like

A new life partner?

A new life style – living in different type of home, different type of car?  

Perfect Health?

 

Then break down the Goals into manageable and achievable components.

2.       Be prepared to experience change. You cannot change if you want to be different.

Enlarge or stretch your comfort zone.

Do something different every single day. Try new foods, something you have never tasted, (try it at least once before giving an opinion), go to places you have never been before, try to  wear something different (something you have never thought you would wear – new style, new image). Just by doing this, you are stretching your comfort zone. Just do different things.

 

3.       Have a Positive mindset. With a positive mindset, you will look at the world in a different light and you will notice positive things or changes. As a result positive things happen. With a negative mindset, nothing will get done or maintain the status quo.

 

In general, people have a resistance to change. With no change, you cannot achieve your goal. This resistance has to be removed if you want change,

 

4.       Be able to accept failure and rejection or “No”. This only takes you closer to your chosen goal. Failure teaches you lessons from which success is built on. Think of the falls you had when you learnt to walk or ride a bicycle.

 

5.       Rejection or a “No”. There are plenty of others there, probably even more suitable. This is all part of the search. In TV programmes like “America Got Talent” or “Britain Got Talent”, see how many people they have to audition just to find a winner – at least 100,000? Just do not give up when you get the first “No”. A “No” makes you one step closer to a “Yes”.

 

6.       Absolute Belief in self – I achieve my goals. If you do not have the belief, you can get distracted to other things.

 

7.       People always go back to what they feel most comfortable, especially when stressed, Keep the change going and maintaining it. This is the greatest challenge to the change process.

 

8.       After all this, are you meeting people who are negative, angry, refuse to change or positive, happy people who are a pleasure to be with. You are attracting a new set of people – this is the law of attraction at work – because “you are attracting “ type of people

 

9.       In a normal road journey, you know the destination before you depart. Life is like a road journey and you focus on your goals. Should you change your mind or give up, you are stuck or lost. Keep the focus on your goal.

 

10.   This is a very quick summary of the Personal Development. I will be discussing more of these methods later.

Feng Shui – Man Luck (part 1 of 2)

Man Luck is one part of the Trinity of Luck which is a central tenet of Chinese Philosophy.

The Trinity of Luck being Heaven Luck (Destiny), Earth Luck (your environment) and Man Luck (yourself)

You are the result of your thoughts, your actions and your deeds.

It is all because of you. Nobody else.

You might regret a number of your decisions that you made.

But, can you do anything about it?

No, it is the past.

Why worry about it. Nothing can be done to change the situation because it is the past.

Can you make better decisions to improve the quality of your life in the future?

Yes you can, you can change your life.

It is better to spend time to change your future because you can.

You cannot do anything that is past. Can you?

Life is like a road journey with an unknown destination.

You do not know the events that could happen on the journey.

Life could be just drifting from one crisis to another.

Just drifting with no particular path or direction.

Have you ever thought where you want to go to (in life)?

Are you equipped to travel on this road safely?

Personal Development is the process that prepares you for life’s journey.

1. You decide on the destination – by establishing your goals with a time scale
2. Are you prepared for the journey – do you have the right tools?

Once you have established your goals and equipped with the appropriate tools, life can be so much simpler and easier. You get what you want.

However, it is not some quick fix. Like taking a tablet to cure all. It is the development of your mindset. It is to make changes that developed since you were born.

Summary:

Take responsibility for all of your actions.

Spend your energy of things that you can change (the future) and not what you cannot (the past)

Feng Shui – Earth Luck

Dancing with Nature at the Right Tempo

Feng Shui is part of Chinese Philosophy where, living with nature benefits both humans and their environment.

All successful civilisations have learnt to live with Nature.

When you respect Nature, it will reward you.

When you abuse Nature, there will be repercussions.

People need a secure place to live and have reliable sources of food and water. So they have learnt to use the seasons knowing when to plant their crops for the best harvest.

In temperate countries: – crops are sown in Spring and harvested in Autumn (fall).

In Tropical countries (and ancient Egypt) – crops are sown in the wet season and harvested in the dry season.

When people want to sail the oceans, they know the direction of the prevailing winds for that time of the year.

For example: The trade winds.

April to Oct – winds are from the South West. Therefore, travel is in the South Easterly direction from Arabia to South East Asia or The Spice Islands. .

Oct to Mar – winds from the North East. Therefore, travel is in the North Westerly direction, returning from South East Asia to Arabia.

Therefore, merchants depart from Arabia between April to October and return when the winds change the direction later in the year.

This reliance on Nature changed with the industrial revolution in the 19^th Century. Machines were invented and people became less dependent on Nature. In the 20^th Century, there was talk about controlling and conquering nature with even more technology. However, in the 21^st Century, it is payback time. The earth is facing the issue of global warming caused by the excesses of industrialization.

Man has forgotten how important Nature is. It is everywhere. It is all powerful. When you work with Nature, Nature will assist you.

Chinese civilisation began some 4,000 years ago. The Chinese sages observed the behaviour of Nature and compiled the rules to live with Nature. Not only to survive but to prosper. This was initially known as Kan Yi (Management of the Land) which was later named Feng Shui. The Chinese civilisation is oldest continuous civilisation and they understood how to get the best of Nature. It is the most successful civilisation with 1.3 billion people or 20% of the world’s population.

In Chinese Philosophy – the expression – Where there is Energy, (Qi) there is life.  Feng Shui is about the Qi in the Environment. They noticed successful towns, buildings, homes, crop fields had Qi whereas the unsuccessful ones did not.

They made these observations on Qi and formulated the rules.

• The flow of Qi along the terrain of the Earth.
• The quality of Qi from different directions changes with time.
• The quality of Qi varies with time.

These observations became Feng Shui – a study of both time and space.

Feng Shui explains why some towns are really prosperous all the time, others occasionally and other towns, struggling all the time. This explains why some properties can be really prosperous but all the neighbouring properties are not. Some properties are never successful and have a continual change of tenants.

As a result, this knowledge can be used to design property (houses, buildings (residential & commercial) and cities that are prosperous and the people living in harmony.

Feng Shui – Heaven Luck – Destiny

Heaven Luck

Your life can be likened to a road but you do not know what lies ahead. An astrology chart is like road map or a “SatNav device” of the road ahead.

The road can be smooth and easy or it could be rough and challenging. One way to get over this is to be prepared for the situations ahead. When you know it is smooth and easy, you can use a sports car like a Porsche to cruise the road. However, this car would be totally unsuitable when it is rough and challenging. An all terrain vehicle would be more appropriate.

An astrology chart is prepared based on the “time of birth”.

There two types Astrology I know of. Verdic (Indian) and Western astrology use the location of the stars and planets at the time of “Event “ or time of birth to prepare the charts. Chinese Astrology – 4Pillars and Ziwei Doushu  – use the ”Chinese elements” of the time of birth (hour, day, month, year – the 4 pillars) to determine the reading.

The main difference between the 2 Chinese systems – Ziwei Doushu can provide the information of the numerous incidents (both major and minor) but not detail whereas 4 Pillars can provide you the detail of many of the main incidents.

To illustrate your life’s roadmap using the 4Pillars system.

There are periods of time which are known as good, bad or neutral fate luck periods. There are different degrees of the shades of good, bad and neutral. It just depends on the person.

These periods last 10 years but consists of two sets of 5 year periods. Each sub period have slightly different characteristics.

Using John Travolta* (Actor) as an example:

Born in 1956 and he achieved great fame in the 70s disco era of Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Urban Cowboy, He had a series of “flops” and turned down lead roles in box office hits like American Gigolo, Flashdance, An Officer and a Gentleman, Splash and Fatal Attraction. He had resurgence in with Pulp Fiction (1994) and a number of “hit” movies till 1999. In 2000, Battlefield Earth flopped.  

This is consistent with the 4 Pillars Astrology reading of him –

·         Age 17-26 good fate luck (1970s),

·         Age 27-36 bad fate luck (1980s),

·         Age 37-46 neutral fate luck (1990s) The second 5 year period (1994-1999)  good fame luck

Because of the inter-relationship between the 3 lucks – Heaven, Earth and Man, we can use the other lucks to overcome the bad fate luck years or improve the good fate luck years. These techniques are Feng Shui for Earth Luck and Personal Development for Man Luck.

*Ref: Wikipedia – John Travolta.

Feng Shui – The Trinity of Luck

This is one of the central tenets of Chinese Philosophy. The person’s life has three main influences which happen simultaneously.

Heaven Luck:

This is the roadmap of your life – also known as Destiny. This can be read through your Horoscope or Astrological Chart which is based on your time of birth. These charts are specific to the person. It informs you the periods of good luck and bad luck with other information.

Earth Luck:

This is the quality of the environment that you live in. Feng Shui is a methodology for assessing this quality.

Man Luck:

This is about you the person – your personality – “a go getter” or “very laid back”, a positive or negative mindset. There are many methods to improve the quality of your life by being able to control the direction of your life.

Inter-relationship of the 3 Lucks

The result of your life is because of the inter-relationship of the three lucks. It is because of this inter-relationship that the comment “astrology is not always accurate” is made.

Let us take the following examples

The astrology reading states “you will win from the lottery”.
You can only win IF you purchase a ticket; as the saying goes “no lottery ticket, no prize”.

The reading states – “You will get the job”.
Did you apply for it in the first place?

The reading states – “You will get married”.
Are you actively looking for a partner or just staying at home?

However, this inter-relationship can help you particularly when the astrology reading states that you are in a period of bad fate luck – this is a period of time when you make bad decisions and suffer the consequences. Your normal life can be improved dramatically by modifying aspects in the Earth and Man Lucks.

What qualifies to be a professional?

A dinner table discussion resulted from the quote “Give an amateur a digital camera and you have wiped out years of advantage of a seasoned professional”

The discussion started when “enthusiast” photographers are calling themselves professional because either:

• Their equipment is labelled “professional grade”

or

• High level of technical skill in photography. But not being paid for the work.

Another view – a professional is paid to do the work whereas hobbyist or enthusiasts who are not paid cannot be called professional even though their work might be better technically than the professional.

The Definition from the “free dictionary”

1. taking part in an activity, such as sport or music, as a means of livelihood

2. displaying a high level of competence or skill: a professional and polished performance

3. undertaken or performed by people who are paid: professional golf

The dictionary accepts that the professional can be paid or unpaid but has the necessary skills.

What are your views?

UK House Prices – Going Up or still coming Down?

Last week, the Nationwide Building Society published results stating that they recorded two consecutive months of property price increases. Which way is the market going? Up or down

It depends. In the short term it might go up but the long term trend is still downwards. The long term real house price chart http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/historical/May_2009.pdf

The current house price is just above the trend line (in red). The house price has to go below the trend line before there is any chance of an upturn, Therefore, any current upturn in house prices is temporary as  the main house price movement still downward.

When will house prices rise again?

1. When the house prices are in the lows – the current house prices are below the trend line (eg between 1993 to 1998)
2. When the sources of money are plentiful – banks are lending
3. The mood of the “potential” house purchasers are generally negative – they do not perceive that house purchases are a good idea.

Michael Oon

Appropriate behaviour sets for the Job

There is much talk in the business world that with passion, talent and perseverance, you will have success in your career. There is so much emphasis on the use of sophisticated methods in personal development that the basics are often overlooked.

I will use the example of Gordon Brown (Prime Minister of UK) as an example because his actions are reported in the public domain.

In my opinion, the person’s basic behaviours have to match the requirements of the job, if they do not, the person will not succeed it that position. The person’s behaviours might have been suitable for a junior position which justified him promotion to a higher position but, are just not suitable in the new and higher position.

Characteristics of the Gordon Brown

1. Passion and perseverance: He has the passion as he talks “politics politics politics” (Wikipedia) and has perseverance as he waited in the wings in the Cabinet for 10 years.

2. Intelligence – There is no doubt about that – he got a first class degree and a PhD at the University (Wikipedia)

3. Skills necessary for good Leadership?

• Detail and control – slow decision making – gets bogged down in the mass of paper work A leader needs a view of the big picture; be a statesman and not a politician

• Fear of Failure – Decisions by committee, alleged bullying tactics and said to have called off an election at the last minute. A leader needs to lead and take risks.

• Physical presence – lacks charisma and likeability Good Leaders have charisma and likeability. These points are very basic points of behaviours which indicate that he is more suitable for an academic or a researcher.

Some of these behaviours can be changed but only when the person deems it is necessary.

A Good Leader does not need to have high intelligence

and

A high level of education is not mandatory requirement to be a good leader.

Food for thought

Michael Oon

Gordon Brown Interview on BBC – Comment on a behavioural perspective (non-political)

Gordon Brown, UK Prime Minister gave an interview on the BBC on Sunday 31st May 2009.

These are some of my behavioural comments (non-political) on his performance.

1. His mannerisms appeared wooden.
2. Went asked why this was not done, he said, I wanted this proposal 2 years ago (but it had not been done).
3. He talked and talked and drifted from the original point. When asked
by the interviewer about the original point, he wanted to carry on
talking.
4. He kept on referring decisions to a committee as they had the full information.

Impressions:
He did not appear likeable. Every aspiring politician should appear likeable.
He did not want to accept responsibility by taking decisions.
He loves talking of what he is interested in.

Response:
This is the 1st time that I have seen a complete interview of the Prime Minister.
This is the leader of this country and I do not appear impressed with his leadership skills

Have I missed something about the interview or leadership?