Yes, it’s gonna b a great year, coz i said so, I’m taking massive action and doing things differently.

Re-reading the book, flipping thru the pages. Never fails to amaze me, this guy & his entrepreneur craziness/brilliantness. It makes me feel less alone in this journey, and reminds me of the joy of building & growing a business that you believe in. Ah, the freedom of being able to paint on a blank canvas giving it life, pumps me up with energy & makes my eyes twinkle! (Erm erm, I supposed this is how some women with urge to have a very heavy tiny human growing in her womb feels? I can only guess).

Beer + a very good inspiring book, best combi in the absence of good friends around.

One day, I will visit Zappos.com in Las Vegas and meet Tony.

Today, today. As I was sitting on the living room floor, lights dimmed, beer chilling (er, is it human, can beer be chilling?!) in the fridge, listening to Leslie Cheung (yes, cannot meh); I stretched my old woman’s aching back. From a cross legged sitting position, stretch upper back down with arms in front reaching the floor. (No, I’m not teaching yoga). As my hands touched the floor, I gave my lower back a deeper stretch, and instinctively closed my eyes to enjoy the stretch, ugh. But, lo & behold,  Melinda surprised Melinda when her eyes starts to shut tightly, a gush of tears were fighting to escape!

Taken aback, I sprang up blinking, what the hell was that?? I took a few deep breath to calm down. And again, the darn floodgates tried to prise open and let the weird tears gush out. I’m like going m*ther f***er!- as how I always am when I’m threaten, yes, that’s how grown up I am. What the @#^% was that Mel??

It’s a combi of business worries, work backlog, my yet to be successful planning & gift hunt for darling hubby’s birthday this Thursday (I’m so dead), and to top it off- found out daughter is telling her persistent lies about her school work again & again & again, angelic face & all but telling you lies without blinking her eyes. All rolled into a day, compounded from days, weeks, months.

Sometimes I think, damn it! I have to learn to step up, and not let things get out of perspective that much. If not, what am I, a rag doll easily flung with the slightest movement??

You think you are ok, then you are not. Then you are, then you are not again. I guess that’s (business) life & life. Only pig headed me forgot about nature’s logic, and kept fighting against it.

Well, it’s still some journey till I live up to my self-given warrior name – The Wind. (from one of the best seminar I’ve attended that opened my eyes to life & soul).  That name came to me as I want to be that, as gentle as I want to be and flow with it or as powerful as I want to be and make things happen.

Till then, there’s always my perfectly chilled Anchor in the fridge waiting for me. Perfect companion to loneliness. Ahhh…

You must sometimes learn how to ‘clock out’ like an employee after work. Else, you’ll go crazy. One day when you snapped, it’s not going to be good.

As much as I eat, live, breathe Coconect, I am beginning to think this is a logical way to stay sane. Or at least, well rested enough to go for the long haul. Coz business IS the long haul. And it needs energy (DUH!). If I wound myself up too tightly to the point I am having much difficulty to sleep at night, sooner or later, something’s gotta give.

So, I will practice saying- See you later, alligator!

Decided that I want some sunshine to go with my chow. Made a weird but very right decision to go Old Town (gasp!) to have perfect soft-boiled egg that I don’t have to scald my fingers to crack open, and artery clogging bread with chunks of butter.

PERFECT CHOICE!  My work & play-ground for the morning. :)

As I sat here, the hours of burning midnight oil and goddamn insomnia left me, and I can’t help but grin like a silly idiot feeling very happy indeed to be doing this. This as in my business, not eating soft-boiled egg though that is a very happy thing too!

When you have the freedom & liberty (er, are they the same?) to work in environment (be it in an office or out) that frees rather than choke, with self discipline of course, I supposed you’ll be much happier. And when you are much happier, you tend to be more productive.

I trust my team though we work remotely. Heck, even if I see their Facebook games updates during working hours, I know that during crazy deadlines, they had voluntarily clocked in more hours than I requested for. And that’s what matters- commitment & drive to be in the same boat on this journey.

Happy Friday everyone!

:)

I don’t even know for sure what’s our core competency is. Gotta find out, gotta think. Been trying to do too much with severely insufficient resources and didn’t focus on sharpening & perfecting an area before we move on to the next.

Learnt hard but valuable lesson last week, again, it was a wake-up call. Or rather someone shaking my shoulder so violently that it causes mental clot to dislodge and I can see where the company could potentially head to- disaster.

I thank you for the lesson, though it was shitty-ly painful and gastric inducing, but I thank you, you obnoxious, emotional, weird developer geek. Thank you for bringing my attention to this.

I became an entrepreneur eventually in my ripe old age of the 30s. And little did I know, the glove fits so darn well. I guess I throughly enjoyed it because I love creating, and being able to have things on my term (Hah!). I love being able to extend my belief & personality to the brand, and to the culture rather than say, playing to a culture of company that I don’t like, just to play along and keep my job.

I love the feeling of excitement, and the sparkle in my eye when I talked about aspects of my business, when I have meetings with my team, talking about how we can serve our customers better, how else can we meet their needs.

I love it when people say they love us.

I love being able to wear jeans to a meeting if I want to, oh how I love not having to act ‘corporat-y’! I love dreaming up crazy ideas and getting all excited about them, and seeing them being executed.

I guess above all, if you are happy, and having fun in your business, it will make a lot of things easier. Like when your 3rd party developer decided to abandon your project after you paid him; and that is like 3 weeks before your slated launch date;  like when your ex-copywriter is actually a persistent liar coining up excuses of not meeting deadlines, like when companies you seek partnership with ignores you…If you are passionate about the business, you will bounce back fast, and work on finding the solutions.

Yes really, if you are no longer having fun in your business, I suppose, what’s the point?

OK, so I’ve come to a realization. My mental state is not super sunny today. Can’t even focus on the treadmill, so went and punch+kick the lights out of the sandbag in the gym. Not in the mood to work on any plans, any strats, any…anything. Thank God it’s a Saturday, and it’s the perfect excuse to rot the brain. Lol

Big thanks to Suet for proactively lending me this book. Thought it will be very interesting- neuromarketing. Then, of course I did the Google thing, and google it up. Lo & behold- do we have someone very, very interesting here!

Here’s excerpts from his press release to whet your marketing appetite:

For decades, advertisers, marketers, and consumers alike have held a set of common assumptions about what drives us to buy. Turns out, most of these were dead wrong. His startling results will shatter much of what we have long believed.

Does sex sell? What do religion and ritual have in common with successful advertising? Can subliminal advertising really influence our behavior? What effect, if any do health warnings on cigarette packs have on the consumer? We now know the answers thanks to a major scientific study whose surprising findings are revealed in BUYOLOGY: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy…

To find out how our unconscious minds influence how we buy, Martin Lindstrom, one of today’s foremost marketing experts, partnered with researchers from Oxford University and launched the single largest neuro-marketing study ever conducted – 25 times larger than any such study to date. In a three-year effort costing more than seven million dollars and using two of the most advanced, cutting-edge neuro-imaging technologies available today, the fMRI and SST scientists scanned the brains of over 2,000 people from all over the world as they were exposed to various marketing and advertising strategies including product placements, subliminal messaging, iconic brand logos, health and safety warnings, and provocative product packaging.

Now, excuse me while I go and prop up my feet & devour the book cover to cover. Have a great weekend folks, and happy kick off to World Cup 2010!

With my work, that is. What a difference from those long gone employed-and doing something that I don’t love days many, many moons ago.

Where being able to take a medical cert was a joy! (those days were gone during my last days in advertising where if I’m not dead, I better drag by sorry ass to work).

Now, sensing a wicked flu is sneaking up on me on a Sunday night, I’m more filled with dread than yay! Whipped up all theVit C I can get from the kitchen, loads of water…and yes, sleep sleep sleep!  Coz I’m looking forward to some kick-ass work week and lots of fun!

Flu begone! Shooo!!!!

Spent a few good hours compiling data to be sent for printing- it’s No Joke.

And I’m very detailed (ya ya, anal- I have to admit), so I will help my customers to make sure everything is in tip top order, which is another No Joke area, tedious like hell. My left arm all the way up to my eyes are kinda numb now, I wonder if I will have a stroke soon?

Got a bit cheesed off by team today, some adjustment gotta be done. It’s a delicate balance being assertive, motivating yet not be too harsh- it’s No Joke.

Few hours in the morning gone as I had to compile my docs to be submitted to the bank to get car loan for my new ‘downgraded’ car.

Glad to be having my independence back in 2 weeks time. Msia + no car of your own? = No Joke!

Took a end of day break (before the 2nd half of the day begins at 6pm) by collapsing on the kitchen floor, Tim Tam at hand, listening to my old skool radio player which can only play radio and nothing else.

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