I should have written this sooner. If I did, I would have been rich, famous, fat, bald as a turtle, divorced twice and living the high life by now. Anyway, that's how successful people end up, don't they?

The other day, my colleague mentioned a book by some Chinese author with a title that translates to something like this: "It's not that you can't, you don't know how to". I could have written the book.

This is supposed to be Wahoo' s Second Law. Let me repeat it again:

It's not that you can't, it's just that you don't know how to, yet

Wahoo's First Law: We live in our own Matrix

If you've been reading me, you'd know that I've been writing a lot of self-help/positive thinking/motivation stuffs in my recent posts. It doesn't really help much in increasing my blog's readership but I have this innate hunger for all things 'self-nourishing' and would pay any price towards a path of self-awareness and growth. So what better way to do that than to blog about it as a way of cataloging and organizing all that's in my tiny brain. I'm a self-obsessed bastard. I know.
But then again, aren't we all?

It's like a coming out of the closet thing for me, all this writing about success and fulfillment stuffs. So I really like to let you know that it means a lot to me that you're reading my writings and that you appreciate the awesomeness of the knowledge I reveal to you. I also believe with unfaltering certainty when the day comes I'm publishing my first book, you'd be bulldozing your way to the book store to grab a copy of my bestseller to be, to experience the physical form of an awesomeness unmatched for a long time to come.

That's the image of my visualization sessions these days. But that's the topic for another day.


Disclaimer


I hope you realise what I'm going to tell you can change your life in the most mind blowing way possible. Or it's going to mess up you brain you swear someone poked your head with a screwdriver and scrambled everything inside your skull.

What I'm going to do is to render some very convenient excuses you've used your whole life to protect your ego useless.
If you understand it correctly, you'll feel responsible for every single shit that happened to you, and all those that are going to happen. If you're able to handle it, the power that comes with it is surreal. If you can't, you'll remain as what you are, a complainer and a 'victim' of life.

I hope you know I'm being harsh on you, as I'm being harsh on myself. There is no use for excuses in life. When you can be honest with yourself, you can start living your life.

let's get back to Wahoo's second law and it's awesomeness.


What the heck does it mean?

What it's saying is this: Whatever you want to do in life, you can do it. If you ever feel you can't, it's not that you can't, you just don't know how to.

It's not a question of capability, it's a question of strategy

Moments when we're stuck with an impossible situation is common. We all know the feeling of reaching a place where you're not able to proceed to the next level. The reasons are many: lack of skills, lack of experience, being too young, being too old, someone stopping you, the situation does not permit, responsibilities, and so on and so forth.



References can change your life.

The thing is, whenever someone give me a reason they are not able to do something, I can think of an example where someone in a similar situation did just what's supposed to be impossible. Even if I can't think of any examples, I know and believe it's out there. I just have to look for it and learn from it to enable me to do whatever it is I want to do.

Ask yourself: Is it really the impossibility of things or are we lacking in the department of having good references.

A reference = examples of situations we come to know of.

The first thing that will help you is understanding this:

The quality of your life depends on the quality of your references

Let's say you lived in a small village in Africa your whole life. By the time you're 18 years old, you've picked the most beautiful girl in the village and got married. You lived the happiest days of your life with your beautiful wife until you're 21 years old. Then you received an omen from the stone god in a wet dream one night prompting you to make a decision to leave the village to venture to Malaysia, a supposedly heavenly country where you will live your destiny of bringing enlightenment to the leaders of this country on their boastful and lustful ways. After getting rid of these bozos called politicians, you will be elected king and live a rich and revered life with 20 wives and 200 concubines. Ahem. When you did make your trip and reach Malaysia, you realized you've never seen such beautiful people in your whole life! Even the 40 years old aunty sweeping the streets is more beautiful than your young wife back in Africa. Shocked by the discovery, you had an heart attack and died.

My story is a bit over the top in the imagination department but it does illustrate my point. When you think you've tasted the most tasty 'bak kut teh' ever, have you really? How many other 'bak kut teh' shops have you not tried? The best 'bak kut teh' in Ipoh does not even compare to the worst one in Klang.

When you say you can't do something, are you referring to the the lack of idea as to how to do it or is it that you're doubting your ability?

Normally, you feel you can't mainly because of one of these two reasons:

1) You've never seen anyone successfully doing it.
2) You've only seen a lot of people fail at doing it.


Have you heard of the four minute mile story? It's a true story that illustrate the importance of having a good reference for your success.

Up until 1954, it was believed that man do not have the physical ability to run 1 mile in under 4 minutes. Sport's specialist and physicians would testify that the human body do not have the ability to achieve this feat. This created a belief system so strong that it kept the four minutes barrier from being broken. In 1954, Roger Banister became the first man to break the four minute mile barrier, clocking 3'59".4. That same year, 37 other people broke it. The following year, more than 300 people broke the four minute mile.

Now how does a record that's been thought to be impossible to break for hundreds of years can suddenly be broken by so many people at such a short period of time?
Did something change in the body of these people giving them the superhuman strength to do the impossible? Did time slow down to suddenly allow more people to run faster? Do you want to slap me for saying these ridiculous things?

The only change that happened is there is a new reference for these runners. Suddenly the excuse that the human body cannot run one mile in four minutes seems like a heap of bollocks. From the pile of stinkiness that is the beliefs of these runners, rise a new belief that the human body is not just awesome, but can also run a mile in less than four minutes.


Capability vs strategy

If you think you can't, it's simply that you do not know the right strategy to do something.
What you need to do is to install a new strategy, that is one of learning. Anything that you can't do at the moment will become possible if you decide to learn to do it.

I have this belief: Anything can be learned! ANYTHING.

If you think you can't, you're either too lazy or too hard on yourself!

Sometimes, I hear some people complaint that some things are just too hard to learn. It might take forever or need herculean efforts. The question is: are you using the right strategy?

Ask a better question instead: How do I learn it faster, and enjoy the process?


Note to self: 'The power of questions' is the topic of my next post.


'And' vs 'Or'

Sometimes it's a matter of asking the right questions and using the right strategy. I've learned the power of 'and' mindset versus 'or' mindset in a T. Harv Eker workshop.

For example: There is a RM10 in my left hand and RM100 in my right hand. If I ask you to choose, which one would you choose?
You're smart if you choose the RM100 note, but you're smarter if you choose both! Whoever told you you can't have both? Or even to take the RM1000 in my pocket?

Think about these:

I cannot be rich, healthy, happy and fulfilled at the same time.
I must choose between family or wealth.
I cannot be doing what I'm passionate about and expect to be rich at the same time.
Politicians are all crooks. If I want to be a politician, I must learn to be a crook.

Are you operating with the 'or' mindset or 'and' mindset?
Why would anyone sane be choosing between being rich and having a loving and happy family? Why do you even have to choose between these two?!

Always know that there are a better way of doing things. Also, always know the difference between learning from success and learning from failure.

If you tell me it's impossible to have wealth and a loving family at the same time and quote me various examples of people you've met or even admire who are rich but do not have a loving family life, or vice versa, I know you're learning from failures. My advice would be to go out there and search for new references. Look for people who are rich, successful, have a loving family an learn from them instead!

It is the most ridiculous thing in the world but I swear so many people do it. It's almost funny how many people tend to learn from failures than from success.

If you want to be successful, learn from examples of success, if you want to fail, learn from examples of failure

The time factor

I have come to believe that anything is possible in life. Anything you want to achieve, there is a way to it. If you can't do it now, it's because you lack the knowledge and strategies. And the most powerful tool you have is your ability to learn. We can learn almost anything we want to, also with the right strategy.

There is a final frontier to explore, the sole limiting factor in the equation of success: time.

The truth is, you can't be doing everything at the same time. Time spent doing A is irreplaceable and can't be used to do B. Even though it's possible to achieve almost anything you want, you have only so much time to invest in. If you live to be 80, you have only 80 years to spend. Make good use of that time.



So the question you should be asking instead of 'Can I do it?', 'Am I capable enough?' is 'Should I invest my time learning to do this?' or 'Is it worth my time doing this or is there a better option to get the same results?'.

Don't even think about whether you can, just assume you can, and think of 'Is it worth my time?'.

I'm not even going to ask you whether you've tried dieting.

Because somewhere along the way, you'd have known someone who did, and thus would be able to relate to the 'dieting experience'.

If I were to ask you how many people you know who are successful dieters, meaning they have shed some pounds through the process of dieting (the use of the words 'I'm on diet' being the key identifier here) and have kept it that way since, for long term; my hallucination is that you couldn't even name one.

My argument is, the concept that denotes conventional dieting does not work.



Why the concept of 'Dieting' don't work.

What do you think of when you think of dieting?



I think of ........

Christy Chung

Andrea Fonseka

Bernice Liu

Naturally, I think of girls with 'to die for' bodies. But that's just me being sexist ;P

Ok, that was simply a lame excuse to put some chick photos in my blog, to increase readership.... :)


Anyway, let me prove to you that diet don't work, not because we're not capable of controlling our body weight if we want to, but because the concept of dieting as we have come to know it, is counter productive. That's why we often see dieters face the problem of weight rebound.

The reason almost all dieting fails is this (pay attention, this is a biggie):

We attach a time frame to dieting

Yes, it is as simple as that. It is more complicated when we dissect the psychological impact of attaching a time frame to dieting ,whether we do it consciously or subconsciously.

To understand further, we need to know what dieting means to most people.
Ask yourself these questions:

What is the purpose of dieting to you? What is your target weight? What happens when you reach your target weight?
Dieting normally means sticking to a particular regime (meals, exercise, sleep, activities) for a period of time until you reach your target weight.

Normally, nobody tells you what happens when you succeed. Therein lies the problem. More often than not, we are 'forced' to go back to our daily habits before dieting. That is, we live a 'normal' life again.

If you ever start a dieting regime without answering all the three questions above, you're in for failure.
If you think dieting is a method of getting to your target weight and only that, you're in for failure.

Here's the bottom line:

If you do anything short of changing your lifestyle permanently to sustain a healthy weight, you're in for failure.

So many people are afraid of these words: change your lifestyle, permanently. Yet it is the only effective means of achieving and keeping your ideal or healthy weight.

In fact, it is the only means of achieving and keeping anything permanently in life.


Remember this: Change is a conditioning process.

Change is not a switch you flip and get the results for good. Here's a good story by Tony Robbins to illustrate my point:


Tony owns a grand piano he doesn't play, cause he doesn't know how to. He has just got the bucks to buy whatever he fancies even though he doesn't need them, simply because it's cool to be able to own things you don't need. If you know what I mean. What blissful lifestyle ;)

Anyway, one fateful day, he calls a piano tuner-technician to calibrate his piano. You know, a person who come and adjust the strings in a piano to make them sound good again. After the technician worked his magic, when he was about to leave, he told Tony that he'll be coming back the next week. Tony asked him why, and he explained that because the strings were stretched in a certain way for a long period of time, he needs to condition it back to keep it working.

He explained further that even after the second tuning, he would have to come back every month, then every 3 months and after that every 6 months just to keep it working the way it is.
Tony uses this story to explain his brand of change technology, which moves from NLP (Neuro Linguistic programming) to NAC (Neuro Associative Conditioning).



As an expert in personal change, Tony clearly understands that change do not last if not conditioned into our daily life by taking on new habits. Be it bad habits like smoking or unhealthy diets to larger patterns of behavior like financial success, relationship success, peak performance; all needs new habits to calibrate and tune our behaviors to make it consistent. Daily rituals, to keep conditioning our mind, to make it stick.


I repeat, if you ever start a diet regime thinking: "I'm going to stay off deserts/supper/chocolate or I'm hitting the gym 4 times a week....until I get to my ideal weight. Then I can have my deserts/ supper etc, as reward. You are heading for failure.


What to do?

So you see, there is no other way. Those people who you see who succeeded in dieting and kept it that way, have all taken on new habits and behavior to support their weight change. They've changed their lifestyle, in some ways. They are using a conditioning mindset.

If you are going to start dieting, think about what is it that you can change permanently in your life in order to support your new healthy target weight. Think about what new habits you can build into your daily routines like fixed meal time, avoiding junk foods, exercise 3 times a week etc, etc.

You don't even have to do everything at once. Start with a few simple steps and build it from there. It will not just be good for your weight problems, it will be good for your life. You'll have more positive energy and your self esteem will go up for successfully making positive changes of habits.

Remember, you need to change your mindset to change you life. Hit and run diets programmes will not work in the long run, in fact, statistics shows that dieters often put on more weight and becomes heavier than they were after a diet programme! The same is true with hit-and-run mentaility of dieting until you reach a certain weight and then rewarding yourself.



Stop kidding yourself, because you deserve a better lifestyle.

The second part of the self-belief paradox:

"Don't believe in yourself too much."

How can we live with such conflicting rules in life?

The reason we face so many challenges in life is because we have conflicting needs that need to be fulfilled at the same time. To be able to have a healthy self esteem ,we need to cultivate a certain amount of self-belief. At the same time, you should not believe in yourself too much to the point of being egoistic.

So while you need to believe in yourself, you also need to be able to take advice and suggestions from others, even when it is against what you believe in.

Doubting yourself sometimes is not a sign of weakness. It shows maturity. Only a person who truly believes in his own self worth is able to take criticism from others and look at himself critically, without hurting his own self image.

Mistakes is as much a part of life as everything else. As they say, to err is to be human. Being critical at oneself can be a great asset. We should strive to constantly improve every area of our life, and mistakes (or failures) serves the purpose of letting us know the area we should improve on.

Therefore, making mistakes should not hurt your self esteem. Our mistakes are not us. Our behavior is not us. I know this can be hard to accept, because we’re often judged by what we do. I believe that it holds true to other people, that we are our actions. But for ourself, we should not be constrained by our past actions (yet another paradox, but too lengthy to discuss in this post). What we can't do in the past does not mean we can't do in the future. Whatever mistakes we made yesterday do not mean we're going to repeat it again tomorrow. We often define ourselves as a certain type of person. Which can be a huge mistake!. Don't trap yourself with your past actions!

So you see. It's ok that you're not perfect, and its ok that someone notice and points it out to you. Don't be too confident about yourself until you're arrogant to the opinions of others.

The other problem is, not everyone can be truly truthful to themselves. We have a built in self protective mechanism for our inner ego. It is hard to admit a mistake to other people, it is even harder to admit it to ourselves.

So here comes the part where seeking the balance becomes very important in the paradox of self belief. Believe in your self worth but also know that you're not perfect. Life is about striking the balance. It's yin and yang, baby.

One thing striking about a person who are able to follow these two rules at the same time is that they are extremely confident and comfortable under their own skin. I immediately think of Simon Cowell, the American Idol judge.

Learn from him. Better yet, read his autobio titled: 'I don't mean to be rude, but...'

I think, a person truly able to grasp the meaning of the paradox of self-belief has these qualities:

1) Able to love yourself unconditionally, therefore also able to love others the same way.
2) Comfortable under your own skin, unafraid to speak your mind.
3) Able to take criticism in a positive way. Taking it as an honest opinion, rather than a personal attack.
4) Able to accept and love someone with a different opinion and beliefs.
5) Willing to admit your own mistakes and make amends if need be.
6) Willing to learn.



Let me know what you think.

According to scientific research, happier people follows these two advice:

1) Believe in yourself.

2) Don't believe in yourself too much.

That's the thing about life. It's complicated.

"Everything worth knowing in life comes in a paradox."
- unknown

The wise will tell you that life is about searching for balance. Everything you think is important in life has two sides. You can't just take care of one side and forget the other. In other words, you can't be too extreme and be at only one end of the spectrum. The other end is important too. Consider this other quote:

"The opposite of a profound truth is often another profound truth"
- unknown

Your head is probably throbbing by now. I can be really abstract sometimes. But abstract ideas can only be explained in abstract ways. Or maybe that's the only way I know of explaining things ;P

To make things simpler, let's look at an example.

The question of self-belief is probably the most important element pertaining to the success of a person. Simply, you need to believe in yourself and your abilities to be able to function at an exceptional level that people will consider you a success. People with intact self-belief or high self-esteem are generally able to achieve more in life simply because they take more action. Their self-belief provides a basis for a more positive outlook in life and therefore motivates them to do more.

By now, you should realize that self-belief is without doubt an important arsenal to have in the pursue of success in life. So you should have absolute self-belief. Actually, only in certain context.

Just how important are self-beliefs? It makes or breaks you. It defines your life. You should have absolute self-beliefs in these areas:



1) Your self worth.

You are here for a reason. You should know by now you're not some kind of alien experiment or you're not a byproduct (or side effect) of your parent's naughtiness :p
Your self worth is the single most important thing that shapes your life. You must understand that for the single reason that you're born into this earth, your life is worth living, you are a worthy human being, regardless of your current achievement and past experiences.

You're not an accident, the events that have to take place for you to be born is almost impossible. Consider the long line of ancestors that dates back to the beginning of life itself. Each one of your ancestor will have to meet and mate successfully.

That means there are probably hundreds of thousands of people that have to mate with an exact person and not anyone else to be able to lead to the production of you! Of the millions of sperms that was out there, that single sperm that carries half your genetic material have to be the first to reach and fertilize the particular egg that carries the other half to successfully bring you to life. You think that's coincidence?

Believe it!! You're a miracle!

So whatever you encounter in life, you should never doubt your own worthiness. You should love yourself unconditionally. Only then can you love others the same way.



2) Your ability to lead a happy life.


Let's face it, life's tough. You will meet with all sorts of challenges but there is no doubt that if you make an effort and are willing to learn, you will be able to live your life happily. If you're constantly not happy with your life's circumstances or your own achievement in life, you're being too tough on yourself!

If you've changed everything that need to be changed and are still not happy, change your perspective.

This is life's guaranty: There will be difficult times. There will be times so tough you'd wished you've not come out of the womb. Life is about choices that you make, and happiness, like everything else, IS A CHOICE. You can choose to be happy. No matter what. No one can take that decision from you.

Make the most of what you have. This is the best advice anyone can give you about being happy: Be Happy!


End of part one.

Stay tuned for the next part: Don't believe in yourself too much.

This may be the best advice you can get in the area of self development. I'm not kidding.

I'm telling you this because that's what I just did.

Let me get this straight: I'm not teaching you to be a rebel. You're doing fine the way you are already, I know you are. Anyway, I'm way past that 'rebellious age' when everything my parents say seems like the worst advice in the world, where everything seems like just tricks to exert control over me. We're all born good rebels.

What I mean is don't listen to your parents all the time. I assume you have a fair judgment on when your parents are giving REALLY good advice, like we they tell you don't jump in front of that on coming truck. Other than that, it's really up to you, because it's your god damn life, and as long as you're willing and are mature enough to take responsibility for whatever happens, you're entitled to act on your own free will.

Come to think of it, it's ok even if you don't listen to them when they tell you you'll die if you're hit by that truck. You should do it anyway, if you want, cause it's really YOUR god damn life. I'm not the one who goes to hell as a consequence of that. So go ahead. Yes, you just realized it, didn't you? Don't listen to anyone, NOT EVEN ME. Actually, ESPECIALLY me.

Our parents can really become the greatest source of encouragement and motivation for us or the greatest obstacle, can't they? You see, your parents will always try to 'protect' you. They will try to show you the best course of living your life based on their experience. It's all good, if you want to life a life exactly like theirs.

I personally believe we can be so much more than our parents. I'm not being arrogant or disrespectful. I'd like to think that I'm a filial son. A lot of people say I am ;P

The thing is, however successful your parents are, you can always strive to do better. You can take whatever great life experiences of your parents and learn from it. You can also learn from all their mistakes, and then you can learn to do better than them. Our parents are our greatest teacher. They are willing to teach and most of the time WILL FORCE YOU TO LEARN FROM THEM.

You know they do it for your own good (in their opinion). But what they think is good is not always the best for you, right. They have their limiting beliefs. What you should do is identify what those are and be able to make your own decisions.

In conclusion:

1) Identify some of your parents limiting beliefs that prevents them from achieving much more than they should have. (Yes, even people like Lim Goh Tong has them, I believe, and Lim Kok Thay should know them, to be more successful than his dad.)

2) You don't have to start a shouting match to make your point. Well, nothing wrong with that if the occasion calls for it, but there are always more positive ways to get your point across.

I believe standing up to your parents is not really an issue to a lot of you reading this. Especially the younger generation nowadays. I guess the trick is to do it in a way that do not drive them up the wall and yet, you get your way. Yes, it is possible. If you can't seem be able to do it yet, it means you have much much more to learn. Actually, don't we all?