Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude

Title: Sucess through a Positive Mental Attitude
Authors: Napoleon Hill & W. Clement Stone
Publisher: Pocket Books 1987

This is one of Napoleon Hill's motivational books, so it teaches you how to get yourself motivated and keep a positive mental attitude towards obstacles in life.

In general, it is quite a readable book. The message is clear- We need to keep a positive mental attitude. It shows you what kind of wonder a positive mental attitude makes.

However, this book is a bit short of the actual steps, or concrete actions that people can take to achieve a positive mental attitude. As we know, having a positive mental attitude for a while is easy, but keeping such an attitude for life is itself a challenge. Positive mental attitude is like fire, without fuel, it will extinguish. If this book can draft out more concrete steps to take in daily life to keep a positive mental attitude, it will be much more useful.

As Napoleon Hill is a dedicated Christian, inevitably there is a lot of mention of the grace of God, and how praises of God. Some readers may not like this, although it is done in a very sensitive manner.

For myself, this book is quite an eye-opener for me. It opens a new door, new opportunity.

Ice Cream Boy

A young chap selling ice cream came knocking on my door tonight. He said he is from a low-income family, selling ice cream to earn some money to pay for his school fees.

I declined. I didn't buy anything from him. Afterwards, I asked myself, why didn't I buy from him, but from that ear pick guy? Is it because that guy is more handsome or what?

I thought about this question, then I realised something, sales is an art. Some subtle stuff will just make or break your deal.

1. The ear pick guy speaks confidently; ice cream guys speaks timidly
2. The ear pick guy shows me what he is selling, at what price, what it can be used for; ice cream guy didn't show me any samples, or price, only tells me he is selling ice cream. He didn't tempt me with the attractiveness of ice cream
3. The ear pick guy keeps calling me "大哥" (big brother) in Chinese, he repeats that more than 5 times during his introduction; ice cream guy addresses me as "sir", and he only says that once.

I guess if you want to be a door-to-door salesman, better prepare something visually attractive to introduce your products. Speak confidently and loudly. Somehow that gives people very positive impression, while speaking timidly gives people a fishy feel.

Currency Trading

Title: Currency Trading and Intermarket Analysis
Subtitle: How to Profit from the Shifting Currents in Global Markets
Author: Ashraf Laidi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc 2009

This is a book by a well-known currency trader and analyst Ashraf Laidi. It explains the financial history, how did we get where we are today.

I didn't finish reading this book, as I couldn't comprehend well the contents. For the first few chapters about the financial history, from the turn of the 20th century, to where we are now, are informative and understandable. As it gets deeper and more financial jargons are involved, I am kind of lost. In addition, currency trading is an arena completely greek to me.

I probably should just KIV this book, and read it when I have more basic knowledge about currency trading.

Taking a Break - From Photography

I decided to take a break from photography. I am not going to abandon this interesting hobby completely, jsut taking a break. If Dr Leslie Tay organizes another around of his food photography workshop, for sure I will sign up at the very minute I get the news. However, for other photography stuff, I may just forgo the opportunity right now.

It it that fatigue setting in. If you photograph people or things day in day out in the same or similar manner, you will get very bored. With my current budget constraint, I can't achieve or try something that I would like to. And I don't want to do all the old stuff anymore. The best option I think is to take a break.

I will shift my focus to developing some other skills, soft and hard, that will be benefitial in the future to achieve my photography goals.

Photography is the same as other important skills in life. You need to feel good to produce something good. At the moment, I have lots of internal conflicts, my different body parts are demanding completely different things. I need to make all of them happy :)

An Investment Journal

Dr Van Tharp advises that every investor should keep a personal investment journal. In the journal, you should record down all the related information about your investment, including why you buy into this counter, how much is the risk, how much is the reward, and then finally when you exit that counter, did you exit with profit or loss.

Such a journal sounds very trivial, but in fact it is very useful. When you do your periodic reviews of your investment, in particular, when you want to detect and correct mistakes you made in the past, and not to repeat the same mistake in the future.

There are things you will never realise if you don't keep such a journal. For example, when I look at, I found that I bought into the same counter, at about exactly this year of the year one year ago. And I lost money in both cases. This means I might be repeating the same mistakes time and again, without realising it.

Keeping a journal hence will help me break this cycle, prevents myself from going in a circle of mistakes.

Next Generation Broadband Networks

Just got to know that Singapore is rolling out the next generation broadband network, using fibre optics, I supposed.

I checked its availability in my area, OMG, my area is only scheduled for installation in late 2011. Wait long long...

If you are keen to know, check it out here: http://rollout.opennet.com.sg/

Hopefully it will not take a longer time to come to your place :)

Ear Picks

Someone came knocking at my door today, to sell me 3 ear picks at S$5.00. I have seen those ear picks before, made of bamboo, and selling at a very low price back in China. I don't need them, even less willing to buy them at an unnecessary high price, yet, I still bought them.

Why? Somehow I admire that guy's courage and persistentce. He claimed that he is from Temasek Poly, and he has 1000 such ear picks to sell, to fulfill his dream of something that he didn't tell me. It is known that door-to-door salesmen usually get lots of rejections. This young guy then still has the guts to do this, and continues even after rejections. He talks well, he knows how to address his customers to make them feel pleased.

I remember during my university days, I went with a group for this newspaper collection activity. I had to knock at doors to ask people to donate their old newspapers to us. I was so shy, and felt so bad after I had been rejected. I was not as cheerful as this guy.

And, just like many people, some might not even know me, supported me in different stages, different occasions in my life, I might as well give this guy a small token of encouragement, so I bought the 3 ear picks.

I put one of them on my desk, to remind myself that I should be just as hard working, and persistent as that guy. He is my role model :)

Anthony Robbins

Someone put up the video of Anthony Robbins' motivational talk at YouTube. Wow, a complete 3-hr talk is available free.

I watched the whole talk. While I was doing it, something kept proping up asking me to watch the video clips on 'the truth about Anthony Robbins', clips that dispute Anthony's teaching.

I have never attended Anthony's motivational talks before, but based on what I saw on the video, what he teaches is a form of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), also advocated by Dr. Van Tharp, a trader's psychology guru, and successful trader/investor.

Personally, I think NLP is useful & effective. It helps you to condition yourself on the positive side, helps people to get better results. However, just like anything in this world, there is no such thing as 100% guaranteed. NLP may not work on some individuals, especially people who have no faith in it in the first place. It won't work on people who have a closed mind, either.

You need to have a bit of faith, a lot of open-mind for NLP to be successful. And equally important, you need to be someone who will take actions, not just sitting there, listening, and then forget about it.