Think Big Dream High,E35- Those Who Are Not Able To Manage Success

Success

1.All of us dreamt of success. All of us work hard to succeed. All of us do not want success to be temporary. All of us do not want success to be enjoyed mid-way only. All of us want to maintain success forever. All of us want to succeed in every single thing that we do.

2.Now we are successful. We felt exhilarated when we actually succeeded. We are successful in our studies, career, life and politics. Chasing after success is not easy. Its not easy to succeed. Managing success is actually more difficult than putting in the effort to achieve success. Most of us failed in managing our success.

Reality in Life    

1.Most successful  people are not able to maintain their success. Most students were able to obtain 9As for their SPM examination but were not able to continue their studies even up to the first degree level. They failed half way in their studies. We read news of an eighteen year old student who graduated with first class honours but a failure in life and ended up as an upper class  prostitute.

2.Tiger Woods was the world’s no 1 golf player until 2010. He shocked his fans all over the world by falling to no 7 world ranking. That was a year after the car accident that uncovered his infidelity towards his wife in November 2009. As a result of the incident,Tiger failed to win any of the major championships entered since 2008.

3.Rory Mcllroy is now the world’s golf no 1 player.In 2012 he won the top money list titles for both PGA tours and European tours. Even though he is only 21 years old, Roy Mcllroy does  have the physical, mental and emotional strengths  to manage the stiff competition. He is capable of  controlling the pressure and emotions during each tough game. He possesses an amazing intellectual strength and self confidence to face the challenging golf courses and spectators.        

4.The first generation was successful in business. The second generation was successful in expanding the business empire. The third generation however, is slowly destroying all the success created by the previous two generations before him. The grandfather from a poor background was able to built a successful business empire. His son who inherited his wealth was successful in expanding the business. The grandson who inherited all the wealth from his father is slowly destroying the business empire handed down by his grandfather.

5.Many politicians and leaders struggle to succeed. YAB Tun Abdullah, our former PM was able to secure the highest position in government or in his political party. However, upon securing the highest position in government as Prime Minister, he failed to maintain his career success.   YB Dato’ Seri  Anwar Ibrahim, the Opposition leader, at one time was at the height of his career and his popularity was on the rise but he failed mid-way.

6.Many PTD or Government Heads of Department struggled to do any possible thing to lobby for promotion and be successful. There are those who were able to hold JUSA or higher positions. However, upon successfully occupying this position, they failed to maintain their career success. The media is always reporting news of these higher position officers caught committing adultery  with their former secretaries or girl friends. There were many higher level officers including former Minister charged by SPRM for graft cases or living beyond their means.

7.All of the above scenarios actually existed and happened. Why does this happened? Why does a brilliant student failed in her life? Why does a world famous golf player failed in the golf tournament he participated. Why does the above corporate leader failed to maintain his expanding business empire? Why do the political leaders failed to maintain their positions eventhough they were  at the top of their careers? Why do the above Heads of Department failed to develop further their careers? Why do these people failed to manage the success achieved?.                

Tips

1.Maintaining success requires inherent skills.  Having working skills enabled us to achieve success. The skills in managing success is not the same skills required in order to succeed. Many people failed to succeed. It is the norm. Many people who are successful failed to manage their success. This is something interesting for us to find out the reason.

2.We always assumed that somebody who is successful will continuously be successful. It does not happened that way. A lot depended on their skills and capabalities to manage their success. A successful person can fail and their failure is a disappointment not only to themselves or their families but to those people who read their story in medias the world over.

3.Love, women, money, wealth, greed, selfish, ict illiterate, poor mental resilience, poor pressure resilience and impatience are among the things related to failure either on its own or a combination of them. These were some of the reasons noted why a person failed to manage their success. Suffice to open up our minds and lessons learned  in managing success. Thus, we therefore need to avoid, distance ourselves, shut our eyes so as not to be involved with infidelity, power crazy, questionable source of money and greed in all aspects of our lives.

4. All of these factors related to unhealthy desires and wants in actual fact are refrained by Allah SWT for us to be involved with. In the event we still want to be involved, be involved in a manner allowed and ordained by Allah SWT. For example, if we love a woman so much, marry them the syariah way. If we love money and wealth so much, accumulate them in a legal manner. If we love power, secure it in a clean way. InsyaAllah when our acts are checked, done in an honest and proper way, we should be able to manage and sustain our success for a long time.

5.There are many examples of people who were able to manage their success. Again we cannot ignore our son of the soil, YABhg Tun Dr Mahathir as the role model in this aspect. Tun not only manages and maneuvered his success but he was also able to manage the many crisis he was confronted with in a jubilant manner. His most prominent career well known to the public was as a politician and Prime Minister. How come Tun was able to face and overcome  all the crisis and yet still be successful. The answer is love. As we knew it, Tun truly loves his wife, his family, his career, the nation and its people.

6. Women- Tun was able to put a barrier on any forms of ill intentions  relating to women and sex eventhough there were some trials and tribulations. Wealth- Tun gave his full attention and focused  on his role and career as a politician, no reports of taking grafts on him. Of cause his sons on their own are in business and can be categorized as super rich. Throne- Tun was at the top of the power throne but he was skillful in managing this throne. At the ground level, rakyat were not able to smell any kind of wrongdoings or arrogance.

7. His mental strength is strong and superb. He has strong convictions. Tun was able to face all kinds of pressure either from within or externally and from various segments of the communities but Tun was smart, rationale and logical in confronting all of these issues. Tun was a very patient man  throughout his more than 39 years political career. Tun is actually successful and excellent in managing his success. He is actually a successful and an exemplary  mega manager and statesman. Tun, I believe is a person who always think big dream high and has a strong heart. 

Think Big Dream High,E34 – A Small and Simple Thing But Difficult To Do and Practise

Small And Simple Things

1.It is the norm for us to ignore things that are small and simple. We prefer the complex and big things. We assumed complex and big things has got class and come with challenges. Simple and small things has got no excitement and are of no issue. Every other person  can do it. As  a result we overlooked things and am not interested in  re-doing it again.

2.Success in life is closely related to our strengths.  We need to have at least two main strengths. The strengths that cover all aspects of life i.e. economic strength, social strength and political strength. The strengths that cover all aspects of health i.e. physical strength, mental strength, emotional and spiritual strength.

3. When we and our family live comfortably without any debts then we have economic strength. When we are comfortable mixing with society, career and family life then we have social strength. When we have the freedom to choose a responsible  government to care for us and the country then we have political strength. When we are always energetic, not overweight or obese then we have physical strength. When all the time our thinking is fresh, active and alert then we have mental strength. When we are able to control our emotions and not the other way round then we have emotional strength. When we are determined to always be positive and do good deeds to achieve null bad behavior then we have spiritual strength.

  

Reality in Life     

1.Our desires are the ones controlling us. We are under influence to buy a bigger house on credit basis. We are under influence to purchase household equipment on credit basis. We are under influence to buy motor vehicle on credit basis.

2. We no longer practice the culture of putting a handful of rice grain into another container everytime we cook just like what our grandmother used to practice. If our grandmother cooks three times a day then she will take three more handfuls of rice grain that she intended to cook. This culture of saving is simple but we are not practising it. This is the foundation to the present savings culture. Our forefathers have actually taught us this ingenious culture.

3.We are under influenced by our ego. We become self centered. Our social circle is limited. We are too busy with our career. We have no quality time with our family. We do not practice the smiling culture eventhough the Ustaz reminded us that smiling is a sadaqah and part of iman.

4.We are no longer free to state our opinion. The media has  control over  our political thinking despite the fact that we knew what actually happened in the country’s political arena. We have no other alternative  but to submit to what the media has influenced us as to  the choice of our leaders. We have no strength in politics since we are not able to determine the rightful person to be our leader that will care for our development and wellbeing, our religion and our country. A leader who is trustworthy without any personal and family’s interest.

5.We are too comfortable being in our chairs be it at home or office. We are too engrossed in work and glued to our TV set. We are not practicing a healthy culture at home and in the office. We allocated too  little time to strengthen our physical being eventhough in reality we have all the time in the world to do it.

6.We are now in the working environment, there is no need to read books, make references or memorised any facts. Those activities were confined to our school days. Now we hold a high position in society. We see no necessity to exercise our brain and to strengthen our mental capability. We have become lazy to think seriously on any area we are involved in.

7.We are successful now. We are the big boss, the successful entrepreneur. Our emotions go up and down according to our mood. We usually hear phrases like “ boss is not in a good mood today”, “boss is in a bad mood, don’t disturb him” from staff having successful bosses.

8.Our house is just about 100 meters from the surau or mosque. Our office eventhough is on the 40^th floor has a surau at the ground floor in the same building. Eventhough we have plenty of free time, we gave too many excuses not to visit Allah SWT’s house. Our thoughts and discussion on economics, social and political issues within and outside of the country is enough justification  for us not to have  time to think of Allah SWT. We may have other strengths but spiritually we are weak, fragile and easily challenged.

      

Tips

1.In actual fact all of these  strengths are built through simple and small practices. Practices mean we do it all the time in a consistent and continuous manner. Putting aside 10% of our income a month in ASB is simple. We can start right now. Smiling and making someone else’s happy is simple. Having a friendly attitude will reflect our positive aura and this will make it easier for all those who interact with us. We can start right now.

2. Firmly stating our choice as to the leader we trust to take care of our welfare is actually simple. We can decide ourselves the leadership criteria in the leader we want to choose. If the leader fulfill the criteria we have laid down then he will be our choice. The media only gave us a bit of information although not all true. We make the final  decision as to who we want to choose. It is simple. We can do it right now.

3.We can every half hour, walk around our office rather than sitting down for hours in our chair. We can make and answer phone calls while standing or walking around our table so that we can dispel the comfort of just sitting in our chair. We can every half an hour go up and down the staircase during advertisement break eventhough we are glued to our favourite TV programme. We can also walk at most 10 minutes from the parking lot to the place we want to visit. However, our instincts tell us to park right at the front door of the place we want to go. We can actually make use of the staircase to go to the 2^nd or 3^rd floor of our office building.

4.During school days, our PE teacher used to instruct us to squat, jump/skip or do on the spot running, push up etc. every morning. It is simple and there is no need to get out of the house to do it. We can start doing it right now. No need to wait for free time to exercise at the gymnasium. That time will never come.

5.Allocating time everyday to read 10 lines of the Al-Quran does not even take 5 minutes of our time. Allocating time every night to read an extract of the Al-Hadith does not even take 5 minutes of our time. Memorising the Al-Quranic verses of our choice every day is not as difficult as we thought. All these are exercises that can strengthen our mental and capability to think. It is that simple. We can start doing it now.

6.We have reached the top level of our career and  successful. It is not wrong for the boss to be friendly with the staff. It is easy to control our emotions for the sake of brightening up the office environment. The boss can also joke once in a while with all the staff. Smiling, laughter and jokes are the effective medicine for our mood swings. It is also the prescription to maintain one’s youthfulness. That is not difficult to practice. It is simple. We can start doing it now.

7.A person’s level of faith is closely related to their spiritual strength. Always thinking of Allah SWT all the time is not something difficult to do. While driving, we can zikir. During exercise we can zikir. Reduce browsing time in the office for about 5 minutes and substitute it by performing solat dhuha will not make our boss dislike us.  By waking up at about 5 am in the morning will allow us sufficient time to be with Allah SWT and perform solat tahajud and witir. Practising these daily rituals is actually easy.

8.As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect” and Money grows on the tree of patience”. There is nothing wrong with making lots of money until it accumulated to the size of a mountain. The problem is we are not even doing it bit by bit. This is actually very simple. We can start doing it right now but before that we need to always think big dream high and have strong heart.                              

Think Big Dream High,E33–Strengthening Your Ability To Think

Thinking

1.Thinking is a form of exercise. Our muscles are continuously under reconstruction when we  carry out physical exercise on a regular basis. New cells are released to re-construct the muscles. Oxygen and liquid will flow through our body and cells in larger quantities when we exercise on a regular basis. We take in a lot of oxygen and drink lots of water when we exercise. If our diet contains adequate proteins then our muscles will be re-constructed in a more speedier manner.

2.The same goes with our brains. Our brain cells will be repaired and renewed when we regularly exercise our brains. Regular exercise will increase the amount of oxygen and reduce the rate of slowness of our mental development. A teenager usually possesses 100 billion brain cells and this amount reduces to 20 billion when the person reaches 80 years old.

3.The size of the brain contracts and dries up as our age increases. This happens when the brain cells are lacking in water, oxygen, vitamins, minerals and air which subsequently hasten the death rate of our brain cells. Upon reaching this situation, human beings usually become not alert, forgetful and senile.

4.The ways and forms of brain exercises include normal physical exercise, reading, counting, memorizing such as memorizing the Al-Quran, Al Hadith or facts and figures, writing, browsing, watching, viewing and observing Allah SWT’s creations  and other related activities that can activate our brains. The more regular we exercise our brains the higher the chances of maintaining the overall brain health, ability and productivity. A healthier brain is demonstrated in a person who is more alert, creative  with better thinking capacity able to generate useful and meaningful ideas.

5.Sleeping is when we rest our whole body including our brains. However, if we overdo or underdo our sleep our whole body feels tired. Our head hurts as a result of  forcing ourselves to remain in bed. Our head hurts if we purposely do not want to wake up. We forced ourselves to close our eyes. In actual fact we are already up and awake.

6.Daily sleep of 5 to 8 hours is sufficient rest. Do not sleep for less than 5 hours or more than 8 hours daily. When we forced ourselves to discontinue or prolong sleeping patterns we are making our brains passive. We are purposely making our brains dysfunctional. We are purposely not exercising our brains.

7.Our laziness and inactivity are weakening our brain cells, Our brain cells are not getting adequate supply of water, oxygen, vitamins or minerals. This will be the signal for  the activation of  the free radicals in our brains to attack and destroy the good brain cells. It will gradually reduce the number of stable and good brain cells. If this bad habit persists, it can shorten a person’s life. We need to exercise our brains and carry out physical exercises on a regular basis in order to always feel fresh, full of vigour, young and to prolong our life span. More information on this matter can be obtained from my book, “Diet Hang Tuah”.

Reality in Life

1.We are always hearing sighing uttered such as, “I have no strength to think”. This could be due to our inability to think, not able to think or we are too lazy to think. In school, lecture halls or in meetings we remained quiet. We declined invitations to attend seminars. We declined requests to present seminar papers. We declined invitations to attend intellectual discourse or forum.

2.We chose selectively the people whom we want to meet since we do not wish to have interactions with many people. We declined invitations to attend our residential area community meetings or our mosque religious talks or our neighborhood social gatherings. We declined invitations from friends and other students to join their study group.

3.When we are lazy to think, sooner or later we will not be able to think in a more effective manner. By making our brain inactive will gradually make it passive and dormant.

4. As days passes by we become lifeless, inactive and powerless. We are way behind in our studies. We care less for our office. Our business is deteriorating. Our power is gradually diminishing. It has lessened our influence. It made us uneasy and uncomfortable being with the family. We are the odd one out in our social circles. We become withered like the unwatered plants. Our brain dries up just like the fallen and dried leaves that can no longer processed food for the plant.

Tips

1.Our former PM, YABhg Tun Mahathir Mohammad is about 90 years old. Judging by his activities, its as if he is around 50 years old only. About 40 years younger than his actual age. Tun’s youthfulness is a result of continuous usage of his brains. His brains  remained youthful, active and fresh.

2. Tun is still able to share ideas and opinions with anybody. Tun can still write a book and  Tun can still write on his blog. Tun can still travel and explore the natural environment overseas. Tun can still deliver various talks and lectures. Tun can still give spontaneous and cynical comments as usual to local and foreign TV stations on the cruelty of the Jews and other global issues. Tun’s opinions and views are respected, feared and valued not only locally but internationally.

3.His immunity and resilience is due to his good physical and mental health. From Tun’s activities, abilities and capabalities, we can safely assume that he regularly exercises his physical and mental wellbeing. We can assume that Tun practices  a good diet. I am confident that Tun’s brain cells remained fresh and maintain its quantity and quality if not more or better compared with others of his age.

4. I am very confident that Tun is an avid reader, always making references through browsing, watching various movies, discussion and studying the latest reading materials. I believe Tun read all kinds of reading materials  ranging from history, technology, art, plant, handicraft  etc which is of interest to him. Nobody can bamboozle and cheat him. Tun is meticulous, open minded and is aware of many issues and things.

5.If we do not wish to be lagging in our thinking or becoming someone who has no strength  to think then I suggest we emulate Tun’s way of living.  I am assuming that Tun is always taking care and maintaining his physical and mental strength. I have no way of knowing Tun’s actual way of living other than what is publicly known mostly from reading and observation. I am confident that Tun is someone who regularly exercises his physical and mental wellbeing, active in his daily activities with a strong liking for any forms of challenges to his ability, knowledge, intelligence and daily activities. 

6. For want of ideas, we can also emulate what Tun practices  in maintaining his physical well being  and brain health. To begin with, we need first to think big dream high and have a strong heart.