Will It Change You?

Keep looking. And don’t settle.

Ross — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:58:25 +0000

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement speech is worth watching if you’ve never heard it before.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will connect somewhere in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

Because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path path.

And that will make all the difference.

You’ve got to find what you love.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. And don’t settle.

As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don’t settle.

2010 – Time to Stop Being Encouraged?

Ross — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 01:47:56 +0000

credit: jaeWALK

Ok so today while I was living the hard life (sitting in Starbucks, looking out over the ocean & listening to Jazz – WHAMMY!) I came to a great decision about 2010.

Last year I think I read more encouraging posts, quotes, books & stories than anyone around. Actually that’s probably not true, I’ve read some biographies where the Author claims to have read thousands of books / stories etc. Who knows though – maybe they’re exaggerating?

Anyway, the point is…. I was over-encouraged!

“What are you talking about, you loony!?” I hear you ask.

Here it is: last year’s balance was off. I spent too much time reading mushy goo goo posts about feeling good or how ‘I can do it!’ and not enough time just getting in and giving things a go.

Don’t get me wrong, those posts can be very timely & give us that extra spark we need to push through tough times (mine was definitely Dec-Jan 09/10), but I’m definitely ready to push all that aside for the moment & dive on in!

How bout you – are you ready to take some action this year, or do you need to waste some more time gearing yourself up by reading more of the same stuff you read last year??

Now get out there and GET EM!

Happy to take any (constructive) criticism! Actually it doesn’t even need to be constructive, you can be brutally honest if you like!

(btw I’m not sure what the significance of the starfish pic is, but it definitely rocks, huh? credit to jaeWalk for that one!)

-All the best guys

Blatantly Honest Responses to ‘Giving Up on Life’

Ross — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:46:47 +0000

credit: h.koppdelaney

A few months back I wrote a post titled Giving Up on Life as a response to a search string that someone had used to visit here: “when it’s time to give up on life”.

I’d like to share with you a reader’s response to that particular post.

From Tom:

Giving up seems to be by words for me and I have always rebounded, but the end is near and closing fast.

I got diagonosed with a cancerous tumor 12 years ago, did the chemo and radiation, and then the life changing therapy. So I survived my fit of depression then but still wear the bag to remind me. Then came a dying liver that I have been dealing with, done all the right things to stay on the transplant list. (Ha) sitting here with the letter of removing me from the list sitting next to the keyboard.

Why, not because I gave up, but rather now I have been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. So I spent my time again expanding my understanding of all the paticulars of the disease. What I got for all this is the biopsy which I am waiting to be scheduled for, three simple words. I give up. Tom

Wow, talk about a tough situation.

Here I am imploring people never to give up on life, and I get hit with such raw honesty from Tom.

My response to you, Tom, is that I’m sorry you’ve been dealt such hard challenges in life. It doesn’t seem fair, and to be perfectly frank, I don’t know why this has happened to you.

I’m a big believer in things happening for a reason in life, though we don’t often see why until we have the benefit of hindsight.

This doesn’t really help your own situation too much, and I can’t possibly pretend to understand what you’re going through.

I would like to encourage you to take time out to appreciate as much as you can in life, whether that’s remembering back to happier times or noticing and appreciating the simple things around us. Don’t give up on the fact that today you are alive!

Good luck to you and sincerely, God bless.

Another reader, Antony, responded to the original post as follows:

I dont know if you will believe. I searched exactly with the words giving up. Life takes its turns. I have a very stressful time.

Though I am a doctor, to be on the other side of the table is a totally different feeling. My daughter has been seriously ill, and as you said, it changes your attitudes towards life. Sometimes, all said and done, it is difficult to go forwards. I cant find reasons why such things happen in life. It is such a sad thing that your child is ill, and you sit and watch. Helpless, frustration..what not. I know sometimes things happen for a reason, but other times, I cant find any.

Now I fully understand the anxiety and stress of the family of those who come to me. I could never understand it if I hadn’t passed through my present situations. Maybe, that is the purpose. Maybe, life wants to teach me something. It probably wants me to be a better physician, who understands the feeling of others.

Thanks so much to these readers (and others) who have been so blatantly honest about their own personal situations. People often feel encouraged through reading and hearing about stories like these.

Another interesting read is a response to Why do bad things happen to good people? titled Are you sure you want an explanation?

If you’d like to share your thoughts on these responses or any other matters, please comment below. The original post can be found here: Giving Up on Life.

New Direction for Will It Change You

Ross — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:27:30 +0000

credit: Sam Ilic Photography

Hi All,

Well I’ve decided to take a bit of a new direction with this blog.

In addition to some fresh posts & ideas, one of the biggest changes is the home page design. Essentially, I’d like the home page to be a representation of the latest posts from some of the best personal growth / self improvement sites around the web.

While feed-readers etc are great, sometimes it’s good to have a site where you can see a whole heap of current posts at a glance, and pick & choose what you want to read – this is the basis for the design changes at Will it Change You.

And so…. I’d love to have your feedback!

Good, bad and ugly – what do you like & what do you loathe?

The home page layout is based on a few different ideas / color schemes & I’d love to hear what you think. For example, does the loading time annoy you or is it ok??

Perhaps you find the layout too similar to other sites around the web…
Perhaps I’ve missed some Awesome sites that I need to add immediately!

Add your site to the Home Page

If you would like to have your website’s RSS feed included on my home page, all you have to do is:

Have a blog that’s based on Personal Growth / Self Improvement
Update it fairly regularly
Contact Me with your blog details for consideration.

Anyway, thanks so much for any feedback – you can leave comments below or use the contact form to leave me any much-appreciated constructive criticism!

Click here to view the redesigned Home Page.

Congratulations!

Ross — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:49:28 +0000

credit: René Ehrhardt

Firstly, thanks so much to those of you who commented on the August $50 giveaway post. It was really great to hear about some good things that are happening to people around the world. It’s easy to get caught up in the down side of life, particularly in hard times, so let me use this opportunity to say never forget to count your blessings.

The Winners:

The winners were chosen using randomly (as promised!) using random.org.

The winner of $50 cash via paypal was Greg from LiveFitBlog.com.
The winner of one month’s free advertising was Tom from Real Liberal Christian Church.

Congratulations guys, thanks for taking the time to comment. If you’ve tuned in to this post specifically to check if you were a winner, unless I named you above… sorry! You can click away now if you feel like it…

Will your Quest for Success be your Downfall?

Ross — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:30:32 +0000

Thought: When you find what you are looking for in life, what’s next?

It’s funny how so many people are on a never ending quest to be better, richer, more successful. We want to be the best we can in life, and sometimes that quest seems to be never ending.

Isn’t that the point though? The journey is a continuum, and it’s the journey of life that makes it so much fun. Life experiences, emotional highs and lows, trials and successes, failure and joy.

It’s the highs and lows of life that make life so interesting!

I think if I ever reached a point where I was satisfied in every way, I would find myself… rather unsatisfied at the lack of challenge. What’s the point exactly?

I want to bring your attention to a particular journey of self-discovery that made tragic news headlines recently in my part of the world.

The Turning Point program professes itself to “deepen the quality of life through skilful reflection and self knowledge.” It has also been labelled a “journey to the core of the human spirit.”

Sadly, one young lady actually jumped to her death in an apparent psychotic state only a few days after finishing the course in 2005. According to her husband she returned home in a dream-like state, appearing detached as if she were on drugs. An autopsy however, revealed that she had no alcohol or drugs in her system when she died.

Fast forward a few years, and the coronal inquest is just now underway. While this case is a particularly extreme example of soul searching gone wrong, it’s a situation that can help us reflect on our own lives.

How far is your Quest for MORE taking you?

Think about what you’re searching for in life. Fulfillment? Success? Maybe a blissful life with no worries or stress, where your house is filled with everything that money can buy…

To that I say BORING! Maybe It’d be great for a few weeks, but man – we need to jump outside our comfort zones to make us stronger! We need to feel pressure sometimes, in order to be better equipped to handle whatever comes our way. Sometimes we need to struggle financially to really appreciate money.

Am I suggesting that we should not strive for success? Not at all. But ask yourself: HOW FAR are you going on your quest for MORE?

1. Don’t be too concerned when NOT EVERYTHING is going your way. The pipe dream of ‘perfection’ is not always as exciting as we expect it to be.

2. Enjoy the moment. Don’t let your quest for MORE override your appreciation of what you already HAVE.

3. Watch yourself when it comes to regression sessions, psychotherapy and the like. While this kind of thing is not for me, if it is something you are involved in you should really only be dealing with people professionally trained in psychology. The experience of the unfortunate lady mentioned above is not one to be taken lightly.

Pay It Forward

Ross — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:10:44 +0000

A few years ago I watched Pay It Forward, a movie from the year 2000 based on the novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

While the movie probably could have been improved upon in it’s delivery of the theme, the concept of paying it forward is really intriguing.

The basic premise of the movie is as follows:

An 11-year-old schoolboy in Las Vegas, Nevada named Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) is given a class project to complete by his social studies teacher, a man with terrible burn scars on his face and neck. His task is to come up with a plan that will change the world through direct action.

On his way home from school later that day, Trevor notices a homeless man, and decides to make a difference in his life. Trevor then comes up with the plan to “pay it forward” by doing a good deed for three people who must in turn each do good deeds for three other people, creating a charitable pyramid scheme. (Wikipedia)

I don’t wish want to be unrealistic about this concept, or find recruits for the “together we can change the world!” foundation, but here’s what I love about paying it forward: it’s all about taking action rather than talking about doing good things.

There’s a whole heap of things we can do to pay it forward in the real world. This week I was so excited to receive (out of the blue) some Gloria Jeans coffee gift vouchers in the mail from a family member.

How can we pay it forward?

Just off the top of my head, here’s a couple ideas:

Buy someone lunch
Give someone some movie tickets
Wash a car (that’s not yours!)
Buy Eric Hamm & Leo Babauta’s new Motivation Handbook
Give someone a massage (ooh la la!)
Cook up a storm in the kitchen (3min noodles don’t count)
Take the Smile-Therapy Challenge!
Give away some free advertising on your website

Any other suggestions?

Let me ask you: Has anyone done something remarkable for you recently?
More importantly, what have you done this week to Pay It Forward?

Take the Smile-Therapy Challenge

Ross — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:25:10 +0000

credit: milena mihaylova

A while back I wrote a post titled The Heart of Life, where I mentioned that world news seems to be quite grim these days. The question behind that post was what is at our core? In other words, would people rather hear positive, encouraging information or has there been a shift in society?

Recently I decided to take up a challenge from Smile-Therapy.com, a site that interestingly enough also recognises the value of good news. The basic premise of the site is that a membership gives you access to a “Wisdom & Idea Library” containing a growing mass of info, quotes, links and tips, and you also receive a daily positive email.

The Smile-Therapy Challenge

The first thing you notice if you visit the Smile Therapy homepage is that you are encouraged to take up the $15 Smile Therapy challenge, which (from the home page) looks a little something like this:

Invest $15
Try Smile-Therapy for 3 (three) months
Receive your Daily Dose of OPTIMISM. (30 – 90 second SNIPPETS of Positive-ness)
If not satisfied, request your $15 refund… PLUS 20%.

To me that sounded like quite a fair proposal, so when Tim from Smile Therapy encouraged me to take up his $15 challenge, I decided to give it a go.

The Verdict

I must admit that the main reason I was a little apprehensive at first was because I was worried about the quality of email I would be receiving. I already receive enough of those fluffy emails that are all soppy and sugary. You know the ones, with flashing teddy bears and some story about a little kid who died and the moral is we need to live each day as if it’s the last?

Turns out once I started receiving emails from Smile-Therapy I was pleasantly surprised. I’d go so far to call it “positive encouragement for adults”. I can assure you there are no flashing teddy bears, roses or pleas to “send this on to ten of your friends!”

The Good:
I think the true value of the Smile-Therapy challenge for me is the daily email. While the membership section of the web page has some interesting info, I find that I get the greatest value from discovering the unexpected in my inbox.

Generally the emails are relatively short, able to be read in a minute or two, but any longer than this and you’d never get around to reading them! There’s quite an array of topics that arrive through the Smile-Therapy daily email, for example: words of encouragement, tips about money, lessons from world leaders, the occasional quiz or brainteaser, links to videos or posts online, business tips, interpersonal skills and generally large doses of optimism to get your life pointed in the right direction.

The Bad:
I think the challenge represents really great value for money, so I don’t have a lot of bad points to add. One thing I will mention is that because I’m from Australia, some of the money / savings tips apply for American residents only. This kind of ‘bonus offer’ for smile-therapy members comes along fairly infrequently, and I was warned up front about it, so I’m not bothered in the slightest. If there’s an occasional email that doesn’t apply to me and my circumstances, big deal – I’ll see what tomorrow brings…

What Now?

Look, let me just add that the times I got the most benefit from the Smile Therapy emails was when I least expected it. Tim will never really know how applicable his positive email was just at a time when I needed to hear it. Either his sense of timing is impeccable, or someone else is watching over my life

If you could do with a bit of positivity in your life from time to time, go over and check out the Smile-Therapy $15 Challenge. Remember, if you’re not that into it or find you’re not getting what you expected, you get all your money back – that’s a pretty good guarantee!

Oh, one other thing I forgot to mention. I don’t know Tim personally, but I’ve had some correspondence with him via email from time to time, and I get the impression that he’s a great guy. He’s polite, direct, and has a certain genuine quality which I’ve discovered is the exception rather than the norm in the world these days. So while I agree with the concept of Smile-Therapy and I like the daily emails, an added bonus is that the site master is a very approachable guy… thought I’d mention it!

Click Here to check out Smile-Therapy.com

NB – I have no affiliation with Smile-Therapy, and this is NOT a paid post. I just happen to like the concept!

E-books vs Real Books: What’s the verdict?

Ross — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:43:52 +0000

credit: ginnerobot

Like many other bloggers I’m a big fan of reading books. I’m also fairly involved in the online world, so I do a lot of online reading.

While I subscribe to the theory that there’s nothing quite like the feel / smell / taste of a “real” book, I’ve also had times where I’ve invested in a course etc, and the material has come in e-book format.

Sometimes these E-books have been really great, quality reads. Othertimes… well, let’s just say the concept of ‘book’ is being tainted. Some of these should honestly be renamed E-just-wasted-my-money-and-time. Or perhaps something like E-hee-hee-another-sucker! is more appropriate.

Recently there has been an absolute proliferation of titles such as:

How to be Rich!
Make Thousands Online
Affiliate Secrets
Shhh – What they never told you about Adsense!

etc, etc ad nauseum.

My question is: Are e-books at risk of being continually devalued by the copious poor quality e-books on offer out there?

Does it depend on the subject matter? How do we weed out the great e-books among the bad?

Personally in regards to the e-books I recommend, I’ve always been an advocate of printing them out. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose a little though?! It can be really hard to just pull open a PDF and scrolley scroll on down to some reference point you wanted to re-read vs flicking to a page in a book.

I’m not so sure I’m ever going to be a big fan of reading fiction online either. Maybe kindle readers can shed some light on whether or not this concept (digital format) works.

Maybe we should just rely on informative E-books with great credible recommendations, and keep real books as the delicious tangible suckers they are. Come to think of it, I kind of like the crinkle of a newspaper, too…..!

What are your thoughts?

August $50 giveaway

Ross — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:29:23 +0000

credit: Hamed Masoumi

As the economic climate tightens, it’s natural to tighten our grasp on our own money and spending.

It’s very liberating to find a place where you can let go of money-related anxiety and trust that things will work out.

The concept of giving and receiving is not new, and one that has definite merit. It’s a concept that I believe in, and I’d really like to put my money where my mouth is.

I’m giving away cash!

For this reason, this month I’d like to invite you to be part of my $50 giveaway!
Here’s what I’m going to do:

I’m giving away $50 USD via paypal to 1 random visitor who follows the rules below.
I’m also giving away 1 free advertising spot on my sidebar for a month to a 2nd random visitor who follows the rules below (125 x 125 button, valued at $50 USD).

How to be a winner

Update: This competition is now closed, congratulations to the winners.
Why not take a minute to read through the comments below & add your own?

All you have to do to be part of this giveaway is to tell us about something good that has happened to you over the past month. It can be anything at all, big or small. Easy, right? Comment your tales of goodness in the comment section below, and I’ll select two people at random to give the rewards to at the end of August.

Questions!

Is this a gimmick? – Nope, I’m just giving stuff away, and I want to hear about good things that have happened to people. I’m hoping that you’ll also be able to read other people’s comments and be inspired.
If I comment 500 times will this give me 500 entries?! – No, nice try… You’re welcome to comment as many times as you like, but all of your comments will only amount to 1 entry per unique person.

Now that you know how to be a winner, here’s my challenge – why don’t you also give $50 away this month?? I’m not suggesting you spend it on yourself here or splurge stupidly, but why not just do something nice for someone else – buy someone dinner, or donate it at random…

Give it a shot! Give of yourself, and amazing things can happen in your life.
(NB – If you’re just visiting here, join in as a free subscriber.
Winners will be announced at the end of August 2009.)