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 – 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?

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?

A Simple Strategy for Success in Business

A talk by Tony Pidgley, Managing Director of Berkeley Homes at the Surrey Chambers of Commerce meeting held in Guildford on Thursday (13th May 2009).

His philosophy of having high moral and business standards shines like a beacon in this present time.

1. Moral and Business standards – leaders lead (to set the example) and others follow

2. Working to a set of indicators and not the emotion of the market – house price rise of the past several years – this was caused by house price inflation and not by good work. All bubbles crash. This has made the price of land for new developments expensive. Berkeley Homes has returned to the Home Counties after 10 years; for example: just bought a development plot for £1.7 million; this was previously purchased for £7.0 million at the top of the market.

3. Berkeley Homes have a good reputation; purchasers know of the quality and the space of their products. 4. Berkeley have a substantial cash reserve £350 million, sufficient to ride the storm and will re-start building when the conditions are right.

Opinion: The Berkeley Homes have followed these guidelines since its inception in 1976 and it is still trading very successfully indeed. It has gone through at least 3 cycles of boom and bust. This is a very simple formula for success and used in a similar manner by Warren Buffett in his management of Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett is the world most successful investor who is worth more than US $37billion.

With Focus and Determination – you will Win!

On Wednesday night

The Apprentice (BBC tv episode 7): Philip Taylor did not focus on the team task set by Sir Alan Sugar as he appeared to be distracted by another person in the team. He did not sell anything and this contributed to the team losing the task. As their team lost, they had to appear before Sir Alan in the board room to explain themselves. Philip concentrated his comments on the project manager Lorraine Tighe and not on his own work. As a result, he was “fired” by Sir Alan.

Chelsea Football Club: At Stamford Bridge in the Champions League semi-final match against Barcelona, the Chelsea players were disputing a number of poor calls by the referee during the match. Some of their players were distracted by the referee’s poor calls and were not on playing to win the game. Barcelona scored the “winning” goal in injury time so Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League. In a football match, all decisions made by the referee are final, in other words, the referee’s decisions are all correct.

In both cases, Philip Taylor (The Apprentice) and Chelsea Football Club were distracted and not focussed to win. Of course, had they focussed to complete the task, they would have won!

Message: Focus your sights on the objective and you will win. If you get distracted, you will lose.