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My day for good habits

May 19, 2011 By 6 Comments

It’s only a little after 10am, and I’ve already made this a day for good habits.  Even though it is still morning, I have already worked in three good habits for my day.

I didn’t set out to make today a “good habits day,” it just happened that way.

I was thinking about it a little while ago, and realized that I was already on a roll for the day, and I might as well work in a few more good habits for the day to make it really spectacular!

What have I done so far today to get the day started right?

Lets have a look:

  1. I went for a good walk.
  2. While out on my walk, I got a haircut.
  3. I made it a priority to write a new article on this site.

I consider each of these to be good habits.  Why?

Walking

Walking is good exercise

Walking is good exercise

Any kind of exercise is a good thing.  In these days when we have computers, TV, all kinds of other such things, it’s easy to lead a lethargic lifestyle.  That’s why we have to force ourselves to get up from that chair and go do something physical.  I basically have two activities that I like to do for exercise.  I like to walk, and I like to swim.  Lately, I have not been swimming much, so I have been relying on walking to get in the exercise that my body needs.  So, this morning, when I decided that I needed to have a haircut today, I decided to walk to the barber shop and to walk back home again.  Why not?  The barber shop is not too far anyway, so I even made a few rounds around different blocks in my neighborhood, taking the “scenic route” to the barber shop.  Getting exercise is important to me, especially because I have diabetes, and exercise helps me maintain good health.  I admit that I don’t always get as much exercise as I should, but lately I have been doing pretty good with it, especially doing a lot of walking.

Haircut

Barber Shop

Barber Shop

I enjoy getting a good haircut, and I find that it makes me feel relaxed and refreshed when I do it.  I try to get a haircut weekly when I can.  Sometimes it slips to every two weeks, but never longer than that.

One of the things I really like here in the Philippines where I live is that when you get a haircut the barber always gives you a massage to end the haircut.  He massages your head, shoulders, back and arms.  It always makes me feel good and relieves a lot of stress when I get a nice massage like that, and getting a haircut makes me feel good too.

So, going to have a haircut is a natural for a good health habit, and an all around good feeling.

Writing here on Habits for Smart People

Writing on my blog

Writing on my blog

The last week or so I have slipped and have not been adding new articles to this site.  When I do that it makes me have a feeling of guilt, which I don’t like.  So, making the commitment to get back to writing, after lapsing, is a good habit to get back into.  I find that the act of writing about good habits helps me maintain good habits in my life.  Writing the articles helps remind me of the kind of lifestyle that I want to lead, and thus it is something important in my life.

So, there you have it.  Just a little after 10am now, and I have three good habits under my belt!  I want to get a few more in before the end of the day, so I better get busy.

What about you?

Filed Under: Being Smart, Feature, Good Habits, Health Habits Tagged With: , ,

When opportunity knocks, what should you do?

May 5, 2011 By 6 Comments

These days, the economy is terrible.  A lot of people, perhaps most people, are facing a life that is a lot more difficult than it was 5 years ago.  Some people are saying that our children may face a life of more hardship and poverty than we faced.  That would be a first for many generations, if it is true.

However, are there ways that we can overcome the adversity that we face from the world economy?  Sure we can.  Perhaps we will have to do a lot of work and building to accomplish the lifestyle that we enjoyed a decade ago, but that does not mean it is impossible.  A little hard work never hurt anybody, right?  In fact, life a decade ago was probably too void of the hard work that we faced in previous decades.  Perhaps getting back to working a little harder may be the answer to the situation that we face.

Opportunity Way

Opportunity Way

I’m sure we have all heard the old saying about “opportunity knocking.”  Let me ask you this… what do you do when opportunity knocks?  Do you answer the door when there is knocking?  Before you answer “yes,” or “of course I do” think about it.  I didn’t ask if you answer the door when you hear a knock.  What if there is a knock but you don’t hear it?  Of course, if you don’t hear it, you don’t answer, right?  That’s probably why many decades ago the doorbell was invented.  It made the sound louder when somebody was at the door, so that we could more easily hear it, and would answer the door.

Opportunity has no doorbell, though.  You have to be diligent if you want to be sure that you see opportunity and answer the door when opportunity is knocking.

What do you mean, Bob?

Opportunity Knocked - Were you out?

Opportunity Knocked - Were you out?

Well, when opportunity is in front of us, it does not always hold a big sign saying “I am an opportunity,” sometimes we have to analyze it carefully and come to the realization that what you are looking at is an opportunity, and that you can seize that opportunity.

Think about it.  We both agree that economically we are going through a difficult time at this juncture, right?  Maybe some of you who are reading this are unemployed.  The odds are that a fair number of readers are under-employed, having jobs that are good enough to just get by, but don’t really utilize the true talents that you have.  Maybe the only job that you can find is a part time job that makes just enough to pay the rent.  So, some of you readers are under tough economic pressure right now.  That is an opportunity.

What?  This is an opportunity?

Yes, I believe that it is, you just don’t recognize the opportunity.  But, think about it.  During this tough time, would you like for somebody to come along and ease your suffering, and make your life better?  Think about what it would be that somebody could do to improve your life right now.  If you come up with any ideas of what could be done, you just identified opportunity!  That’s right, you just found a list of things that you could do to help others.  I mean, if you are in a tough situation and others are too, surely the things that you need or want to assist you would also be desired by others.  Perhaps you could begin offering services to assist others in need.  That is an opportunity that is being present to you, yet you might not have seen it or recognized  it because you were too busy trying to figure out how to get out of the situation you find yourself in.  So, now that you know some things that are needed, you have to get busy figuring out how best to turn what you discovered into a small business.  You can do it!

Always be on the lookout for opportunity.  In my life, for years and years I have been doing that.  Everyplace I go, I am watching for ways that I can benefit from things that I see or encounter.  It’s not all about making money, there are other things that opportunity can do when you answer the door:

  • Improve your life
  • Make you a happier person
  • Help you earn money
  • Help you to help others
  • Meet new people that will improve your life
  • the list is endless, but you have to look for and recognize opportunity when it presents itself!

You can do it.  But, you have to be on the lookout for opportunity, because you never know when or where it will present itself!

Filed Under: Being Smart, Feature, Good Habits Tagged With: ,

Are you complacent?

April 13, 2011 By 4 Comments

Are you complacent?  Have you ever been complacent?  I have, and sometimes I still am.  I try to avoid it, though.

What is complacency?  Well, it is when you become satisfied with something.  You get satisfied, you are no longer critical, you just accept it as it is and really do nothing to improve on it any longer.  It’s not a good habit.

Generally, I find that when you get complacent with something, that things starts to slide.  Why?  Because you are no longer giving it your attention and improving on it.  Even though it may well have been great at the time you became complacent, it will inevitably begin to go downhill when you no longer strive to improve it.  There is not much choice in the matter, that’s just how it is.

Complacency will lead in only one direction

Complacency will lead in only one direction

Ever heard the saying that if something is not improving, it’s getting worse?  I have heard people say that kind of thing before, and it’s really true in many instances.  If you are not complacent, you are paying attention to what is going on.  You are striving for improvements.  You are working, or at least thinking about the project at hand, and that work helps improve the project.  Once you accept the project and become complacent, you stop working for improvement.  As time goes by, you not only stop trying to improve in it, but generally you will also tend to ignore it, and the lack of attention can accomplish only one thing really… the project slides in importance, and also slides in it’s quality.

I have been Complacent

I have been Complacent

I have had this problem with some projects in the past.  One in particular that comes to mind was a business that I still own.  The business was really a big money earner.  It had lots of customers, and it was an innovator compared to it’s competitors.  But, because it was flying so high, I got complacent and gave the business less of my personal attention.  No problem for a few years, the company kept doing well just through it’s own inertia.  But, after a few years, things started to slide.  At first, you don’t get concerned, you just figure that it’s an anomaly.  Things will get better next month.  Seven or eight months down the line, though, when things continue to slide, you know something is wrong.  A bit longer and you realize that you’ve been complacent, and it cost you dearly.

Projects, businesses or whatever it is that you have become complacent about can be recovered, if you don’t let them slip too far.  If you let them go for too long, though, and the slide proceeds too far, it will be difficult to recover, and take a long time and a lot of effort.

Perhaps my best advice to avoid complacency might sound a bit strange.  What I would say is that you should step back from the project more often.  But, for a short period of time.  Don’t just let the project go, but strategically step back to refresh your mind.  After being away from the project for a few weeks, when you return again you’ll have a fresh perspective, a new way to look at things.  You’ll see things differently than you did before, when you were deep in the project.  Stepping back for a refresher will allow you to refresh, see things differently, and innovate in ways that you couldn’t before, because you were too close to the project.

So, don’t get complacent.  But, do step back for a refresher.  That will help you sustain your interest, and do it through a new view.

Filed Under: Being Smart, Feature, Good Habits Tagged With: ,

Time saving software for better productivity

April 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Nobody can deny that these days, our lives are very hectic.  We have so many challenges to meet, deadlines and stuff coming at us from every direction that our time is really in short supply compared to many years ago.  That’s why when you can come up with something that saves a little time and cuts down a bit on your workload, well, it is something that you really need to take advantage of.

One of the great things in our modern lives, in my opinion, is photographs.  Hmm… sounds a bit strange, but think about it.  Back in the day, when film was what we used to make photos, we were so limited in the number of photos that we could take.  I mean, your roll of film could shoot 12, 24 or 36 photos in most cases, and that was all.  Not only did the roll of film limit the number of photos you could take, but the film was costly too, and then you also had to spend money (and time) on processing before you could even know what the photos looked like.  For all you knew, 10 of the photos on the roll of film may have been out of focus, dark, or somehow not suitable for anything more than just to be thrown away.  In today’s life, we have digital cameras.  We can take as many pictures as we want.  When the memory is full, you just transfer the photos to your computer, or other storage device, then take more pictures.  No cost involved (after purchasing the camera), no waiting for photo labs, etc.  It’s all so easy!

Windows Live group of software

Windows Live group of software

That said, though, if you are into picture taking, whether serious photography or just shooting photos of the family and kids, well, you can spend a lot of time handling your pictures.  Filing them away.  Sharing with friends.  Cropping the pictures.  Retouching.  Fixing the red eye.  Deleting bad pictures.  Six months down the road you might not even remember who some of the people in the photos are!

There is a way, though, to really cut back on any of these problems by using the correct software.  In the past, I had used Google’s Picasa software.  Picasa is a nice program that you can use to organize your photos and do some minor retouching.  In fact, Picasa even has a feature where you can click a single button and the software will make the picture better than it was, all by itself.  And, it does a great job of making the pictures look super.  I liked Picasa when I was using it, but there were also some things I didn’t like, and I ended up deleting the software and doing it all myself.

Windows Live Photo Gallery Logo

Windows Live Photo Gallery Logo

However, recently, I tried another photo organization software, and so far, I really like it.  The software is from Microsoft, and is called Windows Live Photo Gallery.  In many ways it is much like Picasa, but it has a few other features that I really find to be great, and also time-saving for me.  Basically, when you first run Live Photo Gallery on your computer, it scans your computer to find all of your photos and it organizes them by date.  It does not move pictures from where you have them stored, rather it just displays the photos by the date they were taken.

The first thing that I found about Live Photo Gallery, which I enjoyed, was the tagging of pictures.  I had grown accustomed to using Facebook, where you can tag the photos with the names of the people who appear in the photo.  Same thing is available with Live Photo Gallery, you can tag the faces of the people who appear in each photograph.  In fact, not only that, but Live Photo Gallery learns to recognize the faces.  The more times you tag a certain person’s face, Windows Live Photo Gallery will start recognizing that person and knowing the name to associate with it!  How cool is that?  Additionally, Live Photo Gallery can go to your Facebook account and import a list of all of your Facebook friends so that you have a list of people’s names to tag on pictures!

In addition to importing your Facebook friends list, Live Photo Gallery can do some other cool things with Facebook (and some other websites as well, but I mostly use Facebook for my social networking).  Let’s say that you go to Disneyland (or wherever) with the family for the weekend.  When you get home, you have 100 new photos to put on your computer.  Windows Live Photo Gallery will pick up on those pictures, you can review the tagging of the people to make sure they are correct, then you can select photos – all of them, or just some – and click a button for the software to automatically upload the images to Facebook!  In fact, it even automatically uploads the tags and the captions too!  So, you put the pictures on your computer hard drive, and Photo Gallery does the rest, including sharing the pictures on Facebook with your friends!

Want to send out some of the pictures by e-mail?  No problem.  Photo Gallery will do that for you too, you can even choose what size of pictures you want to send, and the photos will automatically be resized for e-mail.  It’s that easy!

Honestly, I am really impressed with Windows Live Photo Gallery.  My only complaint is that it runs a little bit slow and sluggish.  I can live with that, though, for all of the good it does for me, and the ease with which it does those things.  Another great thing about Windows Live Photo Gallery is that it is free!

Photos are a great part of our lives, and having the ability to shoot digital photos has improved our lives.  Using good software is a smart way to improve our experience with photos even more.  We can save time, be more productive, and just get a lot more enjoyment out of our photos!

Filed Under: Being Smart, Feature, Good Habits Tagged With: ,

Friendship and Family Ties

April 9, 2011 By 13 Comments

I came from a family of five.  I was the oldest of my parent’s children.  I had a younger sister, two years younger than me, and a brother who is 5 years younger than I am.  Back in 1979, at the age of just 15, my sister, Charlotte, was killed in an auto accident.   She was hit by a drunk driver.  By chance, I was driving home from my after-school job, and I happened to come upon the accident that killed my sister.  The loss was devastating to me.  For many years, I could not even talk about my sister’s death without breaking down into tears.  It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.

About five years ago, a close friend of mine got into a deep conversation with me about this event that had traumatized me many years ago.  I really broke down during the conversation, and it took me several days to recover from the talk.  But, when I did recover from that conversation, I found that I was in a different place in relation to the death of my sister.  I had finally, after about 25 years, been able to face the experience and move on from it.  Now, I can talk about my sister without breaking down, and I am able to think of my fond memories with her.  It was really a ground breaking event when my friend helped me through the pain at long last.

Not long after this ground breaking conversation, I began taking language lessons to learn Cebuano, the language most widely spoken in the area where I live in the Philippines.  Just the other day I wrote about my language learning and it’s effect on my life.  My language teacher/coach is a nice lady named Bebe Metillo.  I was introduced to Bebe by a mutual friend, a reader of another of my websites.  Over the past 4 years or so, Bebe and I have become very close.  I don’t even feel that Bebe is a friend, she is more like family to me.  After all, we have had a close relationship for about 4 years already.  In fact, when I describe Bebe to people, I always say that I feel that she is a sister to me.  I also enjoy Bebe’s family, especially her children.  I feel a real sense of kinship with Bebe and her entire family.  Not only am I close to Bebe, but my wife, Feyma, is very close to her as well.

Left to Right: Chris (my oldest son), Bebe Metillo and Me!

Left to Right: Chris (my oldest son), Bebe Metillo and Me!

As I write this article, this morning I got a phone call from my Mom in the States.  Although we live half a world apart, my Mom and I talk on the phone almost daily, via Skype.  Mom called this morning because she had come upon a thought earlier in the day.  My Mom recently took a class about grieving, and thus that is something that has been on her mind lately.  When my Mom called earlier, she told me that she had come to the realization that she thinks that because I was able to deal with my sister’s death, that is why I have such a close relationship with Bebe.  She feels that Bebe truly filled the void that my sister left in my life, and that Bebe really is a sister to me.

Bob and Bebe on Samal Island

Bob and Bebe on Samal Island

You know, I had never thought of it that way.  I knew that I felt good about having finally put my sister’s death behind me.  I knew that I considered Bebe as a sister.  But, I never realized that perhaps the two things were related.  But, after hearing my Mother tell me that, and having more time to think it over, I really believe that Mom hit the nail on the head.  Feeling of Bebe as a sister is more than just words to me, it is my true feeling in my heart, and I do now believe that Bebe has filled that void in my heart.

My time with Bebe over the years has been really fulfilling to me.  Having learned a new language is not something I thought I could accomplish, but I did it, and I am so happy with that accomplishment.  But, I always say that it was because of Bebe that I was able to accomplish that.  Bebe is a great teacher, and did exactly the things I needed to accomplish the learning of a new language.  For that, I am very grateful to Bebe, and always will be.  Having Bebe as a sister, though, is worth even more to me.

I love Bebe, and now I think I understand why.  Having close friends, and especially family is a great thing in life, and a great habit.  I am a lucky man.

Filed Under: Being Smart, Feature, Good Habits Tagged With: , ,

Rewards from Everyday Living

April 7, 2011 By 5 Comments

A few weeks ago, I was laid up for a bit with a serious infection in my leg.  Under my doctor’s orders, I had to spend most of my time off of my feet.  I ended up watching a lot of TV during that time, even though it really drove me crazy just sitting around.

One day, while surfing the channels, I came across a TV show from Celebrity Chef Rick Bayless.  I have been familiar with Rick Bayless for some time.  He is an expert in cooking Mexican food, and an all around cool guy, in my opinion.  From 1980 through 1986, Rick lived in Mexico to learn more about the culture and cooking of Mexico.  These days, Rick has a restaurant in Chicago called Frontera Grill, and other Frontera restaurants around the country as well.  Additionally, Rick has a TV show about Mexican culture and food called Mexico: One Plate at a Time.  This is the show that I caught a couple weeks ago, and to be honest it is the only episode of the show I have ever seen.  While watching the show, I learned that Rick is fluent in Spanish.

Rick Bayless - Expert in Mexican Food

Rick Bayless - Expert in Mexican Food

For those who don’t know me through my other websites, I am an American, but I have been living in the Philippines for about 11 years now.  About 4 years ago, I decided to learn to speak the language here.  There are many languages used in the Philippines.  There are two “official languages”: Tagalog and English.  But, if you get out and away from Manila, the number of languages grows a lot.  Here in the area where I live (the Southern Philippines) the most widely spoken language is Cebuano, so when I decided to learn the language, I decided to learn Cebuano, since it is the most useful in the area where I live.  Since I’ve been studying for nearly 4 years now, I am fairly fluent in the language.  Not perfect, but I can carry on a good conversation with the local people.

While watching Rick’s TV show, I saw where he would go to little out of the way restaurants in Mexico.  Not to the “tourist” places, rather to restaurants that only the locals knew about.  Many of the places he went to were street vendors.  Rick would go up to the vendors and cooks and speak in fluent Spanish to them, asking about the food, their cooking methods and such.  I sat there really enjoying watching him interact with the local people in their language.  I was thinking how important it is to learn the language if you are in a different country, and thinking how cool it was for him to be able to interact in the local language like that.  After a few minutes it dawned on me that I do exactly the same thing.  Any time that I go out around town, I only speak in Cebuano.

I made my shopping list in Cebuano

I made my shopping list in Cebuano

A few days later, I decided that I wanted to mimic what Rick did and just have a fun day out on the town, and experience the Philippine culture.  I decided to cook a local dish for my lunch.  My first step, though, would be to buy my ingredients, go to the local market for that, ride only local transportation, and so on.  First thing I did was to make a list of ingredients.  I even wrote out my list in Cebuano.  I rode a jeepney (local mode of transport) to the open air market for my ingredients.  I had fun speaking with the vendors there, asking them about their offerings, how to cook a certain dish, etc.  It was really a lot of fun.  I did come home and cook my food, using local style and flavors too.  What a great day, and a lot of fun that I experienced.

Learning a new language is not an easy task, but it is worth your time!  If you are going to travel to, and especially spend significant time in a different country, try to learn the language, at least enough to speak a few sentences.  You will find that the rewards of doing so are great.  The local people will appreciate it so much, and you will have a lot more fun on your trip, or your new home.

Learning a language is a good habit too.  It stimulates your mind.  It makes you feel part of the society where you live.  It’s a good thing!  Give it a try!

Filed Under: Being Smart, Feature, Good Habits Tagged With: ,

Allowing yourself to succeed!

March 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Do you allow yourself to succeed?

Do you allow yourself to make mistakes?

Of course, we all want to succeed, and equally we want to avoid mistakes as much as possible.

However, the truth is that making mistakes is a stepping stone toward success.  Without making mistakes, we would all be a lot less successful in life.

Huh?  Making mistakes helps make us more successful?

Yes, that is what I said.  Think about it.

Success through mistakes

Success through mistakes

 

We all make mistakes!

We all make mistakes!

It is through the process of trying new things that we gain success in most of our endeavors.  When we try new things, we often fail through our mistakes.  However, every failure is a chance to learn something new, and that helps us achieve success in the long run.  So, without failure, our successes would be far fewer.

Think of it this way…  how often do you achieve full success the first time that you try something?  Truth is, for most of us, we rarely succeed fully on our first attempt at something.  But, when we fail, we learn something that does not work.  If we fail a few times, we can more quickly see other methods to try, and we can find methods that will be successful in our task.  It’s that easy.

So, is failure a good habit?  Well, perhaps it is a good habit to allow ourselves to fail, so that in the end we can achieve success.

Life is all an experiment, and failure is part of experimenting.  The end result, though, will be success if we apply what we learn from failing.

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Make Smart use of your time

March 28, 2011 By 10 Comments

Time is a precious commodity.  We have only a certain amount of time available to us, and cannot create more.  Time is probably the most valuable resource in our lives, so it pays to make smart use of your time.  Minimize the amount of time that things require, and you will find that you have extra time that you can use for other purposes to improve your daily life.

Over the past decade or two, the Internet has invaded all of our lives and has become a major consumer of our time.  But, did you know that there is a way to take some of that time back, while still gaining the same advantages of the Internet?  It’s true, and you should take advantage of it.

The Three Major Browsers

The Three Major Browsers

Most of us use a “Web Browser” to do our surfing on the Internet.  What is a Web Browser?  It is a program like Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.  There are other browsers, but the ones I mentioned are the “big three.”

Most people, when they are browsing the Internet, have certain sites that they visit daily, even multiple times per day.  Let’s say that you visit a News site, two blogs and two forums every day.  Most people who are not very Internet savvy will go to one site, look it over, read the articles that interest them, and then they will navigate over to the next site of interest.

Have you heard of tabbed browsing?

Browsing in Tabs

Browsing in Tabs

All of the major Web Browsers these days have a function called “tabs.”  People who are savvy about the Internet know about tabbed browsing, but some of the people using the Internet, who are less savvy, don’t know or understand what tabbed browsing is.  Basically, tabbed browsing allows you to open up multiple browsers all within the same program, all at the same time.  This can save you tremendous time when browsing the Internet.

In order to open a new tab in most browsers, all you need to do is hit these keys together:  <ctrl+t>.  After you do this, just look at the top area of the browser and you will see that you have multiple tabs, and you just click on the one that you want to view.

What is the advantage, and how can you save time using this feature?  Well, you can be reading an article and letting other websites load up at the same time.  In other words, instead of sitting there watching a white screen and waiting for a website, you can be reading a different website while the next website on your “read list” loads up.  In fact, you can have the browser tabs open up multiple other sites simultaneously!  You can read one site and have a dozen (or more) other sites loading, and they will be ready for your reading when you are ready to move on from the article you are currently reading!

This is a huge time saver, and if you did not know about using tabbed browsing, it really is a smart thing to work into your routine!  Give it a try, you’ll be happy you did!

Filed Under: Being Smart, Feature, Good Habits Tagged With:

Find a unique path

March 24, 2011 By 4 Comments

Are you a copycat?  Do you look at what others are doing and copy it outright?  There are a lot of people who do that sort of thing, and it’s really not a good strategy in life.

I run into this issue on a regular basis with some of my businesses, and other things in life too, but mostly in business.  I tend to come up with some rather unique business ideas, and when I start I am the only one doing it.  After a while, if I look, I will find that there are lots of others doing the same things.  It’s a problem, but frankly, it is a problem you will need to learn to deal with, if you are the kind of person who can think outside the box and come up with unique plans and ideas.  Frankly, if you come up with something that is unique, and it turns out to be successful, others will copy you.

I prefer to be unique

I prefer to be unique

The good news for you is that in almost all instances, you will do it better, because after all, it was your idea to begin with.  You have the ability to think outside the box, and most copycats don’t have that ability.  So, you can innovate and improve, while the others are stuck with only copying what you do.

Which one is the Copycat? CTRL+V of course!

Which one is the Copycat? CTRL+V of course!

About a decade ago, I came up with an idea for a website that I felt could make a good deal of money.  It was a unique idea, and there were no other websites of the kind online at the time.  After I got the site rolled out, and it started making good money within only a few months, it didn’t take long and I had plenty of competition.  In fact, a year after I started the site, there were more than 100 other copycat sites online.

It can be frustrating to see others copy your ideas.  However, it is human nature, and if your idea was a good one, it will be copied!  What is the old saying?  Something like “copying is the sincerest form of flattery.”  I think I am a bit off with that, but I am sure you know what I mean.  If your idea was a good one, others will copy.

The key for you, though, is to stay ahead of all of these competitors.  Always be thinking of ways to innovate and improve your site.  Yes, others will copy your innovations too, but fewer than who copied your original idea.  And, the more you innovate, the more unique your site will become over time, and there will be fewer real copycats to deal with.

If you are the type of person who is a copycat, think about it before you start copying.  Can’t you come up with your own ideas?  If not, perhaps you should not be in business at all!  Of course, these days, no idea is 100% unique, but the more unique you make your business or project, the better you will do, provided that the things you use to make it unique are things that people want.

Being unique and finding your own unique path in life is a good habit, and if you are a smart person you will seek that route.  I know that it works well for me.

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Be a Professional

August 31, 2010 By 4 Comments

Today, one of my favorite writers had an article on his blog entitled Professionals, amateurs and the great unwashed.  Seth Godin is really a master at writing only a few words but getting a strong point through to the reader.

Seth was talking about people and how they work.  Seth said that a professional is somebody who is expensive, but worth more than you pay because of the quality of the work that they do.  An amateur is somebody who is cheap, even free, because they are not doing it for the money, but for their love of what they are doing.  The “great unwashed” are people who are only doing it because it is a job.

 

Professionals? It seems so.

Professionals? It seems so.

How many of us are the great unwashed here?  Sorry to say, but I expect that most of us are.  Too many people do what they do only because that is how they make money.  Some people start off with a passion for what they do, but later it becomes nothing more than a job.

Amateur, but loving what he does

Amateur, but loving what he does

After reading Seth’s article, I took some time to think about myself.  What am I?

  • A Professional? I believe that in many ways I am a professional at the things that I do.  I strive to be the best.  I make a sincere effort to improve my skills and provide a good value for my clients.  In many cases, my services are expensive, but I believe that even though my fees may be higher than others in my field, the services that I provide are high quality and thus a good value.
  • An Amateur? Sometimes I do things for free or for a reduced price because I do love what I do.  But, in the end, I mostly want to be paid good money for the value I provide, so I suppose that puts me more toward a Professional.
  • The Great Unwashed? It’s easy for me to say that I am not in this class.  Why?  Because I only do things that I enjoy doing and that I am good at.  If I enjoy something but am not good at it, I improve my skills and make myself good at it.  If I do something to the point where it’s nothing but a way to make money, I change what I am doing and reinvent myself.  I have gone through a lot of careers over my life, because if I get tired of my “job” I change to something that I want to do.  That’s one of the beauties of being an entrepreneur like I am now.  I choose what I’m going to do.

So, what am I?  I would say that I am 80% Professional and 20% Amateur.  What are you?

Doing things that you love doing, and making sure you are good at them is a great habit to get into.  If you are just doing a job to make money, how can you enjoy life?  For me, you can’t.  You do hear, though, a lot of people say they are wage slaves.  Why would anybody want to be a slave to their job?  These days, it’s so easy to change what you do, and do what you enjoy!

Filed Under: Feature, Good Habits Tagged With:
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