Everyone is talking about it. I think you better watch it too. I found it quite intriguing. I see many parallels in my life where I think the Law of Attraction was at work. Whether you believe it or not is up to you. I decided to test "The Secret" out for myself. Seeing is believing, right? I will keep you posted. Here's the trailer:
Do you love your job? Is okay good enough? Are you satisfied with the way things are? If not, then what exactly are you going to do about it?
I believe people have natural talents and considerable amount of innate potential. I believe we spend about 1/3 of our adult life at work. I believe we all are capable of being passionate.
So if you have a job where you don't feel as happy as you potentially could be, I think you deserve better. If it's Tuesday and you're waiting for the weekend to begin, you deserve better. If you haven't grown much in your job (in some x period), why keep on going? If you don't get enough praise for the work you do, why tolerate it?
Why waste time? Why waste life? We CAN live an extraordinary life, if we choose to. No one can stop us from choosing to live an amazing life. I believe the fault is that many of us think "okay" is good enough. The voice of society often tries to convince us that its okay if we don't live our dream. "It pays the bills" is NOT good enough. Why choose something tolerable if we can choose something better? Screw the people who tell you to get a safe job and be happy with it. If you only take small risks, you are only entitled to a small life. Do you want to live a mediocre life? Didn't think so.
Set the standard higher. I know I do.
How many of you feel that taking care of basic survival is stopping you from living the life you want to live? I mean do you feel that doing your 9-5 (or whatever) job to earn money to buy food (and other necessities) is not enough to live the life you want?
Let's say you want to visit Vanuatu. Then a month later you wanna go to France. Then you wanna do some cool stuff elsewhere. Go to the forest and pick berries. But you can't 'cause A) you might not have enough money, and B) you have used up all your vacation days!
Is it okay that we accept this without questioning? Is it fine that we spend this one, precious life like this - not living the life we truly want! And deserve!
I'm not saying we are suffering because of that - there is plenty of joy. What I'm saying is that life could be much more than that. There has to be much more to life than that. Raise the bar! Set higher standards! We deserve more! I demand more!
Time to take action.
I haven't posted much pictures recently, so I decided to do that now. Today is Friday, first day of the weekend. This is my Friday in pictures.
Yesterday I went for the first time to an Arab gents saloon. As Arabs are a minority in this country, I have previously always gone to Indian or Filipino places - because they are everywhere and always close by when you need one.
First of all they were surprised to see a white guy entering their saloon. When another customer entered and saw me he burst out laughing and then they were all talking in Arabic and I didn't understand anything except that it was about me. It felt a bit uncomfortable.
But the guy servicing me was a nice Syrian dude and we talked about life and universe. At one point he ask if I want to get rid of the small hair in my ears. I was a bit surprised at first and then said "sure, if there are any". The guy took out a lighter(!) and burned the hair. "This is much better, then no grow back!" he exclaimed with a big smile. It didn't burn me, so I was fine with it. I even liked it.
Next he pointed out that the skin of my face is a bit too oily and proposed an appropriate procedure. So this was the first time in my life I underwent a cosmetic face procedure (see how ignorant I am, I even don't know what to call it!). 3-4 times they put some creme on my face and then several times some machine was rubbing my face and then another one was sucking my face. As my eyes were closed I don't really know what they did! It took 45 minutes and I have to admit, my face feels really nice right now.
Oh, and they cut my hair too.
This is a subject of a spam e-mail I got today. Sometimes these spams have funny as hell subjects. And somebody has to come up with those cool subjects to make a living. If there's a brainstorming team behind it, Im sure they have loads of fun every day. It would cool to be in their team for a day.
Most of the spam mails are trying to sell me viagra and penis enlargement stuff.
Some more examples from my spam folder(warning, might contain foul language):
Do you want to feel success, have fantastic, pretty ass?
She will love you more than any other guy
Separate yourself from other men
Your dream is to be wanted and desired by women?
She's asking you to prove your love to her
Your penis doesn't listen to you?
Your mind is saying let’s go but your dick is saying “no”
After taking Penis Enlarge Patch, you will have to use the condom of the biggest size
Suffer from headaches? Sex can help you like nothing else. Suffer from Erectile Dysfunction? Viagra Pro can help you like nothing else
Your sex popularity is in your hands and in the hands of Ultra Allure Pheromones
Do you want to be the king of the party?
With Penis Enlarge Patch your cock will grow like on yeast
The difference between a big and small penis is like the difference between a tiger and a cat
Get more passion from women than ever
You are not really sociable and have troubles with making out with women
Even if you don’t like the way you look, a big dick from Penis Enlarge Patch can make up for the rest
With our Soft Cialis Tabs you can even have sex with your ex
It doesn’t matter that you don’t have any feelings for her, with Super Viagra you can have it if you want her
Do you want to possess the whole world?
... etc ...
Somebody can base their bachelor's thesis on the brand messages of spam! I see a strong alignment in the messages :)
Just yesterday I read a post on liveyourinspiration.com that I found very powerful.
Many of us wrestle with the question "what should I do with my life". What's the purpose? But what if we knew it from the very beginning, what if it was really obvious, a common knowledge.
Imagine you were told as a child that your purpose in life is to experience intense joy.
What choices would you have made as you were growing up?
What career would you have chosen?
What adventures would you have embarked upon?
What experiences would you have embraced?
I just returned from Estonia where I chaired the AIESEC Annual Conference 2007. Most likely it was my last AIESEC conference where I had an active role. When I told the same to my friend Sherif he laughed and said he has said this too many times already and probably the same applies to me.
Anyways it was a blast and also a learning experince. Thanks for that! You can see one of the outcomes of the conference here:
"I want to become a top manager", "I wanna be a millionaire", "I want to change the world" are some of the aspirations or dreams I hear every now and then from people I meet (so do you, I'm sure). I don't know many people who say they want to be a boring person and have a mediocre life. Pretty much all of us want to be going places. What I don't see is most of these people doing anything about it.
When I've asked "so how do you think you're gonna make those millions?" (or whatever they dream of), I mostly hear "I don't know (yet)". Okay fine, maybe you don't yet. But sitting still and not making an effort, a plan or showing drive to achieve it is not gonna help. To be honest I get quite mad at this kind of people. People who talk and only sit on their ass. Is it just to look more important? Maybe. Probably making an effort is just so much harder than dreaming.
The harder you work, the luckier you get. Yes, everything starts with a dream, but then comes the effort.
How are you gonna advance in your career? Do you read more than the next guy or watch TV instead? Do you work harder than the next guy or you count hours until another working day is over? Are you thinking of big ideas that will change the world or do you go clubbing every night?
If you're not doing anything to achieve your dream, then what exactly are you going to do about it?
Read 10 books about a topic and you know more about it than 90% of the people on the planet. Be proactive and focused in getting things done and you will advance. Come up with new business ideas and you might make your money (turning those ideas into reality is much harder of course).
Just don't tell me you want this or that out of life and then just cruise from day to day hoping for a miracle.
I went to buy fragrance today. After smelling 4-5 different ones, I lost my ability to judge smells properly. I'm sure it happens to everyone. I bought one too and discovered 1 hour later that it smells differently than I thought it does.
I know you can ask for a cup filled with coffee beans (in most) shops that sell fragrance. What I don't understand is why every customer who walks into the shop and starts smelling different perfumes isn't given a small cup of coffee beans? It surely wouldn't cost much. And it would create a much better customer experience and satisfaction (people really buy the smells they like!).
Etisalat is the UAE telecom provider. I want to get connected to the internet at home and so I filled an online application on their website. The form that I wanted to fill in asked for a landline phone number which I dont have. Since I had to write there something, I put there my office phone.
A few days later Etisalat technician calls me and said he will come over. Good stuff, I say. When the guy is about to reach the place he gives me a call to make sure Im at home. He tells me the address and turns out he wants to come to my office. I said well I actually used my office phone in the application, but I live somewhere else, 4 min walking distance from the office, so I can show him where the place is. He said "no no, wrong application! Somebody will call you". We didn't wait until someone is gonna call and called Etisalat ourselves - it turned out that as we dont have a land line at home we need to go to their office to show different papers that I live in the flat where I live and so on. As the flat rent contract is in my company's name, one of the papers I needed to get was a "no objection letter" from my employer. In Dubai all the people are the property of the company (yes, the country has made slave driving legal). No object letter says that my employer (owner) has no problem with me setting up intrenet connection at home. My employer, by the way, said that when he applied for internet connection at his home, he needed to create and sign a document also that stated that he himself has no problem with him getting internet at home. Welcome to Dubai.
Anyways. Once in the Etisalat office, I had to visit 3 different counters (and wait in line every time) in order to get what I need. In front of the counter there were 2 chairs. I went with my flatmate, but since it was I submitting the papers, the lady behind the counter told him to wait elsewhere. As my "no objection letter" didn't have company's letterhead, she refused it ("We in Etisalat don't do business with anyone, you need to have a letterhead!"). Letterhead shows something about the company? Yeah right. Luckily my colleague faxed a new document over. When I went to tell the lady that a fax was sent with the "proper" document, she said she will check it. At the same time another couple went to the lady and were about to sit down when she told the man "only one of you can sit here, I have another customer also". "Are you gonna service both of us at the same time?", the women asked. "Its my job and I know how to do it!", the lady behind the counter snapped.
After I got my things sorted out, she handed me a paper and said "If you liked my service, please put this paper in the green box on your way out". Imagine that! She thought she is doing a great job. Etisalat even hasn't told their customer service people what great customer service looks like.
Today when we called to check when will the technician come over to finalize everything, we got the answer that some time late next week and if we keep calling and put pressure on them, they will push the date even further back! I couldn't believe it.
Dear Etisalat, if you ever want to create good customer experiences, follow this simple rule: make making business with you easy and treat your customers with respect. It shouldn't be that hard.
What's your dream? What do you want to do with your life? What would you do if you could not fail? What are the things you want to see or achieve in this life?
You may never reach your dreams; for that you will be forgiven. But if you donʼt make at least one serious attempt to achieve it, can say to yourself, “Naah, I never really wanted it anyway”? I didn't think so.
Perhaps you have thought of the questions mentioned above, perhaps not. Quite often we run through life not even knowing where do we want to go. More often than not people won't take time to think about their dreams, about the ideals they want to pursue.
Now there's a place where you can go and write down your dream - and send it to yourself in the future. To remind you of your dreams, to keep you going and give you a nudge in the right direction. This place is called Dreaminder.
Dreaminder offers a place for reflection and inspiration, helps you in setting your direction. Take a few moments to write down your dreams for yourself. Think about the life you want and the person you want to be.
Dreaminder can be found here: www.dreaminder.com
Experience the adventure of knowing yourself.
I have been in Estonia now for over 2 weeks. Going back to Dubai in 2 days. Right now Dubai seems so far away.. its like another dimension, a parallel universe. Dubai everyday reality is a dream and now I have woken up. Life here is completely different. Its like Dubai doesn't exist. I guess I've lived here for so long it doesn't take much time to feel again like everything is normal. Or maybe its that in my subconcsious mind I want to leave the Middle East so bad that my mind wants to forget everything related to it. Who knows. Anyways it will be my everyday reality very soon again. Sorry, my unconcious mind. I'll make it up to you.
Anyways global warming is ruling in Estonia too. December 2006 was the warmest December in 200 years. What's supposed to be a really cold winter with a lot of snow is actually something between autumn and spring. The picture was taken yesterday in my home garden. Some flowers and trees are in blossoms. The nature doesn't know how to handle this unexpected warmth.
Soon the song "I'm dreaming of the white christmas" will get a new meaning as it will remain a dream forever. Hopefully not.
Some countries have signature places to visit. When you go to France, you have to go to Eiffel Tower and Louvre. When in India, you should visit Taj Mahal. For Dubai this place is Burj Al Arab.
Burj Al Arab, one of the symbols of Dubai, has (very) successfully create a mystique around it. It claims to be acknowledged as the best hotel in the world. It is a symbol of luxury, reachable only for the selected few. Not everybody can go there - just to look around costs 75$. Even most of the residents in Dubai have never been there. One night in the hotel starts from around 1300$ with the sky being the limit for the royal rooms.
The hotel as 8 restaurants and bars, I had dinner in one of them. For extra cost (about 110$) you can have a white Rolls Royce pick you up from your home to take you there. Restaurants are not cheap at all, but the food and service very of the highest quality. The dinner I had (buffet) was for 100$ per person (excluding drinks, even water) and it was easily one of the best dinners I have ever had. The buffet contained food that is quite often not included in the buffet menus like lobsters, oysters, sushi. 
When we entered the restaurant I received a nice surprise - a table close to us was full of Estonians. There aren't so many of us and what are the chances of meeting some in Burj? One of the persons at the table was the rally ace Markko Märtin.
The hotel had a very nice ambiance, live classical music being played in the lobby (and they played very well). The hotel area size is not very large, but it's high and hollow inside. It was luxurious and nice, only the couches in the lobby looked rather cheap to me. In the entrance there was a cool fountain (see right). Escalators were next to aquariums with corals.
This means you get somewhat desensitized to luxury and thats why Burj Al Arab didn't seem like that super special. But it was cool and different for sure, we had a lot of fun .
Every time when a year comes to an end all sorts of top lists are made. Best of song of the year, best footballer of the year and best book of the year. This post is about books in the non-fiction category.
You can find editors' list from Amazon for the best business books of 2006 here. Their no.1 book was The Long Tail which I have also written about in my blog. 800 CEO Read chose these books in their 2006 select.
I am going highlight my top 3 for the year. I chose these books based on the impact they had on me. I considered how they changed my paradigm, how they have been useful (e.g. contained information that I have used constantly successfully for my benefit over period of time) or how they expanded my horizons in a notable way.
1. Now Discover Your Strengths (M. Buckingham, D. Clifton)
This has been by far the most influential book for me. It has increased my self-awareness in so many ways and my understanding of other people. It will help you to understand what are you naturally good at, it will help you to explain why people are the way they are and why they excel at some jobs while not in others. Most certainly I will comprise my future teams based on the talents as it just make so much sense. I have personally experienced in so many ways how the talent concept introduced in the book really works. It is a must read book. I blogged about this book some months ago too.
2. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (R. Fisher, W. Ury)
This is a book about negotiations. We negotiate almost every day, whether its about the idea you came up with at work, which movie to see in the cinema or convincing somebody to do something. For those who want deeper insights into the art of principal based negotiations, this is a gem. I have used the knowledge I gained consciously so many times. I often in the middle of negotiations find myself thinking of the principals I learned, and have used them very successfully. There is no need to waste time on positional bargaining, there is a better way.
3. Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership (J. Jaworski)
Synchronicity is meaningful coincidences that cannot be explained by cause and effect. This is a very inspiring book. You should read it before embarking on a journey to achieve your dream. It is about importance of finding your true self, listening to your gut and seizing opportunities. It is not one of those teacher meets pupils kind of books where the guru tells you how to live, it is much more than that. The author tells his life story and wonders about life on the way. If you read "Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho where he wrote "if you really want something, all the universe will conspire with you", now you will understand what it means.
What are your best reads of the year?
A few days ago I received this e-mail:
"Hey Peep
Referring to your visit to our stall at CityScape, we were very much pleased with your approach. Should you be looking for any job in our concern, please call us at any time."
During the Cityscape real estate exhibition I was doing B2B selling and approaching many property companies, they were one of them. I take it as a compliment.
Quite often in my business meetings I am asked "Who is the owner of the company?", sometimes also "How old is this company?" or "Where is your office?"
These questions are about reputation. It matters a lot who is the owner, if it's a local guy and if so, from which family? Or if its international, is it a part of a major corporation that has been around for like 100 years? It matters in which part of the town (or on which street) your office is. Quite shallow and ridiculous, I think. Where I am from, this kind of questions are almost never asked. It matters who you are and what you do, but here this is not enough.
I think this is characteristic to Middle East (and perhaps other parts of the world as well) and its roots come from Wasta. Wasta is who do you know, what is your background (family), how connected you are. It can be considered as a specific type of corruption (translation: a mean, mechanism, medium). Wasta is about having someone in a power position do something (legal or illegal) for you (a favor) that couldn’t be done without a wasta. What is different from other kind of corruption is that people don’t usually hide their acts when they use Wasta, they even brag about it, and offer providing the same wasta to people around us to help them out (to get a better social standing). With enough wasta, anything can be done: any lawful punishment can be escaped, any employment can be attained, any problem can be brushed aside.
People use wasta for business. Hence the question - who is the owner of the company. If you have big enough wasta, you can get your startup business launched in no time. Doors will open if the right names are involved.
From my personal experience I know people who have been teaching here for years in government schools. They told me that wasta is even used in the local schools (for emiratis). For example a student is in the school on a scholarship, but is lazy as hell and doesn't study, fails all exams and doesn't even show up sometimes. Teachers tell the administration to stop the scholarship, but get the answer "He is a nice kid, comes from a good family". Wasta.
I haven't personally had much contact with Wasta. It is much more common among the locals, which are the minority in the country (and 95% of them work in the public sector).
Fortunately the business sector (at least to my knowledge) is not very corrupt, although I have heard of bribery cases.
Last week there was a real estate exhibition in Dubai called Cityscape - claiming to be the largest in the world. To get a glimpse of the scale of the real estate developments here, see these pictures. Real estate is booming here like nothing else and the number of remarkable developments is huge. This is just a selection of new developments, not nearly everything.
This building is an exact copy of an.. iPod! Most technologically advanced building in the world. Everything is voice programmed. If the phone rings, your whole apartments is blinking. You can choose the colour of the walls depending on your mood. You can have have pre-programmed romance theme in your bedroom if you want.
