16 rules for guaranteed success!

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone.
   I believe that not much happens of any significance when we’re in our comfort zone. I hear people say, “But I’m concerned about security.” My response to that is simple: “Security is for cadavers.”
2. Never give up.
   Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.
3. When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think.
   There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”
4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be.
   Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.” My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, “Well, Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.”
5. Focus on what you want to have happen.
   Remember that old saying, “As you think, so shall you be.”
6. Take things a day at a time.
   No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.
7. Always be moving forward.
   Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.
8. Be quick to decide.
   Remember what General George S. Patton said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”
9. Measure everything of significance.
   I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.
10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.
    If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.
11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing.
    When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.
12. Never let anybody push you around.
    In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided that what you’re doing is legal.
13. Never expect life to be fair.
    Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).
14. Solve your own problems.
    You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.” There’s also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: “A wise man keeps his own counsel.”
15. Don’t take yourself too seriously.
    Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There’s always a reason to smile.
    Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time!”

[Source: Dr. Bob Parson’s Blog at Godaddy]

An Interesting Mouse Story

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

“What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered – he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning.

“There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap
in the house!”

The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”

The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap
in the house!”

The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap– alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house — like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember —
when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

40 Tips for Better Life

I can not imply how important and simple the following tips are. They will really change your life for good and make you feel really great.

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
3. Buy a DVR and tape your late night shows and get more sleep.
4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, My purpose is to __________ today.
5. Live with the 3 Es Energy, Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
6. Play more games and read more books than you did in 2007.
7. Make time to practice meditation, and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives.
8. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.
9. Dream more while you are awake.
10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
11. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts.
12. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
13. Clear clutter from your house, your car, your desk and let new and flowing energy into your life.
14. Dont waste your precious energy on gossip, OR issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
17. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the nagative blues away.
18. Life isnt fair, but its still good.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
20. Dont take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
21. You dont have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
22. Make peace with your past so it wont spoil the present.
23. Dont compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
24. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
25. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: In five years, will this matter?
26. Forgive everyone for everything.
27. What other people think of you is none of your business.
28. Remember God heals everything.
29. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
30. Your job wont take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.
31. Get rid of anything that isnt useful, beautiful or joyful.
32. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
33. The best is yet to come.
34. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
35. Do the right thing!
36. Call your family often.
37. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for _______. Today I accomplished ____.
38. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.
39. Enjoy the ride. Remember this is not Disney World and you certainly dont want a fast pass. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy the ride.
40. Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you cant change.

Source

Friendship and Love

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person – her name was Information Please and there was nothing she did not know. Information Please could supply anybody’s number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway – The telephone!

Quickly I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. Information Please I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. “Information.”
“I hurt my finger. . .” I wailed into the phone.
The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.
“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.
“Nobody’s home but me.” I blubbered.
“Are you bleeding?”
“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”
“Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could. “Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger.”

After that I called Information Please for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math, and she told me my pet chipmunk I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts.

And there was the time that Petey, our pet canary died. I called Information Please and told her the sad story.She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was unconsoled.

Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers, feet up on the bottom of a cage? She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone.
“Information please.”
“Information,” said the now familiar voice.
“How do you spell fix?” I asked.

All this took place in a small town in the pacific Northwest. Then when I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. Information Please belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the hall table.

Yet as I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me; often in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between plane, and I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information Please”.

Miraculously, I heard again the small, clear voice I knew so well,
“Information.” I hadn’t planned this but I heard myself saying,
“Could you tell me please how-to spell fix?”

There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, “I guess that your finger must have healed by now.”

I laughed, “So it’s really still you,” I said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time. “I wonder, she said, if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls.

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.

“Please do, just ask for Sally.”

Just three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered Information and I asked for Sally.

“Are you a friend?”
“Yes, a very old friend.”
“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you. Sally has been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.”

But before I could hang up she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down. Here it is I’ll read it ‘Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean’. ”

I thanked her and hung up. I did know what Sally meant.

The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.

[Source : http://www.ntu.edu.sg/home/hblim/passages/information.htm%5D

Another Blonde Joke

If you are blonde, forgive me, I don’t write them I just post it here if I find it funny ……

A blonde walks into a pharmacy and asks for some rectum deodorant.

The pharmacist, a little bemused, explains to the woman that they don’t sell rectum deodorant, and never have.

Unfazed, the blonde assures the pharmacist that she has been buying the stuff from drug stores on a regular basis and would like some more.

“I’m sorry”, says the pharmacist, “we don’t have any”

“But I always buy it at drug stores,” says the blonde.

“Do you have the container that it came in?” asks the pharmacist…

“YES,” said the blonde, “I’ll go home and get it.”

She returns with the container and hands it to the pharmacist who looks at it and says to her, “This is just a normal stick of underarm deodorant”

Annoyed, the blonde snatches the container back and reads out loud from the container…

“TO APPLY, PUSH UP BOTTOM.”

A Smart Old Guy

An older, white haired man walked into a jewelry store one Friday evening with a beautiful young gal at his side.

He told the jeweler he was looking for a special ring for his girlfriend.

The jeweler looked through his stock and brought out a $5,000 ring. The old man said, “No, I’d like to see something more special.”

At that statement, the jeweler went to his special stock and brought another ring over. “Here’s a stunning ring at only $40,000” the jeweler said.

The young lady’s eyes sparkled and her whole body trembled with excitement. The old man seeing this said, “We’ll take it.”

The jeweler asked how payment would be made and the old man stated, “By check. I know you need to make sure my check is good, so I’ll write it now and you can call the bank Monday to verify the funds and I’ll pick the ring up Monday afternoon,” he said.

Monday morning, the jeweler phoned the old man. “There’s no money in that account.”

“I know,” said the old man, “But let me tell you about my weekend!”

A Fottle

Recently, I went to the Patent Office trying to register some of my inventions. I went to the main desk to sign in, and the lady at the desk had a form that had to be filled out. She wrote down my personal info and then asked me what I had invented.

I said, “A folding bottle.” She said, “Okay, what do you call it?”

“A Fottle.”

“What else do you have?”

“A folding carton.” “What do you call it?”

“A Farton.”

She sniggered and said, “Those are silly names for products, and one of them sounds kind of crude.”

I was so upset by her comment that I grabbed the form and left the office without even telling her about my folding bucket.

A Pilot and a CNN Photographer

A photographer for CNN was assigned to cover southern California’s wildfires last year. He wanted pictures of the heroic work the firefighters were doing as they battled the blazes. When the photographer arrived on the scene, however, the smoke was so thick it was impossible to get good photographs from the ground level. He requested permission from his boss to rent a plane and take photos from the air. His request was approved and he used his cell phone to call the local County airport to charter a flight. He was told a single engine
plane would be waiting for him at the airport.

Arriving at the airfield, he spotted a plane warming up outside a hanger. He jumped in with his bag, slammed the door shut, and shouted, “Let’s go”. The pilot taxied out, swung the plane into the wind and roared down the runway. Once in the air, the photographer instructed the pilot, “Fly over the valley and make two or three low passes so I can take some pictures of the fires on the hillsides.”

“Why?” asked the pilot.

“Because I’m a photographer for CNN,” he responded, “and I need to get some close-up shots.”

The pilot was strangely silent for a moment, finally he stammered, “So, what you’re telling me is….. you’re NOT my flight instructor???”

Bronze Statue

A guy is visiting San Francisco, and walks into a small store in Chinatown.

He notices a small bronze statue of a rat.

He asks the owner “how much”, and the owner replies “$50 for the bronze rat, and $1000 for the story behind it”.

The guy says, “forget the story”, and buys the rat.

As he’s walking down the street he notices two live rats following him. As he continues to walk, more rats start following him.

He starts to get a little concerned, and heads for the waterfront. By the time he gets there there are thousands and thousands of rats following him.

He walks up to the end of the pier and throws the bronze rat into the bay, and the rats all follow and leap off of the pier and drown.

The guy rushes back to the store and walks in. The owner says, “Ah!, so you are back for the story”.

The guys says, “no, I was wondering if you have any bronze lawyers?”

Round like a Shot

Going to bed the other night I noticed people in my shed stealing things. I phoned the police but was told no one was in the area to help. They said they would send someone over as soon as possible.

I hung up. A minute later I rang again. ‘Hello,’ I said, ‘I called you a minute ago because there were people in my shed. You don’t have to hurry now because I’ve shot them.’

Within minutes, there were half a dozen police cars in the area, plus helicopters, and an armed response unit. They caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the officers said: ‘I thought you said you’d shot them.’

To which I replied: ‘I thought you said there was no one available.’