Personally, year 2011 is quite an interesting year for me. I have traveled to two different countries through flight and it is my first time enjoying the airplane flight twice in a year. I am pretty happy about the two different trip as one let me see a relaxing lifestyle while the other taught me about the importance of story.

On the other hand, I managed to make a consistent 3 figures income through my internet marketing venture and when I thought everything was going on plan, the google panda update came in and my income was slapped to close to nothing left. Luckily, I do have a backup plan on mind which was to learn to become a real estate salesperson. In my heart, I knew that affiliate marketing was not something I loved to do as I did not have the passion to write those articles of the different niches. After taking the course of real estate salesperson, I realized that what I wanted to learn and do has already revealed itself. In the end, after passing the real estate salesperson exam, I decided to create a housing site with a few partners called Housing in Singapore to become an expert in this industry through the use of internet marketing (which is what I have learnt so far).

The following are the personal successes that I am grateful and proud of achieving in the year of 2011:

- Gone for a trip to Thailand in March 2011 with the winning resort stay at Chiang Mai (Bangkok and Chiang Mai)

- Strike 4D second prize in ibet (buy for fun)

- Start making consistent 3 figures internet income (Got google panda slap after that)

- Win a pair of movie tickets from lucky draw

- Bought my first apple ipod touch which help me a lot in learning through audio books as there are speed listening apps available

- Found a running buddy from my current workplace

- Passed my Real Estate Salesperson Exam with just one try

- Made my first rental commission within a few months

- Started a housing in Singapore project website with a group of partners

- Travel to Shanghai-Jiang Nan (China) for a 8D7N trip which is my first long trip

- Read 21 books throughout the year of 2011

- Decided to set 10 personal values to achieve in myself

- Start to make full use of dropbox and skype for my own real estate site

Recently, I watch this movie called “Coach Carter” and was pretty inspired by the belief that the coach inspired on his team members. Therefore, I decided to share with you this movie that I felt is a must to watch if you are really on your journey to success. I do learn a lot of stuff from this movie itself as personally you can learn how one person can change other people’s lives if he has the belief and persistence. There might be a lot of negativity along your journey but you must really stay persistent with your principles to let other believe that you are providing the values and help.

The following is one of the most inspirational coach carter quotes in the movie:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. 

Personally, I am in the transition of moving from a stable job income to become a real estate salesperson which would not have a basic pay as it is fully earned by commission service basis. I do feel the fear in me as there are a lot of commitment in life that I need to keep and it is a new field that I will endeavour . However, I also know that this move will bring me greater experience and challenge to become someone with more confident in myself. There are a lot of fear that I see in myself but I do believe that I will do great along the way if I stay firm with my belief that I will succeed in my journey to success. I will definitely meet more greater people in my journey and I do hope the sites I have created will provide values for people along the way. Do check out and support my housing site at Housing in Singapore. If you have a Facebook account, hope you can support my facebook page at by liking it through the following link at Housing in Singapore. Cheers.

Image courtesy of Rajiv Patel

Recently, I have been pretty self busy with my mind as there are a lot of thoughts flying through my mind. I feel a bit overwhelmed with my thoughts that really makes me feel so tired about thinking. However, I do remember hearing an idea from Tony Robbins’s material about the why and what questions that we keep on asking in our mind. The main difference between the WHY and the WHAT questions that we prompted ourselves is that one will make us become inaction and another will make us start moving and become motivated. However, make sure you are asking quality questions on yourself in order to get quality answers. Okay, let’s compare between the WHY and the WHAT questions and you will see the differences.

Examples of WHY questions:
- Why did this thing happen to me?
- Why can’t I get this to work?
- Why must I do it anyway?

After seeing the above WHY questions, do you feel a sense of weakness in the questions and feel like a loser who can’t seem to get things to work as things are not moving the way you want it to be. If you are feeling that way, somehow I have caught your attention. Let’s move on to the WHAT questions and you will understand why we should start asking the what questions in order to get things to move.

Examples of WHAT questions in a quality way:
- What are the top 3 things that I can work on now to make it work?
- What are the things I should focus on at this very moment?
- What are the things I can work on to substitute my income?

Examples of WHAT questions in a ineffective way:
- What should I do now?
- What is happening to me?
- What if this thing don’t work out? (negative way – never try to put a if behind your what questions)

As you can see above, I have given some examples of asking the WHAT questions to ourselves and you should be feeling more positive when asking the what questions as it keep you in an active state of mind. Although starting you might not be aware whether you are asking the what questions in a quality way or not, you should get a better result compared to asking the why questions as it keep you in a more positive and active state of mind.

How do you actually determine whether your WHAT questions are quality or not? You can determine through whether it will provide you with at least some excellent answers that will close the loop in your mind and set you to take the necessary actions. Therefore, it is very important to ask quality WHAT questions as it helps to close the loop in your mind to allow you to move on to the next action tasks. Personally, I have learnt some programming skills during my polytechnic days and I know in order for any programs to work, you must always close the loop of whatever tasks you ask the program to do in order for the program work properly and smoothly. 

Anyway, I have managed to pass my real estate exam in one go and I have decided to work on it full-time once I have settled some personal stuff. Personally, I have some doubts in myself that need to be cleared as I know I may not be getting a stable income from the real estate industry but I do feel excited about going through the journey as I can see myself learning the life skills I want from those successful real estate salespersons and my mentors in my company. If you love this post, do drop me a comment or share it with your friends on facebook. Thanks.

Image courtesy of magda.indigo

Do you know that the first hour of the day is considered one of the most important part of the day? Or have you heard that breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day? Today I am going to share with you why is it important for you to master your first hour of the day over here in this blog post.

Few month ago, I read a blog post by Affilorama about motivation to start your day and I can say that the blog post has actually motivated me to move myself to start my engine to work on myself. To summarize the best part I got from the blog itself is

“Whenever you feel too tired to go out and train, just get off the couch and run the first 500 meters, then if you’re still too tired, go back home and rest”

That paragraph of words is really kicking myself in the ass as sometimes I am reluctant to do what I am suppose to do and procrastinate so much that make me very unproductive. I have put up the above paragraph as my desktop wallpaper to remind myself to just start doing something and it really helps as it kick start my whole momentum to do more.

Ok let’s get back to the topic of why mastering your first hour is very important as recently I read this book called Personal Development For Smart People by Steve Pavlina and inside the book, there’s a portion where he mentioned the importance of master the first hour.

Here’s the abstract from the book itself:

It’s been said that the first hour is the rudder of the day, meaning that the way you start your day will tend to set the tone for the rest of it. If you adopt a disciplined routine for your first waking hour, you’ll probably enjoy a higer productive day. But if you squander that first hour, it’s likely the rest of the day will be equally unspectacular. Conquer that first hour by exercising, reading, cleaning, writing, or doing other productive tasks.

Many people have told me that whenever they complete an important task first thing in the morning, they gain a tremendous feeling of well-being and energy that lasts for hours. I’ve experienced this as well. Finishing an important task early in the day is motivating and energizing. When you conquer that first hour, you feel that no matter what else happens, your day is already a success.

Personally, I totally agree to what Steve Pavlina said in his book regarding about mastering your first hour of the day as I feel it’s the same theory of eating your most important meal of the day which is your breakfast. I have read before that in order for you to do more in the day, you must actually have your breakfast as it boost your power and provide the energy you need to start your day well. It is also healthy for you to take your breakfast as it helps to kick start your body system by providing the energy to start it well.

Cheers
Javier

P.S. Hope this post has inspired you to learn more about the importance of your own time and body. Make sure you check out on Steve Pavlina’s book at any bookstore or library near you as there’s a lot of insides about personal development that I felt are useful to all of us.

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.