Raymond Chua’s Blog

After one and half week in Penang, I finally back to Johor again. Everybody feels surprise when they see me. I’m getting fatter. Thanks to the irrisistable foods in Penang. I’ve put on so much weight in less than 2 weeks. Thank god, I’m now not as skinny as claimed by my family members. I’m now too fat to fit in my attires. That means I got to get new trousers, pants…etc. That’s the good thing.

The bad thing is that I’m addicted to the internet. I only can use dial-up connection in Penang as there is no broadband connection in my house. The connection is slow and it is almost impossible to download large files. While I enjoy the food over there, I almost lost my life starving for high-speed internet connection. I thought I can live without internet. I was wrong. There is a strong bond between internet and I. Checking emails, uploading my webpages, check my subscribers subcribtions, checking how many hits I got in my websites sending emails…..etc have been part of my life. Wireless internet connection has now become the fuel to power my life.

The world without internet is indeed very scary. It’s just like living life without a handphone for most people. I’ve been controlled by technology. I know this is wrong. I need to get out of this. I hope you can give me some solutions in the comments column. I appreciate positive comments.

My life in Penang is great. Living in a semi-D house with maid and internet connection of course, driving luxury cars (sadly, none of them belong to me) and the most important of all are those great delicious Penang food. Penang is a heaven full of delicious food. My appetite shoots up on the very first day  I reached Penang. This is a good place for me to put on some weight.

I can eat double to triple amount of food I consume when I was in JB. The foods in Penang are just too great that no word on earth can be use to describe them.

I don’t feel like want to go back to JB but I have to. I only can move back to Penang when I success. That is one of my promise to myself. The vision is already there. I just need plenty of actions to make it come true.

The purchasing power of the people here is high. Too many rich man here make me feel so stress. I’m only 5 years away from retirement and I don’t have any achievement yet so far. I really got to work very hard and smart to achieve my dream.

Huh…after this holiday, I got to set a short term target for myself. For now…..JUST PLAY AND EAT FIRST!…….HAHAHAHA…………

One of my very favorites, Jim Rohn, is almost an endless well of wisdom, as witness this passage of his:

"What we ponder and what we think about sets the course of our life. Any day we wish; we can discipline ourselves to change it all. Any day we wish, we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge. Any day we wish, we can start a new activity. Any day we wish, we can start the process of life change. We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year.

"We can also do nothing. We can pretend rather than perform. And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are. We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause. As Shakespeare uniquely observed, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves." We created our circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today."

That’s about sixty seconds of Jim’s wisdom. Could you stand 21 hours of it? Do you think your life might take on a different perspective?
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Warmly,

Raymond

Yes! tonight I’ll be leaving Batu Pahat and going back to Penang. You know, for those who have never been to Penang. Penang is a heaven to me. The food in Penang is BEst ouT oF thE BesT.

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Thinking of the food makes me feel hungry immediately. My mission is to eat as many types of food as possible and visit as many places as possible. It seems like I’m visiting Penang more than going back to Penang. It’s more to vacation than going back to hometown.

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This is once in a year holiday. I guess I got to make full use of it. It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be exciting and It’s gonna be grand.

Selamat Hari Raya………

Best regards,

Raymond

Hi Readers,

We talked about self motivation in the last post. In this post, we’ll discuss about dream. Not the dreams in your sleep but your vision.

If you don’t have a dream, how are you going to make
your dreams come true?
   
It all starts with a dream…
   
Let me tell you up front that if you
do not have a dream, you will not become a millionaire
other than by winning a game of chance. It’s just too
hard.
   
To make this kind of money you need to be laser-beam
focused, and you can’t be that if you only have a half
hearted interest in what you are doing. You know this
is true.
   
How? Just look at some famous multi-millionaires who
still keep working ten or twelve hours a day, even
though they don’t need the money.
   
Why do they do this? Because they have a passion for
what they do. They would probably do it without
payment!
   
Dreaming is a type of visualization. It is
visualization plus passion. These are the things that
you really want to be, to have or to do. If you do not
achieve these things over (say) the next ten years, you
are going to be seriously disillusioned and upset.
   
You should be able to write a list of six such things.
If you cannot think of a single one then you are most
unlikely ever to live a life of power and passion.
Also, your chances of making big money are vanishingly
small. If you like, this is your first reality check.
   
Can you think of a few things about which you are
passionate? One or two things which you care deeply
about? Just one would be a start.
   
Don’t beat yourself up if you cannot immediately think
of something. It is hard to dream up a better life for
yourself due to the decades of negative conditioning
you have allowed yourself to accept.

How often did your teachers, parents and friends
encourage you to dream and ask you to share your vision
with them?

Approximately never? I thought so! How often did
someone shoot your fledgling dreams down in flames or
pour scorn upon them? Small wonder that your dreams are
not on public display.
_________________________________________________________________________

Best wishes,

Raymond

www.green-rectangle.com

A little boy was doing his math homework. He said to himself,
"Two plus five, that son of a bitch is seven. Three plus six, that son of a
bitch is nine…."
His mother heard what he was saying and gasped, "What are you doing?"
The little boy answered, "I’m doing my math homework, Mom."
"And this is how your teacher taught you to do it?" the mother asked.
"Yes," he answered.
Infuriated, the mother asked the teacher the next day, "What are you
teaching my son in math?"
The teacher replied, "Right now, we are learning addition."
The mother asked, "And are you teaching them to say two plus two, that son
of a bitch is four?" After the teacher stopped laughing, she answered,
"What I taught them was, two plus two, THE SUM OF WHICH, is four."

To post your comment, click on the link below

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Hi readers, This is Raymond again. You know what is the heart of self-improvement? THe answer is MOTIVATION.

Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change.

Getting flunked grades make us realize that we need to study.

Debts remind us of our inability to look for a source of income.

Being humiliated gives us the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for ourselves to save our face from the next embarrassments.

It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s
tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help us
get up and get just the right amount of motivation we need in order
to improve ourselves.

With the countless negativities the world brings about, how do we
keep motivated?

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Try on the tips from A to Z… (this is where I cut and paste)
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A - Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "the future belongs to those who
believe in the beauty of their dreams."
.
B - Believe in your self, and in what you can do.
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C - Consider things on every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from
determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the
sun from both sides.
.
D - Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed once,
twice, more than thrice before he came up with his invention and
perfected the incandescent light bulb. Make motivation as your
steering wheel.
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E - Enjoy. Work as if you don’t need money. Dance as if nobody’s
watching. Love as if you never cried. Learn as if you’ll live
forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.
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F - Family and Friends - are life’s greatest ‘F’ treasures. Don’t
loose sight of them.
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G - Give more than what is enough. Where does motivation and self
improvement take place at work? At home? At school? When you exert
extra effort in doing things.
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H - Hang on to your dreams. They may dangle in there for a moment,
but these little stars will be your driving force.
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I - Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t let other people to
get the best of you. Stay out of toxic people - the kind of friends
who hates to hear about your success.
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J - Just be yourself. The key to success is to be yourself. And the
key to failure is to try to please everyone.
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K - keep trying no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is
motivated, eventually he sees a harsh life finally clearing out,
paving the way to self improvement. L - Learn to love your self. Now
isn’t that easy?
.
M - Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put into
work clothes.
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N - Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.
.
O - Open your eyes. People should learn the horse attitude and horse
sense. They see things in 2 ways - how they want things to be, and
how they should be.
.
P - Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It lets us
learn repertoire and ways on how can we recover from our mistakes.
.
Q - Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate
- are you going to be a quitter? Or a winner?
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R - Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must
hear the little voice within us telling us to get started before
others will get on their feet and try to push us around. Remember,
it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.
.
S - Stop procrastinating.
.
T - Take control of your life. Discipline or self control jives
synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self
improvement.
.
U - Understand others. If you know very well how to talk, you should
also learn how to listen. Yearn to understand first, and to be
understood the second.
.
V - Visualize it. Motivation without vision is like a boat on a dry
land.
.
W - Want it more than anything. Dreaming means believing. And to
believe is something that is rooted out from the roots of motivation
and self improvement.
.
X - X Factor is what will make you different from the others. When
you are motivated, you tend to put on "extras" on your life like
extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends,
and so on.
.
Y - You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like
you. Value your life and existence, because you’re just going to
spend it once.
.
Z - Zero in on your dreams and go for it!!!
.

To your success,

Raymond

www.green-rectangle.com

When we look at a certain object, a painting for example - we won’t
be able to appreciate what’s in it, what is painted and what else
goes with it  if the painting is just an inch away from our face.
But if we try to take it a little further, we’ll have a clearer
vision of the whole art work.

We reach a point in our life when we are ready for change and a
whole bunch of information that will help us unlock our self
improvement power. Until then, something can be staring us right
under our nose but we don’t see it.  The only time we think of
unlocking our self improvement power is when everything got worst.

Take the frog principle for example -

Try placing Frog A in a pot of boiling water. What happens? He
twerps! He jumps off! Why? Because he is not able to tolerate sudden
change in his environment - the water’s temperature. Then try Frog
B: place him in a luke warm water, then turn the gas stove on. Wait
til the water reaches a certain boiling point. Frog B then thinks
"Ooh… it’s a bit warm in here".

People are like Frog B in general. Today, Anna thinks Carl hates
her. Tomorrow, Patrick walks up to her and told her he hates her.
Anna stays the same and doesn’t mind her what her friends says. The
next day, she learned that Kim and John also abhors her. Anna
doesn’t realize at once the importance and the need for self
improvement until the entire community hates her.

We learn our lessons when we experience pain. We finally see the
warning signs and signals when things get rough and tough. When do
we realize that we need to change diets? When none of our jeans and
shirts would fit us. When do we stop eating candies and chocolates?
When all of our teeth has fallen off. When do we realize that we
need to stop smoking? When our lungs have gone bad. When do we pray
and ask for help? When we realize that we’re gonna die tomorrow.

The only time most of us ever learn about unlocking our self
improvement power is when the whole world is crashing and falling
apart. We think and feel this way because it is not easy to change.
But change becomes more painful when we ignore it.

Change will happen, like it or hate it. At one point or another, we
are all going to experience different turning points in our life -
and we are all going to eventually unlock our self improvement power
not because the world says so, not because our friends are nagging
us, but because we realized its for our own good.

Happy people don’t just accept change, they embrace it. Now, you
don’t have to feel a tremendous heat before realizing the need for
self improvement.  Unlocking your self improvement power means
unlocking yourself up in the cage of thought that "its just the way
I am". It is such a poor excuse for people who fear and resist
change. Most of us program our minds like computers.

Jen repeatedly tells everyone that she doesn’t have the guts to be
around groups of people. She heard her mom, her dad, her sister, her
teacher tell the same things about her to other people. Over the
years, that is what Jen believes. She believes its her story. And
what happens? Every time a great crowd would troop over their house,
in school, and in the community - she tends to step back, shy away
and lock herself up in a room. Jen didn’t only believed in her
story, she lived it.

Jen has to realize that she is not what she is in her story. Instead
of having her story post around her face for everyone to remember,
she has to have the spirit and show people "I am an important person
and I should be treated accordingly!"

Self improvement may not be everybody’s favorite word, but if we
look at things in a different point of view, we might have greater
chances of enjoying the whole process instead of counting the days
until we are fully improved. Three sessions in a week at the gym
would result to a healthier life, reading books instead of looking
at porns will shape up a more profound knowledge, going out with
friends and peers will help you take a step back from work and
unwind.  And just when you are enjoying the whole process of
unlocking your self improvement power, you’ll realize that you’re
beginning to take things light and become happy.

.

To your success,

Raymond

www.green-rectangle.com

My long-time favorite poem by an anonymous author is worth remembering today:

.

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill.

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As everyone of us sometimes learns.

And many a fellow turns about,

When he might have won had he stuck it out.

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow,

You may succeed with another blow.

.

Often the goal is nearer than It seems to a faint and faltering man.

Often the struggler has given up,

When he might have captured the victor’s cup.

And he learned too late when the night came down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

.

Success is failure turned inside out,

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems afar.

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit,

It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.

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And that’s worth thinking about. 

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Brought to you by,

Raymond

www.green-rectangle.com

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Dear readers,

Everything that happens to us happens in purpose. And sometimes, one thing leads to another. Instead of locking yourself up in your cage of fears and crying over past heartaches, embarrassment and failures, treat them as your teachers and they will become your tools in both self improvement and success.

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I remember watching the movie called Patch Adams when I was in my form 5. Its one great film that will help you improve yourself. Hunter "patch" Adams is a medical student who failed to make it through the board exams. After months of suffering in melancholy, depression and suicidal attempts - he decided to seek for medical attention and voluntarily admitted himself in a psychiatric ward.

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His months of stay in the hospital led him to meeting different kinds of people. Sick people in that matter. He met a catatonic, a mentally retarded, a schizophrenic and so on. Patch found ways of treating his own ailment and finally realized he has to get back on track. He woke up one morning realizing that after all the failure and pains he has gone through, he still want to become a doctor.

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He carries with himself a positive attitude that brought him self improvement and success. He didn’t only improved himself, but also the life of the people around him and the quality of life. Did he succeed? Needless to say, he became the best doctor his country has ever known.

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So, when does self improvement become synonymous with success? Where do we start? Take these tips, friends…

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*Stop thinking and feeling as if you’re a failure, because you’re not. How can others accept you if YOU can’t accept YOU?

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*When you see hunks and models on TV, think more on self improvement, not self pitying. Self acceptance is not just about having nice slender legs, or great abs. Concentrate on inner beauty.

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*When people feel so down and low about themselves, help them move up. Don’t go down with them. They’ll pull you down further and both of you will end up feeling inferior.

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*The world is a large room for lessons, not mistakes. Don’t feel stupid and doomed forever just because you failed on a project. There’s always a next time. Make rooms for self improvement.

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*Take things one at a time. You don’t expect black sheep’s to be goody-two-shoes in just a snap of a finger. Self improvement is a one day at a time process.

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*Self improvement results to inner stability, personality development and dig this …. SUCCESS. It comes from self confidence, self appreciation and self esteem.

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* Set meaningful and achievable goals. Self improvement doesn’t turn you to be the exact replica of Cameron Diaz or Ralph Fiennes. It hopes and aims to result to an improved and better YOU.

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*Little things mean BIG to other people. Sometimes, we don’t realize that the little things that we do like a pat on the back, saying "hi" or "hello", greeting someone "good day" or telling Mr. Smith something like "hey, I love your tie!" are simple things that mean so much to other people. When we’re being appreciative about beautiful things around us and other people, we also become beautiful to them.

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*When you’re willing to accept change and go through the process of self improvement, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. The world is a place where people of different values and attitude hang out. Sometimes, even if you think you and your best friend always like to do the same thing together at the same time, she would most likely decline an invitation for self improvement.

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We should always remember that there’s no such thing as ‘over night success’. Its always a wonderful feeling to hold on to the things that you already have now, realizing that those are just one of the things you once wished for. A very nice quote says that "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." We are all here to learn our lessons. When we open our doors for self improvement, we increase our chances to head to the road of success.

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To your success,

Raymond

www.green-rectangle.com

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