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Have you been using Dropbox nowadays? If you have no idea what Dropbox is, you should really go check it out at this dropbox link that I have shared. In this post, I will be sharing with you my personal dropbox review and just to let you know Dropbox is a online data storage where you can store your data files by just dropping it into the folder aka box. You can choose to try it out as they have a free 2GB space for everyone. The 2GB space really served like a thumbdrive to me as it allows me to access my files that I have saved through the internet. However, if you feel 2GB is not enough, you may even go ahead and request for a higher storage space where you can use it like a external hard disk of 50GB or 100GB based on the monthly or yearly subscriptions that you paid for. …..Click here to read more

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Recently, there have been a lot of goals around in the world cup and since now the world cup had ended, I have decided it’s time to do a half a year review of my own goals (promises) for this year. Normally when we do a review for our goals, we should do it regularly but as my goals are more of a long term type, I have decided to do it half a year basis. As you can see, this is already in the month of July and I have seemed to have slacked off the time chart. However, just to have a quick update for my 3 promises that I want to achieve in Year 2010.

1) Prepare and participate in a 42KM Marathon.

As I have mentioned previously in my blog that I have already completed my 16km marathon in march 2010, my next target will be 21km in 12 sept 2010 (Singapore Bay Run aka Army Half Marathon [AHM]) and the final goal is 42km (Standard Charter Run) in 5 Dec 2010. I have already signed up the two marathons. Currently, I have already been running regularly every week at my neighbourhood park and occasionally with my colleagues for longer distance plus weekend sports games like badminton or soccer with my friends. I believe there should not be any problems with the final run in Dec. …..Click here to read more

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Do you have any idea what is remarkable? Recently, I have been reading a few books on what is truly remarkable and how you can become remarkable. The few books I read are Think Out of the Box by Mike Vance, No B.S. Direct Marketing by Dan Kennedy and The Big Moo by Seth Godin and 33 other remarkable entreprenuer. Personally, I realized that being remarkable seems to be awesome compared to being normal as you bring up the discussion of others just like how Apple Company come out with their revolution iPhone and their great marketing plan that entice customers.

In this post, you are going to learn an extract from Seth Godin’s book (The Big Moo) on how to be remarkable?

…..Click here to read more

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Last weekend, I was at the Singapore PC Show with my girlfriend as she wanted to buy a iPod speaker for herself. She had her 2nd generation iPod Touch during one of the IT Show last year and now Epic Centre (Apple Company) is already selling their 3rd generation iPod Touch. All of you should know that if any device or equipment can continue selling for a few generations means that there are definitely demand from the crowd that keep it going. However, whenever there are new generation of goods coming out to replace the old ones, the older generation models will definitely be selling at a much lower price compared to the new ones. Normal product owners will just sell their older goods at a discounted price at some warehouse or conference shows. However, what I saw at this current PC Show was something different and amazing marketing techniques by Apple Company. They were having an auction for their 1st generation iPod Touch at the PC Show and the starting price is $50 dollars. Every time a person raises their hand to increase the bid price, the host will increase $5 dollars and anyone can called a higher price to win their competitor bidder.

A normal 8GB iPod Touch is selling at $308 and this price has remained the same for quite some time already. However, something interesting about this auction was that people are willing to bid for this 1st generation iPod Touch without any warranty up to the price of $265 and more. However, the host stop the bidders from continuing the bid as he mentioned that if the bid price is more than that, it was not considered as an auction anymore. Therefore, he will come out with a solutions of checking with his boss to let all the 3 final bidders get their iPod Touch at $265. This is actually a great marketing plan to entice the customers as everyone is involved in the process of the auction. You can hear people saying why will someone get a 1st generation iPod Touch without any warranty at all at such a high price when they can get the latest model at just $50 more. This shows that there are definitely buyers out there that will perform funny actions to buy what they want but what’s really interesting is how Apple Company sell off their old goods as they did not really do it the normal way like what other company do and that’s why this company is so successful with some many raving fans buying their products.

Cheers
Javier

P.S. Hope I have shared something interesting for you to think through whether you can do things differently like how Apple Company did

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I have been listening to Tony Robbins’s audio books for quite some time and have been hearing about this great man named John Wooden. I did not really make any research at that time when I heard about Coach John Wooden until I saw the tweet from Tony that coach John Wooden had just passed away recently.

I went to download and listen to the power talk interview that Tony did with Coach John Wooden many years ago which Tony shared on his blog for his viewer. Coach John Wooden was a legendary UCLA basketball coach as he was not only the most successful college basketball coach in history (winning 10 out of 12 NCCA National Championships, at one point winning 88 games in a row!).

I was amazed by the interview that Tony did with Coach John Wooden and decided to share some quotes with you that I felt is meaningful for anyone who is on the journey to success too. …..Click here to read more

I do not know whether you have seems this inspiring commencement speech by Steve Jobs before on youtube but I feel this is actually an inspiring words of wisdom by him. If you do not know who is Steve Jobs, make sure you go google it and find out how great this guy is.

Cheers
Javier

Recently, I have been reading a book called Sun Tze’s The Art of War Plus The Art of Marketing by Gary Gagliardi. If you know who is Sun Tze from the chinese history, you will be amazed by his work of art on warfare. Personally, I believe that you can use the tips on warfare on the world of marketing. Therefore, I picked up the book and started reading it as I have a love in marketing too. I have extracted a wonderful portion of text from the book and wished to share it here on my blog for my viewers.

Here’s the extract on The Art of War:

You can be stopped and yet recover the initiative.

You must use your days and months correctly.

If you are defeated, you can recover.

You must use the four seasons correctly.

There are only a few notes in the scale.

Yet you can always rearrange them.

You can never hear every song of victory.

There are only a few basic colors.

Yet you can always mix them.

You can never see all the shades of victory.

There are only a few flavors.

Yet you can always blend them.

You can never taste all the flavors of victory.

You fight with momentum.

There are only a few tpes of surprises and direct actions.

Yet you can always vary the ones you use.

There is no limit to the ways you can win.

Surprise and direct action give birth to each other.

They are like a circle without end.

You can exhaust all their possible combinations.

…..Click here to read more

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Have you ever wonder whether the power of questions can help you settle your challenges in life? If you have read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad before, you will know that it is important that we should ask quality questions through our mind in order to get quality answers and results. Rich Dad has taught us that when you desire something that is out of your current reach such as a beautiful bunglow along the beach or something super expensive, you should not be thinking or saying “I can’t afford it” as this closes your mind from going through the thinking process. However, you should be asking yourself “How can I afford it?” as asking this question allows your mind to think through and usually lots of ideas will be generated for you in your mind. …..Click here to read more

Image courtesy of [Christine]

Today, we are going to look at a story that I have got from my working place which I felt is very meaningful to share with every reader of my personal journey to success blog. Here’s the story and it’s called

The Obstacle in Our Path

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway.  Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock.  Some of the  King’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it.  Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way.

Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables.  Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road.  After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway.  The peasant learned what many of us never understand!

Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.

Cheers
Javier
P.S This is a short sharing and hope you gained some meaningful stuff from this stories to learn.

You did not read wrongly about the title of this post as I have just managed to clear my desk after about 20 years of my life. Please don’t get me wrong as I did not wait for 20 years then start getting rid of clutter but instead this is the first time I actually manage to clear my desk to leave space for me to put my laptop on.

I have been staying in a 4-room flat with a family of 5 including me and for the past 20 over years, I have been sharing a room with my brother. A  normal 4-room flat is about 90 square metres with 3 bedrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 living room and 2 bathrooms so you can imagine how big a room is with all those places in the flats. Although I have a table, I did not really make use of the table to study or work because normally I have a lot of things on my table that cause me to be unable to actually do any other stuff on it. Usually, I will read or write anything by sitting at the side of my bed and use the bed as the table top.

I have been cleaning my table once in a while throughout the past 20 plus years of my life and I did not really make full use of the table to perform any tasks. Recently, I have been listening to some management audio books talking about getting rid of clutter in our life especially those things that may not be exactly important to us. The process of clearing is very fun as I have managed to clear almost 80% of my cupboard clothes and 50% of my unwanted table stuff. The reasons why I took this action of getting rid of all these clutter is actually because I want to be more productive in my life as I realize whenever I reach home after work, I will feel like sleeping more than getting to work on my personal project. I have been pondering about the reasons why and realize that since my working area is on my bed, the bed will definitely relate me to resting or sleeping. I realize I am more productive at work when my desk is not full of clutter so therefore I decided to actually clear my room to get myself clear of clutter.

If you have a cupboard full of clothes, it is actually time to start clearing it like what I did as usually we do not actually wear all the clothes we have in our cupboard. Usually, we will wear only 20% of the clothes in our cupboard and there will be clothes which we will not wear at all so it will be great for you to donate those to salvation army (charity). It is actually a very fun process to clear your clutter as you will feel more energy in your room especially if it is your work station. Therefore, take the action to start getting rid of the clutter in your life right now as I believe you will feel much better after doing this exercise.

Cheers
Javier

P.S. This blog post is written on the table beside my bed after the 3 hours of getting rid of the clutter. However, I have only managed to clear 20% but I believe this will definitely be one of the great steps towards my journey to success.