Visiting beautiful places.

The whole world is our children's classroom. Visiting places allows children to see similarities and differences, experience different views, temperature and weather. Get them to feel the joy of beauty in the places they visit. Have them realise there is so much to learn, see and experience.

Reach out for opportunities.

The whole world is right here with us. It offers us everything that is needed. We get light from the moon and the stars at night. It is darker at night so that our brain can produce the melatonin to relax the body for sleep. In the day time, the world is lighted by the sun. It’s glare awaken us for whatever work that needs to be done. It dries whatever is wet and gives us warmth. The sun given us the important vitamin D. It helps the plants and its chlorophyll to produce food and energy. The plants and trees provide food and shelter for other living things. It also gave early Man his fire. Then, there is rain to water the plants and replace our water supply; without which there can be no survival on this earth. Rain also ensures the river water is changed, renewed and topped-up so that its inhabitants can live and grow, providing food to some other living things. God has provided us, human beings especially, with everything.

As though those natural wealth is not enough, God has ensured much, much more by endowing human beings with brains that are fed thoughts on how the world can be improved further with all kind of inventions.

With everything here in our world, all we need is to think of is how much we can utilize everything that exist in this world. Inventors have already shown how much can be done through utilising what ever natural resources and knowledge to create more fascilities. How well we, our precious children and us, utilize all that exists in this world depends upon our knowledge, our strength, our health, our courage and our ingenuity.

To obtain the fullest amount of knowledge, we need to put together all the knowledge acquired through the centuries. We put them in books or the internet. To avail ourselves of such knowledge, we need to be able to read and understand a universal language or another language.

Train for strength and maintain your health as they are important for the energy, effort and capability necessary to put thoughts, ideas and knowledge into action.

Courage is essential to initiate some kind of action in spite of knowing the problems one may encounter in any endeavour.

Ingenuity helps us to devise new methods, new uses, or new packaging of any product in whatever endeavour we set out upon.

All of the above is made possible through god’s gift, the marvelous human mind.

Self-esteem has to be encouraged.

Babies can be trained to urinate and defecate at certain regular times. My beloved wife did it with our two children with great success.

At the time when they were babies, before giving milk at the regular times advised by the nurses, my wife would prompt them with ‘shee….shee…’ sounds. This had the desire effect and they urinated before drinking their milk. Then, at certain times, after drinking milk, my wife would prompt them to defecate by having them lie down on their backs, their legs lifted slightly with sounds of umm….ummm…’ If the period between each action is right, then everything goes according to schedule. (Their life at this time is thus structured.)

As they grew older and are able to communicate, they would inform us each time they wanted to urinate or defecate. At such times, we must response immediately. After each such action, praise for informing must be given with hugs and kisses. Try it out with your child from the very first day and you can be assured they would be hardly any bed-wetting.

What has toilet training to do with success in life? On the surface, it may appear as a small insignificant matter. But, look at it as training and discipline.

In toilet training your child, you teach your child to respond appropriately, doing the right thing at necessary times. That is where discipline begins. With such training, your child learns what needs to be done and eventually the place to go to when nature calls.

Visitors would be amazed that your child knows where to go at such a young age. Through their comments as well as your telling them of your child’s ability to avoid embarrassing bed-wetting or messing up of his or her clothes. Such praises in front of visitors reinforces good habits and establishes the desirable self-esteem of your child.

The power to change lies in our hands.

Many paths lead to success. When a ‘landslide’ closes one of them, all we need is to look for another path.

In a recession, there is a possibility of retrenchment. When it happens, one path to economic improvement may be closed. We can always find another path. How fast you discover another path depends upon your resilience.

Some people who may not be quick enough to jump up again, would sit on the spot they have fallen and allow their minds to look for reasons for the closing of the path, finding none and despairing of ever having that path cleared, eventually going into depression. When a problem has no solution, surrender it to god, put it aside and move on to another path.

Even in a recession, there are people who will be working. They will have to work doubly hard, spending more time and effort on the job. That would mean they have no time for certain things which still need to be done.

They would need good nutritious meals to stay longer at their jobs. With recession eating away at their pay, would they still go to restaurants to enjoy their food? Here is an opportunity to provide clean, cheaper nutritious food and drinks from a home kitchen. You can afford to sell cheaper as you do not have expensive overheads to look after, and buying food from the market in bulk will be cheaper.

The beautiful part about cooked food and drinks supplying is that you get to prepare your meals at the same time and because the bulk buying is cheaper, your own food expenses will be less. You kill two birds with one stone.

People need to have the grass cut, but they are too tired after having to work even harder. If they already have a lawn-mover, all you need are two strong hands and two steady legs. Take reasonable wages and a few lawns a day will be able to see you through this tough period. Perhaps, it might be the beginning of a service business when more people need such a service. What other services do those who have jobs need? Find out and offer your services. God help those who help themselves because He loves people who make use of the abilities He has given them.

Go for some free-lance work. Use whatever expertise you have to offer. Look into places which offer such type of work. You may go into an address such as: http: //elance.com or some other places. However, free-lancing is tough as there are too many experts around.

Can you play the piano, the organ or the harmonica? Lessons can be given for a reasonable fee. Classes can be small at the beginning. Teach well and your students become your advertisers.

Or you could teach some other thing floral arrangements, languages, drawing, painting, some kind of craft such as batik-painting and whatever skills you have.

As you can see, there are many things we can go into. All we need is the knowledge, have it or look for it; apply it and try it out with relatives and friends; advertise our service, work hard at it and soon everything will be in place.

Getting ready to go into the river for some discovery, knowledge and adventure.

Another self-made champ: Seizing the opportunity!

A friend asked me how would a person from a poor family who did not have the opportunity to study be able to achieve success.

Well, it is true that without a university education, there can be no opportunity to be a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer or an accountant.

But life is not about being a lawyer, a doctor or an accountant. There are still so many other things in life we can be successful in.

Allow me to tell you a true story of a very poor man who was determined to achieve success and did put his everything into it when opportunity knocked.

I personally know this young man who is about twenty years younger than me. We were together in learning Martial Arts and Qiqong under Sifu Wong Kiew Kit in Wahnam Shaolin, Sungai Petani, Kedah, Malaysia. He was the son of a Chinese herbal drink vendor at a small stall in that part of Sungai Petani named Old Town.

He had very little schooling as his family was poor. As a teenager, he was a newspaper boy, delivering newspapers to his customers.

Fortunately, he had intelligence, courage, strength, coordination of movements and so was fast in everything he does. He had a strong determination to succeed. He saved whatever money he could.

At one stage, he used to come to me to help him get orchids to plant and sell in the compound of a house he bought.

We used to discuss his ideas. He even requested for temporary occupation of government land to plant vegetables and fruit trees in another town, Merbok.

One day, the government thought of getting back the land for a Disney-like tourist attraction. He got a huge sum of money from the government when he had to give away his fruit plantation on the land.

With that money, together with some people, he invested in a packaging factory.

Today, with a wife who is just as hardworking and intelligent, he has extended his business, having another factory in Kuala Lumpur.

With his hard work and strength, he started projects. When the opportunity came, he quickly used the sudden financial improvement to start something even bigger. The rest was more hard work and greater returns and that is the business of packaging.

So, there are always opportunities. All our children and us need is to be ready for such opportunities. Yes, get ready, learn everything there is to be learned, keep ready whatever money there is and do whatever that can and ought to be done so that when the boat of opportunity comes, we are ready to jump aboard to sail to success.

Vital ingredient to achievement of highest potential.

How many times have we fallen down on our buttocks when we were learning to walk? If there was pain, we naturally cried. Yet, we struggled up onto our wobbly legs and continued to walk. If we had given up then because of the pain, would we be walking well today? We are, by nature, resilient.

After all, the child who feels the pain each time he/she falls could have thought, “Since it is painful, what is the point of trying? And is it not the logical thing to do? There is always someone to carry the child anywhere he/she wants to go. Hah.. That is not exactly true. Parents may carry him/her but not certainly to the place the child has in mind. To reach the intended place, the child must put in some effort of his/her own. The ability to choose the place to go to is the motivation for the effort.

Yes, resilience has to be encouraged. There must be motivation. So, through motivation, children can be encouraged to be resilient; they must be shown or taught that losing a battle does not necessarily mean the loss of a war.

Tell our children of the numerous times Edison failed before his electric bulb could brighten our nights.

Tell our children of the Canadian doctor who was knocked down by cancer. When her doctor told her she had only three months left to live, she did not sit down and moan her fate. She searched for recovery and attended the basic course of The Art of Living. During that first course, she was carried in on a stretcher. In time to come, she walked in by herself. She recovered from her cancer! What resilience she has!

I have heard of another woman who recovered from 3rd stage cancer by eating flaxseed and other healthy food. What enthralled me most was the fact that this 3rd stage cancer patient did not give up regaining her health. She had the resilience to pick herself up again through positive action with the knowledge and experience of other people!

In gymnastics, there are many times when the beginner might just have given up with the difficulties encountered achieving certain movements of agility and balance as well as vaulting. Success lies in the hands of the coach. Assistance and encouragement are necessary to have the gymnast put in further effort and gain that little bit of extra confidence to pull himself or herself through; to help him/her to be more resilient.

To achieve our highest potential takes a lot of effort, time and the conquering of the many potholes in life. These could mean some kind of failure or obstacle on the way. If we falter or give up before the goal is reached, the potential can never ever be realized. To reach the goal, to accomplish whatever we can, we have to be resilient; we must have the strength to carry on despite the pain, despite the obstacles, despite the odds, despite anything.

The great inventors such as the Wright brothers did not give up when things did not go the way they wanted. They persisted and their resilience saw them through to give them a place in history and also us the planes to take us places.

Without a doubt, we must be resilient in achieving whatever goals we dream of. If ever we fail, and we are sure to have to face failure every now and then, we must get back up and going for whatever lies ahead. There is still so much to learn. As we learn, with the new knowledge that we gain, we discover there is so much more we can do, so much to achieve, so much more to accomplish, so much more meaning in life to experience!Wow!Let's look forward to whatever God has in store for us.