When Your Life is 'ON THE ROPES'

When Your Life is 'ON THE ROPES'

How often have we experienced this situation of the boxer literally clinging for life while there 'ON THE ROPES' ?  Should not be too often BUT I'm quite sure each of us have been through that 'ON THE ROPES' experience at the very least once in our lives. I myself, been there, done that, endured that.  At least twice in my lifetime, indeed my life was 'ON THE ROPES' and thankfully, I endured and survived both ordeals.

Running away when your life is 'ON THE ROPES'?  No sirs, while running away is akin to dodging a bullet, it's totally different once you're 'ON THE ROPES' because by that time, there's no bullet to dodge because that bullet, astray as it may be, has already pierced through and it's breaking up right where it did hit you.  A gentle reminder to us all, Running away when your life is 'ON THE ROPES' will never extricate you.

Clearly enough, in case your life is not yet 'ON THE ROPES', yesireee ESCAPING from SURVIVAL MODE is doable but let us just NOT NOT NOT mix this up once your life is 'ON THE ROPES'.  Once you're in that 'deep s__t', things are about to snap off and you got to summon anything left yet in your tank [and that includes your will power].  Too bad, we have heard numerous 'horror stories' when that person deep down in that pit just threw up the towel.

Indeed, having your life 'ON THE ROPES' will need everything in you to do a balancing act no less.  And that's the biggest challenge 'coz it means more often, you are left with options that are similar in terms of upsides [and even downsides].

Bottomline is, we don't need to reach this far when our life is literally teetering 'ON THE ROPES'.  When and where are able to prioritize things in life, it will be very rare your life will be 'ON THE ROPES' because planning and prioritizing your life down to the last detail  and even doing a 'balancing act' between work and life will lead you to a more orchestrated approach in running your life.  Heard of folks with topsy-turvy priorities, if at all ?  Heard of folks, when you asked WHAT's YOUR TOP PRIORITY, he will retort that he's awaiting for 'updates' from the friend of a friend of a friend', whew.

Fast forward to today as we speak.  Everyone's life is indeed 'ON THE ROPES' all because of this covid pandemic.  Just never be complacent.  In case you and your family have not been hit yet by this covid virus, let's be thankful but on the same breadth, remain as WATCHFUL and as CAUTIOUS [and it's fine to be paranoid] because only GOD knows what's in store for us.  GOD BLESS US all while our lives now are 'ON THE ROPES'✅✅✅

Zapped & Drained ? Rewire and Reconnect

Zapped & Drained ?  Rewire and Reconnect

This is the vicious cycle we're in.  We're all-in in our lives, go through the motions till we get zapped and drained.  From the time we hit the sack till we wakeup, we're all gung-ho for a new day that dawns upon us.  Now, it used to be when the cyclical period was long enough but did we realize that of late, the cycles seem to have shrank ?  Which reminds me from the good old song of Neil Sedaka titled MY WORLD KEEPS GETTING SMALLER EVERYDAY.

But before we get so locked in with this shrinking cycle, let's go over the culprit causing our reservoir of energy to get drained faster than it should.  OVERTHINKING ?  LIVING IN THE PAST ?  NEGATIVITY [around us] ?  UNHEALTHY PRACTICES ?  These are the most common low-hanging fruits triggering the premature draining of our energy.  Yesterday, I was in a huddle with colleagues and I confided that I noticed that towards Thursday evening, I would feel drained but obviously it's a welcome relief because next day is TGIF.  Lo and behold, some of my colleagues confided that as early as Mondays, they're ALREADY getting drained.  OMG.

My 2-cents advice to those getting drained WAY TOO EARLY in the game ?  Figure things out and DON'T look the other way when you need to look this way.  Challenge is, there is no formula to find out the triggers of a PREMATURE DRAINING.  Could be your domestic situation at home.  Could be your relationship with your partner/relatives.  Could be financials.  If it's work-related, probably you have an upcoming service review with your client ?  Or here you are rushing to submit your monthly ops report but you tend to seat at the edges of the seat because the sources of your data are so DELAYED?

Indeed, life is an extremely complex web of multifarious variables and more often, figuring out the root cause is akin to finding the needle in the haystack.  But solutioning is never a rocket science because more often, the root cause is right there hanging in front your very nose.  Things may look murkier if there is more than one variable at hand because there are no boundaries as to where one variable ends and the next one begins.  Quite often, they even overlap and that causes a compounded effect on the problems at hand.  And before you know it, your brain is cracking and about to give up.

In summary, let's cling back to the TREE of LIFE because the symptoms that tend to manifest on the surface will eventually be traceable beneath the periphery.  To trace though, you got to be persistent and persevering and relentless in asking WHY to the next possible ROOT CAUSE till you end up with no reason to ask WHY again.  So, if you're zapped and drained, you got to REWIRE back and RECONNECT, pronto✅✅✅

Why We Are at our TIPPING POINT Now

Why We Are at our TIPPING POINT Now 

Yes, this is gospel truth.  That we are all now in our TIPPING  POINT.  Akin to purgatory, we're neither in heaven nor hell but all it takes a nudge, we could end up on either side of this SLOPE of LIFE.  The question is, should there be hullaballoo with this TIPPING POINT ?  Absolutely, because this is the best time we need to grab and come up with the informed decisions that can either BREAK or UNBREAK us.

Your 'financial chest' may be that towering and voluminous but there's no guarantee that towering pile won't collapse and crumble down.  And what our 'CHINKS in our ARMOR' that can turn things from 'GOLD to GARBAGE'?  We won't drill-down much except to focus on two areas where we all fall prey [over and over again] and that's namely:  COMPLACENCY and COCKINESS, all rolled into one.

Yes sireeee, COMPLACENCY no less.  Truth of the matter, we would not have been in this worse shape we are now had we not been that complacent prior to this pandemic breakout.  Health-wise, most of us [and that includes my guilty self] we were not stringent enough, not tough enough to ourselves.  And when did we get tougher [to ourselves] ?  Not until now when we all got stalled by this pandemic.

Success formulae ?  There are tons and tons of them but we won't cover that because that info can be plucked from everywhere.  Just one variable though that makes or unmakes SUCCESS and that's COMPLACENCY.  You can even be somewhere Camp 7 of Mount Everest by now but anytime, you can fall off from there, all because of COMPLACENCY.

Thing is, SUCCESS and FAILURES are just adjacent to each other, just kinda like NEXT DOOR neighbors.  But if they are adjacent, it's not because of proximity but instead it's because of the fact that more often in our life, we are at that TIPPING POINT wherein an action or decision we make or take can lead us to either SUCCESS or FAILURE ❗❗❗

Not Bad [after all] To Be a ONE-TRICK PONY

Not Bad [after all] To Be a ONE-TRICK PONY

There's this raging debate that we should NOT be a ONE-TRICK PONY. but all arguments for it got muted recently in the NBA when for the very first time in NBA history, an undrafted player [that's Duncan Robinson] recently inked a $90 Mn contract with Miami Heat.  BTW, Duncan is a confirmed and certified ONE-TRICK PONY but hey, how can a ONE-TRICK PONY bag this almost a $100 Mn contract with a much coveted NBA team like the Miami Heat ?  That's where we're driving at in this piece, to guide us how to pave the road towards achieving a similar success story EVEN IF you're indeed a ONE-TRICK PONY.

Now, for the tricks how can we be a ONE-TRICK PONY and still end up as a success story:

• Be BETTER THAN THE REST no less
• Be CONSISTENT in delivering things
• Be FOCUSED to continuously improve
• Be FIERCELY COMPETITIVE against yourself
• Be FIXATED to be the best ONE-TRICK PONY
• Be WARY if you get thrown from the saddle
• Be UNWAVERING in your pursuit for success

Ranged against someone who's touted as the JACK OF ALL TRADES, where do we bet then ?  Hmmm, what a 'trap question' I myself can't give a clear-cut answer because what matters most to me is the circumstances.  Where opportunities do abound for you to learn all trades and tricks, then be that JACK OF ALL TRADES.  But where you are isolated, devoid of that opportunity to learn more than just one trick, then go for it, roll up your sleeves and be that ONE-TRICK PONY who'll lord it over.

The most alarming downside of being a JACK OF ALL TRADES though is that you're akin to holding a BIG EMPTY BAG at that and when a job opportunity arises, out there in the job market you'll be competing with other candidates  who have at least one expertise to boot because by then they have established their niche domain which they can buildup upwards till they become an SME [subject matter expert].  So if you have both options, weigh in the short and long-term risks.

One piece you should never miss out is to always do a due diligence check of the situation you're in.  If you're right there in the 'land of honey', find your niche because there are one too many niche markets there but if you're in those offshore oil rigs and platforms, it does pay to be a JACK OF ALL TRADES.  Your call though.✅✅✅

When Life is UNDER SIEGE

When Life is UNDER SIEGE

Apologies.  This piece is not akin to those action-packed movies of Steven Segal as we're more concerned when our LIFE is UNDER SIEGE.  Is our LIFE is UNDER SIEGE ?  Absolutely I think so that way.  With the way this global pandemic has shaped up for last eighteen months, no amount of global powers by the G-7 countries can tame it off.  Not even the combined financial war chest of the world's top billionaires in Bill Gates, William Buffett et al, would be enough to tame off this uncontrolled Covid-19 pandemic.  So, at this point, we are all on the same page that our LIFE is UNDER SIEGE.

What adjectives can we stamp on this pandemic ?  Unprecedented.  Unparalleled.  It just caught the whole world flat-footed, even the world's top policemen like the U.S., U.K. and the rest of the G-7 countries.  Back into our personal lives, has our LIFE been UNDER SIEGE ?  Absolutely, no IFs, no BUTs.  Our health, our welfare, our work, even our financial state have somehow been in tatters.

Factually, we do not have the divine prowess to even discuss about HEAVEN and HELL but as we speak now, who won't agree that we seem to be in LIMBO because factually, we seem to be NEITHER HERE nor THERE.  For businesses, the world has literally turned upside down.  The airline industry is a classic example.  Its load factor is down by at least 95%.  The travel business, it's the 'Siamese Twins' of the airline industry.  For manufacturing businesses, at the very least, their numbers are down by 50%.  Retail business is the hardest because of lockdowns.  And how about the INFORMAL ECONOMY ? They were totally shut off.

Without going around the bush, measures we gotta take now is NO LESS DRASTIC.  Even for those not [YET] impacted with financial strains, NO ONE is SHIELDED at all from worst case scenarios of one getting hit by the Covid virus [and now there's even the ugly head of the variant 'monster' threatening us much more seriously].  So, what exactly do we need to do ?  STRAP our belts.  TIGHTEN our belts.  These are not times to 'paint the town red'.  We could be as healthy as the elephant today but we are NEVER shielded from the risks we face today.

Vaccinations, yes.  Either we had it by now or are now queued.  But the concerns go way beyond the vaccines, it's beyond the roof in fact.  So, we're down to our PREPAREDNESS phase and the core of it is enveloped by our FINANCIAL PREPAREDNESS.  Message here is crystal clear:  we're praying for this ordeal to be over next year but ONLY GOD KNOWS.  The most we can get focused on is our FINANCIAL PREPAREDNESS for the worst-worst case scenarios IF this pandemic turns up its ugliest head.✅✅✅

When Numbers Plummet

When Numbers Plummet

We may not be math wizards but whether we’re students, workers or businessmen, we’ve got to deal with numbers, like it or not.  In school, come next semester, you would realize your final ratings in your favorite subjects did nosedive.  In business, sales is way below break-even.  At work, your performance measures took a beating. In short,  we just can't runaway WHEN NUMBERS PLUMMET..

So, how do we deal with this situation?  Firstly, you gotta detect the skid that's going on.  After detecting it, you got to RECOGNIZE & ACCEPT it as valid as that's the only way to bring you on to the next step, which is TAKING ACTION.

Imagine you kept throwing all the darts but everything is missing the darts board, whew !  So, if you're ending scoreless, get back and regroup.  How?  Reassess yourself.  Do you need to go for re-training ?  Do you need a coach/trainer ?  Or do you just throw up and abandon things recklessly ?

Move over to financials.  Is your piggy-bank now turned upside down? If so, address the financial issues up front.  If you got to drastically cut down your cash outflow, just cut and cut clean.  If your business is in the doledrums, find the big-ticket items where you need to cut down, e.g. labor? rentals?  In two words, tighten your belt, ASAP.

When you're in the red, financially, this is the payback time to cract that emergency fund you built over time.  No emergency fund ?  That's the most difficult pill to swallow but if you have to learn the hard way, so be it.  I had known an entrepreneur whose food business was growing so fast and before he knew it, he was hiring more staff left and right.  When his NUMBERS STARTED TO PLUMMET, he thought that was a rainfall that will just pass by.  Hell no, before he knew it, his staff abandoned him together with his SINKING SHIP.  Be sharp enough WHEN NUMBERS PLUMMET.✅✅✅

In Life, DON'T Lose this, Else You Lose Your Life

In Life, DON'T Lose this, Else You Lose Your Life

In life, we can loose money, job, relationships, properties, business and all the material things in life yet life will continue to go on, it won't end at all, not even if you have almost given up on almost everything in life, including giving up on yourself as you get battered and tattered by the compounded failure, mistakes and crisis all rolled into one.  There's one thing you can't lose though. Never lose your PURPOSE in LIFE else you will eventually LOSE your LIFE.

True, losing everything in life, your money, your job, your family, your friends and all your material things in life could just snap off any weaker soul but it won't UNLESS and UNTIL you lose the very PURPOSE in LIFE because that's the remaining string where your lifeline clings to.  We DON'T want to be driving a car along the road that will veer either to the left or right or just get on to a head-on collision with an upcoming vehicle.  We DON'T want to take our boat to the high seas if it is rudderless with no direction.  Neither do we want to risk ourselves in the wide expanse of the Amazon forest unless we've got equipped with that compass.

To struggle everyday in our life is not one to make us look shameful.  To survive life is by itself honorable and honorific even if when we hit rock bottom, we can't look prouder of ourselves.  WHY ?  Because that street vendor who goes out everyday woke up with a PURPOSE for that day.  And that PURPOSE is to ear enough bucks for his own survival, his own needs.  If you woke up and didn't had a PURPOSE, that's dreadful.

Regardless of your travails and your problems and even assuming your problems have compounded, keep that faith within yourself and never let it snap.  Think of all the time and efforts a.k.a. sacrifices you have invested till to date.  And never lose sight of the fact that the multiple times you failed in life only brought you steps closer towards achieving your goals in your life.

Think of the untroubled life we all want wherein all we want is to live a life that is harmonious enough while giving us that sense of fulfillment in life.  We could be overly ambitious and there is nothing wrong with it but at the end of the day, let us ensure that the evening before we hit the sack, we are fully aware of our purpose in life when we wake up come next day.  Never lose that rationale and reason for you to breath your life come next day.  You owe it to yourself, dude❗❗❗

Connecting The Dots [in LIFE]

Connecting The Dots [in LIFE]

Who says life is one big painting on a canvass ?  If it is, our lives would have been picture-perfect.  We would have been problem-free and worry-free. But that's just a myth no less because the stark reality is that life is one huge of a jigsaw puzzle that will take us our lifetime to piece it all together.  For the less success stories, even throughout their lifetime, it's not sufficient for them to piece it together.

And if your life now revolves around social media, shy away from it, that's NOT the path to take, that's NOT the way to go, that road is NOT paved for you to piece together this huge jigzaw puzzle of our lives.  Unless and until you literally extricate yourself from social media, you will never be able to CONNECT THE DOTS in your life because those DOTS are not within the digital landscape.  Instead, the DOTS are littered all over the place. all around your life and there's no automated script to run and CONNECT THE DOTS.

To CONNECT THE DOTS, this could be tedious and mind-numbing.  Let's take a real-life example.  There are real-life stories wherein someone is having issues at work due to his quality at work.  And when he's at home, once he steps in, tensions flare.  Why ?  Could it be one's lazyish and lethargic persona co-exist both at work and at home ?

If at all, yes LIFE IS A GREAT BIG CANVAS but it is an abstract painting no less.  ABSTRACT enough for you to figure things and it will take  huge amount of effort in interpreting and translating it, enough to be decoded in HUMAN TERMS.  But as we CAN'T CONTROL anything beyond us, focus on yourself.  If your relationships at work are strained and at home, your relationship with your partner/spouse remains strained as well.  So, WHO or WHAT is the COMMON DENOMINATOR ? Isn't it yourself ?  In our workplace, RCA's [root cause analysis] is always a pre-requisite before an incident ticket can be closed and until all relevant parties reach common ground for the RCA, that incident ticket remains open.

What's the plum awaiting us at the far end of our lifelong journey ?  It will be that ideal state in our life wherein the goals we plotted way ahead in the early stages of our lifelong journey will finally come into fruition.  But that's at the far end of our journey though and before we even approach the precipice of our success, let ourselves be the enabler to CONNECT THE DOTS so that our jigzaw puzzle won't end up with one missing piece❗❗❗

This 'ROLLER COASTER' Ride in Life

This 'ROLLER COASTER' Ride in Life

Is there a debate that life is a 'ROLLER COASTER' ride ?  Guess none, right ?  Nevertheless, there remains some hard core souls stubborn enough to argue that if we manage and live our lives in a controlled manner, there can be no 'ROLLER COASTER' ride.  On this basis, I'm more than willing to roll up my sleeves and debate on this till the midnight oil gets burned.  For multifarious reasons, life can never be in that 'STEADY STATE we've been angling to have in life.

Oh, this poster strucke me as it says that life is a CONSISTENT 'ROLLER COASTER' ride.  This can't be farther than the truth.  We're all in, into this consistent 'ROLLER COASTER' ride no less.  You can be one of the top billionaires in Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk but even these near-trillion moguls can never claim that their ride has been has not been akin to the 'ROLLER COASTER' every Tom, Dick and Harry.  Everyone has been through rough patches while most of us have been at the bottom pit multiple times.  What do we do then ?  If we can't avoid hitting rock bottom, gotta mitigate it.

Why don't we set our expectations and accept things as they happen in our lives:

CERTAINTY-let's NOT demand guarantees ! STATUS QUO-let's NOT expect a 'stands still' UNFORESEEN EVENTS-this is a fact of life ! HUMAN NATURE-DON'T force your will on others PERFECTION-this is an illusion you shouldn't expect HISTORY-DON'T relive the past.  Let it go, Let it go. STATUS QUO-DON'T dislike CHANGE. Embrace it.

These are our mitigations given our 'ROLLER COASTER' rides in our lives.  By anticipating the unpredictability of things, we could then be more prepared to either pre-empt or even reactively but effectively control when life goes 'down south'.  You can be at the top of your class in school but WHAT IF someone equally smart like you slips past you.  You can be the admired worker now but WHAT IF one day you cause a snafu ?  Your business could be burgeoning but WHAT IF it got hit by this pandemic ?  By anticipating all the WHAT IFs, we would be in better control of our lives.

Eventually. that 'ROLLER COASTER' ride will taper off, albeit not overnight and not that too early in life.  You gotta go through tons of ordeals in life first, dude.  But farther down the road, you would achieve that 'SSSS' in life namely, that SAFE phase, STEADY state, that STOUT period, that STURDY juncture in your life where you will be entitled to go through the CELEBRATIONS in our LIFE ❗❗❗ 

Your KRYPTONITE In Your Life

Your KRYPTONITE In Your Life

Good day, folks.  Our topic for today is KRYPTONITE and to be on the same page [for those unfamiliar with KRYPTONITE], let me share a brief info:  KRYPTONITE is the fictional character in SUPERMAN who is described as an 'alien mineral' who has that unique 'property' to deprive SUPERMAN of his powers.  Question:  Do you have your KRYPTONITE in your life ?

Regardless if you're aware of 'KRYPTONITE' or not, it doesn't matter though.  Fact is, there is that probability that we have our respective 'KRYPTONITE' in life.  'KRYPTONITE' in school.  'KRYPTONITE' in business.  'KRYPTONITE' at work or even  'KRYPTONITE' in our relationships.  In layman's term, that's our 'achilles heel' in life, the chinks in our armor which are reflective of our weaknesses in life.

Even in the Roman Empire, 'KRYPTONITE' was non existent as there were no SUPERMAN movies those times but instead, everyone knew about the 'achilles heel' because that that was the most familiar exposure the warriors can get hit and get downed.  Fast forward to our modern day jungles today, we got to reassess if there is any 'KRYPTONITE' in our lives because not being aware with it means we can get caught blind-sided by goings-on in our lives.  A 'KRYPTONITE' may not be a person.  It could be circumstances or factors that negatively hamper you when performing specific task.

So, what are samplings of real-life scenarios where you get hampered by 'KRYPTONITE'?  Could be in business.  When you deal with a particular supplier, your sales would dip instead of notching up.  Could be in school, When it's with the Economics subject, you frequently end up poorly in the exams.  Could be at work when performing the same routinary tasks [everyday at that], frequently you commit a slip-up.

But c'mon, we can turn 'KRYPTONITE' into a positive spin, something that motivates us to either correct ourselves or improve ourselves by a notch [at the very least].  Matter of truth is, for most of us, we all work hard NOT TO FAIL when in truth, you need to start working hard to succeed.   To quote Steve Harvey, all those setbacks you had to endure, they are just a setup for your comeback ✅✅✅