Do you feel like you have been too nice to people sometimes, but they don’t seem to care?

Are you craving for approvals and compliments, yet they never come?

If you’re like most people, the answer is yes to both questions.

Colin Powell, the Ex-US Secretary of State and retired 4-star general, said this in his leadership presentation,

“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.”

A good leader needs to make tough decisions that will inevitably piss some people off, for the good of the entire group. If you want to do something great, you need to be strong and do what is right for the group even though you might upset some people.

It takes courage to open yourself to criticisms and attacks, sometimes personal. It takes a lot of EQ to respond in a responsible way and not react. It takes persistence to do it again and again, even though you are alone in this journey.

Intelligent people like leaders who are willing to do unpleasant things to fix a situation. If someone is intentionally not doing his fair share of work, the leader is naturally the person that should confront him. Morale will go up, everybody will be happier, and the leader will be seen as an authority.

It’s often easy to just ignore the problem and let others deal with it. But if you want to step up as the leader, you need to be the one who takes control and do what you need to do.

Similarly, Seth Godin, a famous author of business books and a marketing blogger, said this in a recent interview with Personal MBA,

“Try to find things people will criticize.”

If you are putting yourself out there, whether it is starting a business, writing a blog post, marketing your products, you will be bound to piss someone off and face criticisms. As much as you hope they would be constructive, but we all know that it’s not the case sometimes.

If you get flared up whenever you read or hear a criticism on yourself, you will not go far in whatever you are doing. Sure, sometimes they need to be dealt with. But most of the time, you are better off cooling your head down before deciding what to do next.

It takes a lot of good and bad feedback to grow, and it takes a lot of emotional maturity to sustain the growth.

It’s freaking uncomfortable

I won’t lie and say that it’s easy to do. It is not.

It’s easy for me to write them down.

But I did it. I wrote this blog post. No, I’ve written more than 50 blog posts. And I don’t think you would agree with every single one of them, and I don’t need you to. You see, I’ve had my share of doubts too. It was especially scary when I posted my first post.

What would people think about it? Do they think it sucks? Will they leave nasty comments?

All kinds of questions floated in my mind. Yet the secret of success is action. Once I got through the first obstacle, it was smooth sailing. Nothing bad happened. Sure some people might think it sucks (and they leave, which is cool), some people have criticisms, but many others learn and benefit at the same time!

So I tell myself to focus on the good stuffs, and learn from the bad stuffs.

What happens if you don’t piss people off?

Nothing. Your life will be the same as it is.

But don’t expect it to change because you might go insane. As Einstein might say, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I’m not saying to go piss off somebody on the street for the sake of pissing them off. But you will inevitable piss someone off along your journey to be a great leader and a better person. And that’s cool.

Things you can start doing today

1) Decide now to do something you’ve always wanted to do, but stopped because you are afraid of criticisms. Once you make the decision, go do it. It is not as scary as you thought it would be.

2) Don’t try to please everyone. If you do that, the people you should care about will hate you, and the people you don’t really care about will not respect you.

And if you’re on the other side of the coin, when you’re about to criticize someone, remember this quote:

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.”

–Dale Carnegie–

One simple question: are you contented? Or rather, how contented are you? You might say you’re contented with what you have right now, or are you? Are you willing to stay in the same state for the rest of your life? If you’re not willing, read on.

Okay, you might have a great family, an excelling career, a wonderful spouse, and yet you are not contented. You want to achieve more in your life. You want to earn more money than you have. You want to be more respected. After all, who doesn’t right?

I was very surprised when a few of my buddies were telling me that they were contented with their life because I always thought that most people were not. It’s hard these days to find people who believe that their life is worth living. Most people would crave for more in their life, even though most of the time they don’t do much about it. They keep yearning for better life, yet no action is taken.

So, what can you do to be contented with your life and still have the motivation to keep going in life? Here are some suggestions that would work:

1)      Be grateful for what you have now, even though you know you would have much more later on. You know, we can always do better in our life no matter what stage we are at. It doesn’t mean you should stop working towards what you really want in your life. Just be thankful that you’re doing all you can towards your dream. It’s the best emotion on earth.

2)      List down what you have now. Compared the list to most of the population in our world, you are way better off! I know it because you’re reading this blog, when the other half of the world is starving every day. According to World Food Programme, about 1 billion people in the world today do not have enough to eat. That’s more than the populations of USA, Canada and the EU combined! Also, 25,000 people die every day from hunger and related causes. So, if you’re alive and full, you’re already ahead of 1 billion people in the world (plus you have a computer with internet access). Stop focusing negatively on what you don’t yet have!

3)      Enjoy what you’re doing. Work hard on things that you love, and not on things that you hate! It’s true that sometimes you would need to do things that you don’t like in order to get ahead. But if you find yourself doing that every single day and it makes your life miserable, pause and reflect: do you really want this kind of life? It’s most likely time to change something. Steve Jobs said it well:

“When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.”

4)      Tell your loved ones how much you love them. This seems like it’d make them contented, not you. But really, what could be happier than making your loved ones happy? And when you’re happy, you’ll more likely to appreciate the people and things around you. Remember, you might not have the same chance tomorrow. Live your life with no regrets because life is short!

Hope you’ll share your stories and suggestions on how to be contented with your life in the comment section!

(Picture created by ŭn-sŭng from Flickr. Thanks!)

Do you believe in change? I do and I know Obama does. For without change we will not improve. For without change we will not succeed. You know that deep down inside, so I’m just reinforcing the idea. So, what exactly is change? Simply put, it’s transformation. Transforming from something that’s unsatisfactory or simply something that is not good enough. It may be adequate for your basic needs, but you can always do better. Everybody can.

Why change though? Aren’t you already comfortable as you are now? Say, you’ve got a good job and a wonderful boyfriend/girlfriend. Everything is like a bed of roses. You don’t really have to change what you’re doing now, even though you know you could do much more. Right, you are comfortable. TOO comfortable. And that’s perfectly fine for some people. But if you have, even a tiny bit of desire within you that wants to break the habit and challenge yourself to live the life you’ve always wanted, you NEED to change.

What can you change? One thing you can change right now is your attitude towards life. Attitude is a choice, Bob Proctor said. It comes back to the idea of a glass being half full or half empty. The same situation happening to two different people, you and the person next to you, and it could yield totally opposite results. Sure, you might not have control over the situation, but you can ALWAYS control your attitude.

Attitude separates the successful people from the crowd. Do you think that the successful people never failed? They did indeed, and many times over! Take Walt Disney for example, his first studio went under in just a year after he started it. Most people would most probably give up and get back to their old job that they hated. But his attitude was different from the rest. When he wanted to build the Disney Land, everybody was laughing at him “absurd” idea. It turned out that the idea brought revolution to the entire entertainment industry until today! If Walt Disney didn’t have the right attitude and the big thinking, there wouldn’t be Disney Land or Disney World right now.

Bill gates dropped out from Harvard, that’s something everybody knew. Did he give up on himself and thought that he was worthless because he dropped out? No. He went on to create one of the world’s biggest companies – Microsoft. Attitude is the key.

According to Bob Proctor, we should respond to the situation instead of react. When you react to a situation, you simply let your negative emotions rule your thoughts. You let your guard down and self-defeat behaviors will quickly take over:

1) “I don’t deserve it. I never should’ve tried.” (Giving up)

2) “I knew it wouldn’t work. Who am I to think big?” (Losing faith)

3) “Gosh I hated it. Glad it was over!” (Excuse)

Instead, take a step back and choose your thoughts. Know that attitude will get to where you want to be no matter what the obstacles are. Know that failures are only temporary setbacks to success. You have to be persistent to succeed (read my another post on this). Ask questions like:

1) What could I learn from these?

2) What should I do differently from now on?

If your life is good and rosy, but you want to make it at least 10 times better, ask questions like:

1) How can I improve myself?

2) How can I do what I’m doing better?

3) What can I do today to help achieve my goals tomorrow and 10, 20, 50 years down the road?

And undoubtedly, THINK BIG! If you think big, your positive attitude will follow. When you think in positive terms, positive results will naturally follow. I love this quote in The Optimist’s Creed by Christian D. Larson, “To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.” Beginning from today, decide that you will choose positive outlook no matter what happens. Let the wonderful being within you come out. You will sleep better. And you will wake up with a smile every day because you know you’re making a positive difference to your life.

I will write about another change you could implement in the next weekly series. Write a comment about how you’re changing your life or send me an email. Hope it helps!

(Picture is created by “bixentro” from Flickr. Thanks!)