“I’d kill to have a security device at home so I can know what my maid is doing at home with my kids.”- a friend said.

And I thought, what a sad world we are living in nowadays.

I yearn to have kids roam free, running from one neighbors house to another, their pet dog running with them.

Neighbors who actually knows each other’s name (at least I got that base covered at home)

Blue skies, not grey smog.

People actually have the brain & consideration not to double park and let you wait for 20 mins, without even an apology. Bangsar- check, Taman Desa- check, Damansara- check…actually the whole of Klang Valley, Penang, etc- check.

Fresh, natural food  is not a luxury, look at all the ‘organic’ shops around, look at the price tags.

Junk food manufacturer (and I’m not only talking about potato chips, but even ‘nutritious’ drinks fortified with WTF for smarter kids) admits that they are producing crap. Hey! I’m all for eating processed potato chips if I want to. Just don’t sugar coat things.

Emails, missed calls, sms are replied. Where’s the courtesy?

If it’s a no entry/one way on that road or in your condo car park, please- can you look up dictionary the meaning of One way/NO entry?

Days when people have the principle not to take short cuts that endanger, inconvenient others- just so they have their own little convenience.

People talk, as in talk, face to face, flesh to flesh (er, i think that’s another thing all together ) to each other.

A Twitter, sms or two is fine. But don’t Twitter, sms non stop when you are catching up with friends or anyone for that matter. What?! Their company is not enough for you?

Religions that unite, not divide.

Reality shows that’s beautiful, not perverted, ugly, shallow.

….the freedom to enjoy a beer or two, and the luxury of having just short of a handful of like minded friends to enjoy it with.

Completely broke down & cried.

Our Version 1 was almost completed, just final touches to improve the user interface. Dunno why, now it’s screwed up.

Had an online disagreement with business partner over her complaints of my ‘never-ending’ list on the completion of Version 1, that was already a great start to my Saturday working day.

Now, staring at the site, with all the carts f*cked up; when last night, I was beaming & excited and eagerly awaiting it to be completed.
Even got a customer who’s waiting to go online and order his one year cards from us tonight.

At this point, I dunno whether to continue pushing on to work on my today’s priority- Plan & action steps for next phase. (Great, since the site is f up, we are back to phase 1)
Or shall I continue to get beaten down and cry.

Cross between feeling like a victim/cry/curse/angry/fight/standing firm.

I am preparing our team members’ appointment letters, contracts, etc. And I am reading samples of actual appointment letters as a reference for me to draft them (boo hoo, where’s my HR manager?)…No wonder loads of people hate their work. Look at the appointment letters…are the management hiring a robot or slave??!!! JEEZ!!!!!

It all started out nice & polite:

‘We have pleasure in offering….

Then, it spiral downwards…

The Company may at its discretion extend the probationary period by another three (3) months.

You are advised that as a condition of your employment with the Company, you are liable to be transferred to work in any location, section, department, division, subsidiary, country or Line of Business at the absolute discretion of the Company. (If hell has a valid address, you bet we have the absolute discretion to send you there too!)

Should you be found to be medically unfit, your service shall be liable to be terminated. (translated- if you are dying, please don’t bother us)

Followed by MORE discretion..

An employee at the discretion of the Company….

But, they do end the slave contract with an encouraging ending though:

We take this opportunity to welcome you aboard and wish you a successful career with the Company. (Evil smile)

I am offended to read this letter, don’t see traces of humanity here…but ahh…you say, ‘Mel, just you wait till you deal with eeeeevvvvvil employees, then you will see why you need Evil Appointment Letter Writing Skill 101′…

Sigh…I mean, c’mon, is this it? Resorting to cold, technical jargons so that you can whip people into submission?!!

I went beyond beer…and bought these

Coz beer is my happy food (Yes food, never heard of liquid diet?) But these! These are a sign that I’m heading towards evil-dom.

I only bought chips for my own consumption, let’s see…less than 6 times in my entire life.

P/S: Pringles product review: Unless I have really gone insane, but the chips are much much smaller now. Yes, the size has shrunk. Maybe overall diameter shrunk by 20%. Even the chips are pathetic to match my mood.

P/P/S: Till my next upbeat-y, happy, motivational-ty post, I am officially calling it a day off for happy mood. Now, let me just work in silence.

Back from my 1st holiday ever in 2009, woohooo! Phuket, Kantary Bay, I love ya!

Worked for 2 days, then Hari Raya holidays, sheesh. Not that I don’t wanna work, but loads of kids around to entertain (myself included, LOL!)

Today, forced myself to wake up at a decent hour, gosh, and resume routine.

Only routine was heavily interrupted by mundane household chores, SHITES!

So, as of now, I am not in the best gung-ho mood, rather panicky. Man, this Coconect Version 1 Beta gotta get moving fast.

Back to work!

I was blessed with a complimentary ticket to Anthony Robbins, and I turned it down. Gave it to my hubby who was jumping up & down with joy. I mean, c’mon, this is Anthony Robbins, the man with 30 over years experience in meddling with people’s brain, and successfully done so!  (lol)

Was caught up with getting my website off the ground that I figure out I just couldn’t spare the time. Plus I thought I was already ok, and the need for a seminar is not urgent.

Well, true & false.

True- I am ok (Sheesh, after attending series & series of seminars this 2 years & mingling with like minded people, I better be)

False- There’s always time, and there’s always room for improvement. So, end of the day, instead of one, I was blessed with two tickets! Thus, a decision was made in a split second for both of us to go.

Hmm…so how should I share this? Truth is, it can’t be shared, it has to be experienced. A live concert is different from listening to Ipod, eh.

But, here’s bits & pieces of it…

The program is not about changing yourself, but rather about becoming yourself. I was once again transformed to a better version of myself.

This time round, I worked on conquering the 2 prisons that had trapped me-

1. My anger (phwoar!) Those who’s close to me will know (or got torched)

2. My health & energy

Stuff that just drained my energy, depriving me of living life to the fullest, working on my business, well, basically, crap.

Tony Robbins technique focused on rewiring the programming we had, the self limiting beliefs, and replacing it with new ones. Ya, a bit hocus pocus you might say? Well, he has worked with 1000 over suicidal case, and have not failed one. People with 15 years of smoking addiction quit within minutes…

Ahh!! I’ll spare the boring details, coz really, it has got to be experienced.

All in all, I had a blast! I haven’t heard so many F words in a seminar, a word that is close to my heart, lol.

I did the Firewalk after all. Yes, yes, walk on hot burning coals. Though I know it’s just a metaphor for a break thru, which I told myself I don’t really need it. But, they said, do it for a great bar story anyway. Well, that GOT me. And I DID IT! YES!!…and got blisters to show off now. Ahahahaha…

On Sunday night, we partied with water pistols & thumping music, I danced like mad (suspense eh, what the f*ck has this gotta do with a seminar?). And I couldn’t remember the last time I got so high sans alcohol. Now, I understand what’s a natural high, couldn’t stop laughing.

There were tears, there were heartaches, there were tears of joy, there were peace like I’ve never experienced before, there were new friendship born, and there are lifelong lessons that I will continue to apply & learn from this 4 days event.

So, if this is what a ‘motivational’ seminar is about, count me in. Count me in anytime.

“There is always room in your life for thinking bigger, pushing limits and imagining the impossible.”- Tony Robbins

This is insane.

In between working on my site since 10.30am, (Yes, it’s a 7 days working-week this 2 weeks) waiting for it to take more than 10 minutes to load PER minute changes…I had:

• Updated my blog TWICE
• Approve comments & replied
• Prepared lunch
• Had lunch
• Facebooked
• Sykped
• Drank coffee
• Did my budgeting
• Written my Will!!

I hereby grant myself the power to choose to STOP this insanity here and now. And give a call to my hairdresser or manicurist, focus on a single task- pampering myself, totally.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

What a wonderful movie! Ok, I won’t spill much beans on this movie for those who haven’t seen it, I’ll leave it for you to enjoy!

But here’s bits of it:

It revolves around this: My Adventure Book, it’s a scrapbook of a little girl that follows her till her adulthood, old age till she passes away…One of the things that resonate with me from this was, she had a page titled : Stuff that I’m going to do. And following were empty pages which she intended to fill up with her big adventures & dreams. But life turns out differently, as how life always likes to do.

What a brilliant reminder to go after Stuff I’m Going to Do…(and will do!), and YET remember to treasure all the LITTLE TREASURES along the way. Coz sometimes don’t we have grand plans, and we impatiently wait for it to materialize…sometimes forgetting that treasures are aplenty, here and now?

I remember these words from Tenzin Kacho (formerly Emi Kiyosaki, yes, she is Robert Kiyosaki’s sis). She is now a Tibetan nun, involves in hospice work where she talks to people facing death.  Through it, she realizes the common regrets of dying people:

3 of man’s biggest regrets in life:

1. Regret that they didn’t lead their life (Mel’s understanding: Take the leap of faith to go after what I really wanted & believe in)
2. Regret that they didn’t forgive or love someone. (Mel’s understanding: Give, and don’t expect a return)
3. Regret that they didn’t speak out. (Mel’s understanding: Express yourself, be it love or forgiveness in your heart)

And to add to this, over a beery conversation last Friday (me, not her) with a dear friend, she told me: When you die, it’s irrelevant to argue over where to put the table, who is right, who’s wrong.

Someone asked me, are you afraid of dying? Of course everyone is afraid in one way or another. But my fear which is my biggest drive is this: ”I do not wish to realise when I die, that I had not lived “

Because, really, everything is irrelevant after you die.

Sometimes, the journey of entrepreneurship is lonely, ya know. It’s you & the world, and you don’t get to bitch with co-workers how the boss sucks, and everything sucks. (Coz the boss is me, ahahahahah)

This is on my notice board right in front of me. Sort of like my bible whenever I got lost.

1.Dream big

2.Do what you love to do

3.Commit to excellence- be the top 10% in your biz

4.Develop unique ability

5.Accept responsibility

6.Develop a clear sense of direction

7.Refuse to consider possibility of failure

8.Solutions oriented

9.Develop workaholic mentality-work very hard at the beginning of your biz

10.Get around the right positive people

11.Be prepared to go from peak to peak

12.Develop resilience and bounce back-how long does it take for you to get back to normal? (Mel’s note: That’s me NOW)

13.Focus questions- ask yourself brutal questions

14.Become unshakable optimist-think/talk abt your goals all the time. Look 4 the good in evry situation

15.Dedicate yourself to serving others

16.Develop reputation for speed & dependability-which activity contributes the most to your biz?

17.Be very honest with yourself- what’s the situation honestly? Don’t self disillusion

18.Concentrate single-minded-ly one at a time

19.Be decisive

20.Backed everything you do with courage & persistence

21.Self-disipline – take time to plan, then decide & ACTION!

Courtesy of Brian Tracy (I think I got these gold nuggets from his seminar)

Boy oh boy, am I in a foul, foul mood today. No, not today, this whole freaking week. Yeah, goes to show you people, Mel is NOT always motivational ok. That said, I do have tricks & tactics up my sleeve to pick myself up when stinking mood hits (NO, I’m not talking about beer today, though normally it helps a goddamn lot)

I found this note I’ve taken a year back. Few pointers I heard over a seminar & resonate with (to? Bah, my lousy grammar), and typed it out. These kind of things are always always good for emergency use. Good timing to use them now when I’m in my woe-is-me, helpless, overwhelmed mood (Though I still think beer will still help a lot…..GAH!! MEL!!)

I hope it will help you as much as it had (and still have) helped me.

Next, oooh, brutal questions…time for a self review? Click here for self review questions.