Tag: motivation

Sometimes, you need to go back to what worked!

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For the past 3 years, I have debated to go back to blogging and publishing Monday tips or not; The journey of The Monday Tip was fascinating by itself and it brought a lot of joy to me and to my reader… The Secret about the story of this blog was described in the Book “Balanced Circles” where I included all the posts and all the methodology and philosophy of how to reinvent yourself that helped me personally. 

Live Everyday with no Regrets, So you don’t regret it one day

Samer Chidiac

At the end of the year 2018, I have done a lot of thinking and decided to go back to the good old days of blogging about anything and everything… A Tip for Every Monday.

And in addition, based on popular demand, a New Relationships category will be added! 

I can’t promise that I will be writing every monday, but like Hell I will try! 

The Tip for this week will be, as it always been, simple: 

Sometimes you need to go back to what worked in the past because you never know how life can change in your favor, so that crazy idea you had when you were 20 might just be EXACTLY right 10 years later… 

Have a beautiful week,

Cheers,
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Focus on your destination, and then flow like Water…

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There was that day, a day like any other, when I started my laptop, maybe I was feeling a bit down, maybe just one of these days… All I could remember is that what you are reading right now, is the last post of a project that I never knew that I would be starting that morning… The Monday Tip, a Weekly Blog that aimed at sharing positive vibes, and assist others one way or another.

3 years later; thousands of readers from all over the world and a lot of articles have been written with one common purpose: Influencing the life of Others.

Some of the articles went around a productivity tip, some went for strategy, management, but mostly they revolved around giving you a slice of motivation every week.

With the end of 2016, I’m closing this chapter by keeping this blog alive as a reference, and documenting it into 2 books: “Refresh! The 30 day Challenge” and “Balanced Circles”,

  • The first “Refresh! The 30 day Challenge” is crafted in a way that uses 30 selected articles in a specific sequence with an associated challenge that needs to be completed within 24 hours, and where after the 30 days, you would feel the difference in resetting major aspects of your mind and life.
  • The latter “Balanced Circles” includes the full collection of tips, in printed format, with a logical format, and extended chapters and added epilogues. With an added section of the Refresh! Methodology.

“You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.”

~Bruce Lee

Now what would be the quote of this week?

We all have thought of or started some sort of a project; be it a professional project, a personal project, an idea or a dream… Whether it was an important and significant or just random, 2 points you need to remember:

  1. Focus on the destination
  2. Flow like water

If you really want your project to succeed, you need to set a clear destination, that would be articulated briefly in your mind, and revised along the way. Some people fail because they spend too much time trying to figure out so many details in advance… Stop Torturing your project and yourself… Have a clear & simple destination.

If you are not flexible, you would break along the way, mainly because you would face a lot of unexpected surprises along the way; sometimes happy ones, and sometimes unpleasant; either case, your project may be impacted, and it’s the level of how much you are agile and flexible that would dictate the impact.

And best of all, be ready to make mistakes, and learn from them, and adapt along the way! it’s OK not to be perfect, just take as much time as you need, and don’t worry if your project didn’t find the attraction you were hoping for at first, just keep going and NEVER give up!

I hope you enjoyed my project, and Remember to Stay in touch!

Have a nice week, every week!
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Before asking questions, learn how to interpret the answers

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We’ve all heard the sentence that you need to ask the right questions in order to get better answers; While it is valid and true in most situations, it could be useless if you were – per example – not being able to interpret the answer one it was given to you :).

On one of my trips to Minsk – Belarus, I needed to perform a relatively simple task that every tourist would’ve done, which was taking the metro; My Russian language was more elementary, meaning that I could construct sentences and have some “decent tourist vocabulary” and could also understand the meaning of a whole conversation all together; the thing is I needed to ask for basic instructions like where to buy tickets and which way to go to Station X from where I stand.

The Funny thing, is that I knew the questions to ask, what I failed to do, was to interpret the different answers I received :), you see you need to be precise on the instruction so you don’t end up somewhere else don’t you?

In our life, we keep looking for answers, some could be philosophical like the purpose of our life or what the future could hold for us, and some could be very simple, like what should you wear on a specific occasion, and while some answers are more simple and further obvious than others,  the way you would seek the answers could differ dramatically… Mainly due to whom you are asking your question? are you asking yourself? are you asking someone else? are you asking The Divine? your guardian angels?

If you are asking a question to someone who only speaks Russian or Spanish, you will need to tailor your question to make sure they understand you, but most importantly, you will need to be prepared to interpret the answer that will follow; whether the answer you were looking for was literate or figurative or even simply silence. 

This Monday’s Tip, is about being prepared, so you don’t miss an opportunity, Communicate clearly on what you want, but most importantly, learn more about the answers you are looking for, so you don’t pass right next to them without noticing.

“Speed is irrelevant if you are going in the wrong direction.”  

~Mahatma Gandhi

Cheers,
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Make your faith greater than your fear

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At one point in time, I was doing a coaching session for a young woman, who was explaining to me how she couldn’t cope with all the problems she had, and how difficult this life is… And while most individuals would consider the amount of problems they have as being the Worst scenarios, I’ve had a different response to that young woman:

“It might sound weird to you, but I don’t think that these are the real problems you’re having… You see what you listed to me – Given that they really are the only problems you have – is a list of problems that you already know… and since you already know them, you have the chance to fix them… I’m not saying they are easy to fix… but it’s easier to fix or cope with a problem that you know than to deal with a problem you don’t know you have? ” 

Let me ask you a question, and please take a little time to think about it… Which situation would you prefer to be in?

  • If you knew that someone will be coming at an exact time, but that time is a bit LATE.
  • If you don’t know when that same someone is coming over… it could be in 10 minutes or in 10 hours or even not at all.

Based on research, people tend to accept the first assumption, because the discomfort of the situation where you are uncertain, is far greater to a person than the acceptance of latency.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

So let’s step back a bit, and analyze a bit, did I just told you that it’s OK to accept a bad news than an uncertain good news? Well not quite that… it’s just that the time you spend worrying about an uncertain thing, will damage you more than knowing than it’s coming to you at a specific time.

How many of us WORRY ABOUT THE FUTURE Vs  And How Many are EXCITED ABOUT THE FUTURE? 

I’ve seen very few people getting excited about the unknown… but many do worry and fear the unknown… While in fact, most of us, we don’t fear the unknown… We fear bad events that might occur… And the same thing we don’t get excited about the unknown, but in fact, we get excited about the possibilities of the great things that might occur in the future.

This week’s tip, is about Faith.

Irrespective what you believe in or not… Faith is and has always been about making the unknown to be known to us in a special format… It’s about picking up at the point when logic reached its limits, or in Friedrich Nietzsche’s terms, when reason commits a suicide.

So if your fears come from the unknown… Break the Unknown with your Faith about the good thing that will happen… and Make your Faith Greater than your Fear.

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Evolve

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This morning on my way to work, I stopped by the gas station’s supermarket and wanted to get myself some breakfast (by the way I start work REALLY early), it was almost 6 AM already, and while I was browsing the items in that mini-market, I saw a young girl, she was around 13 or 14, and all dressed up with her school uniform for preparation for school, and I continued browsing around… and then I saw her again across the hall.. I was a bit surprised of how fast she could move from 1 meter behind me to around 20 meters in a blink of an eye..

When I was paying for my items, I saw her and her again, they were twin sisters :), both wearing the same school uniform and getting ready to go to school. I smiled because when I saw each separately, I really couldn’t tell the difference, but when they were together, I could spot so many items to tell them apart.

twin-948720_960_720

This week’s tip is not about similarities but about differences, and how to make a difference in our life and build a better us.

You can always take some time to reflect on your life and see how much you have accomplished and how close you are to realizing your dreams, or even how far you are from where you want to be, that’s a very healthy exercise you can do; you just need to keep in mind that life will take you places you just need to enjoy the journey with all its ups and downs.

Going from the story of the Twins, in biology, an identical twin have practically the same genomes (A genome is an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its genes. Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism. In humans, a copy of the entire genome—more than 3 billion DNA base pairs—is contained in all cells that have a nucleus.) and therefor neither (in simple terms of course) have a competitive edge over the other, yet that can literally guarantee nothing about their identical future.

Just for fun check out Wikipedia on the list of famous twins

alorsquoidefun.fr-regime-homme-sculpture-art

So the tip for this week, is how to make a difference in your own life, and mostly it goes down to a simple decision…

What do you want to be in your Life?

Do you want to be a famous actor? do you want to be superstar doctor? do you want to be an athlete? who do you REALLY want to be…

The most important part you need to understand, that in order for you to get to where you want to become… You need to EVOLVE… you need to evolve yourself, your style, your education and so many things… And realize that this PROCESS is imperfect, and often painful to do…

You just need to KEEP GOING, until you are free from your current self, and evolved into the person you want to be.

This can take time, but if you stop there… You will not WIN… and instead, you will stay in a phase that you will never feel satisfaction, so you need to KEEP GOING until you make it.

Reach till the END… and Then you will start a new beginning in a new Form, in an evolved manner…

‘What the caterpillar perceives is the end, to the butterfly is just the beginning.’

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Be like a baby… Then Grow up!

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If you ever had the opportunity to study Psychology, one of the foundation of this magnificent study will be about learning, and how do we learn. And to be able to understand the evolution of the Brain & Mind in this, they normally start with studying babies.

There’s a fascinating small game that parents play with their infant child, that is almost universally known as “PEEK-A-POO”, where the parent (adult) hide his or her face from the child and then show it again with the work “PEEK-A-Poooooo” (Where I come from the word was “BAA’OOUSSI”) and the look on the child’s face at that moment, is priceless :).

For those of us who are not too technical on this, The Game is nice, brings positive vibes and simply fun and easy to play with a child; In Psychology, the explanation of that, is simple… The Infant’s Brain at that stage of Learning, REALLY THINKS THAT THE OTHER PERSON DISAPPEARED! and throughout time, the game will start being less interesting as the child develop the understanding of how it works.

Now moving on to another very nice thing about babies, when they start to walk or talk… Their first attempts are always the most important and most desired to witness by their parents… It doesn’t have to be perfect… in fact, NOONE ever is expecting a child’s first words would be “To Be or Not to Be… That is the Question” :P; but instead they might start speaking in a very alienated form of speech until one day they say something that sounds like “DA DA”, or the day when the child will try to stand up by themselves and then fall down in a cute and adorable way.

Now what would be the role of the parents at that stage… in simple terms:

Protecting > Encouraging > Motivating > Correcting > Raising the Bar
(and then starting this all over again)

You see a child saying “DA DA” is different than a 10 years old speaking like that… So first there’s a safe environment to actually innovate and do whatever you like, then you get the encouragement to do so, then you get a cheerful motivation, and a correction but then the parent is no longer impressed by that attempt, and then they require more efforts 🙂

This week’s tip, is pointing out that each one of us, learn in different ways, but most importantly gets motivated in different ways, and therefor, by applying the simple rules of parenting… An employee can be encouraged to start learning something new, to excel in their field and become innovative…

And Although you may think that this Tip is dedicated for Managers… You are right… But you are your own MANAGER… and You need to start motivating yourself using those rules… And you Will succeed…

Start small, Encourage yourself to try, Reward your self for the small improvement, correct yourself, raise the bar and then REPEAT.

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

You can’t change people, but people can change because of you

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How many times you have closed your eyes and wished deep inside  that someone could just change? and how many times you thought you really “could do it” and change them? was it a behavior that you didn’t like, was it a wishful thought to make your relationship become better. Whatever the reason was, we all did it, and more likely we will all keep doing it… Trying to Change others… 

The Miracle of Believing is Individual, is Singular, I wish I could believe for all of you, but the fact remains that you need to believe for yourself.

~Jim Rohn

In my upcoming Book, “Living an Influential Life”, I go over the power of Influence and how you can inspire and aspire others to change by simply working on yourself and building specific aspects of YOU that will make others look up to you.

Let’s pause for a second and think of the following… If you have been doing something in a specific way, and it was working for you… Would you want to look for ways to enhance it? chances are that you won’t… However when that specific way lead to a disaster, then you would be forced to change… But there are those times, when you are not really looking for way to enhance and change things, and suddenly, you see someone else doing it in a much efficient way, that you feel inspired to change!

During my line of work, I used to travel a LOT… and I have used to ask the cabin crew for requests in a very polite manner but really had no specific way on how to do so; Until one day, one of my Best friends, Bachar D.  who was more experienced in traveling than I was, gave me a great tip… We were siting in a restaurant and he asked for a napkin from the waiter, he said to him: “Excuse me, <First Name – that he could read from the nameTag>, when you have time, can you please get me a napkin.” and the waiter smiled at him, and despite how busy he was, he did prioritize getting the napkin for him in no time…

Now of course it may sound silly for you, but when Bachar explained this to me, he said that the fact that he mentioned ” WHEN YOU HAVE TIME” in the sentence, it made a huge difference in the structure of the sentence and the other person felt more respected, and of course this was a trick that he learned in the airline business…. and Ever since, I tried it and used it over and over and over and it works every time…

He really didn’t ask me to change… He didn’t say that my “can I have a napkin please” is horrible… he really didn’t say anything… he was just being him, and doing things his way… and Just that… Inspired me to make a small change in my behavior.

So the tip for this week, is Instead of trying so hard to Change people, Be The Change you want to see… and inspire others to change because of you!

Your Story Matters... By Bachar Dib

This post is dedicated to Bachar Dib

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Enjoy your own life, without comparing it with that of another

Posted in MotivationTagged , , 2 Comments

They say that it’s easy to feel better when you watch someone else feeling more miserable, and it’s easy not to feel pretty if you bumped into a more attractive person, and you know what, yes they are right! only it’s a double edge sword… You can hurt yourself while doing that.

I’ll give you an example from a question I asked, on my first post on this blog:

When was the last time you looked at yourself in the mirror and you were completely satisfied with what you saw? do you accept everything about yourself everyday?

Before you continue reading… Think through the first 2 paragraph, and try to conclude what this week’s tip would be…

Come on… Try it before you continue reading.

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I’m curious to learn what your answer was, so if you can comment on this page or send me a msg on my Facebook Page… 

Ok here it goes,

Instead of checking how good or bad your life is by looking at others, you should do it when you look at yourself; Some of the best times of our life may never come back to us, not because life is cruel, but simply because the phase where we could party all night and sleep for 1 hour and then jump up and continue our day, needed to end at your 20s, and when you’re 40, that won’t be pretty applicable anymore (Because of our body structure/Energy of course).

is that a bad thing? not particularly, Noone says that you should keep on partying all your life, but I would say to look at your life TODAY, and realize where you are RIGHT NOW, and compare it with Where you would want to be and where you were… I Wouldn’t normally suggest that someone would crawl back to the past, EXCEPT if He/She would be looking at the future at the same time.

You could not like yourself right now, remember you can change… and you can have a great Life… it’s in your hands… not in anyone else’s,

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

So it’s time you look at yourself and check out how your can change… and if you need ideas, it’s ok to look at others… but don’t let others make you feel inferior just because they are doing better than you are, you really have no idea what they might be going through.

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Don’t be the same. BE BETTER!

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It’s the first Monday of the year 2016, and possibly you’re at the stage of thinking of beginnings, change, transformation, ambition or simply thinking about improvement.

I’ve had a practice since I was in my early 20s, that I used to do on the edge of the year… When I look back and reflect on how that year has passed by, and more importantly… How my life is going?

Well, yes, some years has been sweet, some has been sad, some were weird and it seems that the more you grow older, things start to get more and more challenging, and you get back to wishing how easy your life was when you were younger, and the opportunities you could’ve seized with that Body you had and so on…

“Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom” – Jim Rohn

Well, the thing is… No matter how you want to look at it… It will look right. YES… it will look right! if you want to see it as a bad year, you will be right, and if you want to see it as a good year you will see it… so either way… rest assure.. You’re Right! 

My advice for you this year, is to become a better version of yourself… Become A Better Person… Just BE BETTER!

You may not be able to control the wind, the flow of things, the rain or whatever you face externally… But remember that you can ALWAYS control your personal development! Learn More, Explore More, Experience More… And BECOME BETTER.

Try to check edX or Coursera and pick one of the free courses.. You can get an accreditation from one of the top universities in the world, like Harvard and MIT… FREE & ACCREDITED… imagine if you can take 1 or 2 courses per year… Would that be better on your resume by December 2016? How about Matching that with 2 books… and maybe learn a skill from just watching YouTube?

It’s easy… YET you’re still the SAME as last year! Don’t be… BE BETTER THIS YEAR!!

Enjoy your week,
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

You Cannot Stop the Rain from Falling

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The more you become good in strategy, the more you realize how much you need to be able to see the impact of external forces to your life or to your business or to both.There will always be things that we can control, and things that we cannot… But it’s important to note that the things we cannot control, shouldn’t control us.

This week’s tip, is about how you should react when bad things occur towards you; I have been accused of being “too” optimistic sometimes, that I always look for the bright side even when things are going too dark, and too down, and one time I was asked the following question: “Why do you keep saying it was something good, when you know that the result is obviously bad??” and I normally smile, even when things can look sad, and reply back “You cannot stop the rain from falling”.

Let me ask you the following questions:

If you missed your flight… How would you feel?  Terrible? Angry?? Disappointed???

If several hours later you heard that the same flight you missed… Crashed…. How would you feel now? Lucky?? Happy???

Now what about all those decisions you took in your life and never knew what would’ve happened?

What if you met a homeless and gave him a sum of money, and later on discovered that he was a fraud?? Would you focus on your self and your act of GIVING or the fact that he was a bad person and took advantage of you? did he?

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

~Gilbert K. Chesterton

You cannot stop the rain from falling, but you can always control how you would feel about it… Just like in NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) where they say that it’s not the words that hurt you, but it’s you that allow the words to hurt you… And that’s very powerful.

So in the end, you can be optimistic & positive, or negative & pessimistic when either way, the result is still the same… I would choose to be optimistic and positive, everytime!

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Without Challenges, You can’t feel the taste of Success and Happiness.

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When studying some basic concepts in psychology to help me understand the drive a person would have a to achieve a fulfilling life,  researchers always stumbled upon what we call Happiness. Are we happy when we have a high level of pleasure? Are we happy when we achieve a higher goal? is happiness a permanent state? a goal to reach for?

So many questions to be asked, and only one answer is interesting for you to know about right now, Happiness means different things to different people but somehow the impact is the same for everyone.

The same challenging definition is the definition of Success, is being successful related to fame, money, achievements? what does success mean? or even better.. what does Success TASTE like.

Each one of us have tasted success at one or more times in his or her life, it might be the first time you walked when you were almost 2 years old or the diploma you earned when you were 20 or the huge deal you landed to your company making you in the top 20% (The High Performers); I’m sure if you only closed your eyes for 20 seconds and remembered that time, you would suddenly smile and feel happy of the memory itself.

One thing that would make almost anything worth appreciating, is how easy or difficult it was for you to reach there… You see if you spent 2 minutes to find a photo online to use for your presentation, chances are you will forget where you stored it on your computer, and you probably won’t care that much if you lost it… Cause you will spend 2 more minutes later on to find it again or find an even better one.

Without challenges, success and excellence won’t exist, especially when such a success is meant for the homeland and its fruit is harvested by the citizens. Without challenges, we won’t feel the taste of success and happiness we wish for our people in this dear land.”

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

However when success was the highlight of a road filled with challenges, that taught us determination and when we needed to look for motivation to make it, this success will be hard to forget, and where you will be fighting to defend your right to keep it and benefit from it.

So if you were in challenging situation, just remember how Happy you would be when you succeed, knowing that you worked hard to make it happen.

Have a beautiful week,
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

A winner is a dreamer who never gives up

Posted in MotivationTagged , , , , 1 Comment

I was having a chat recently about my opinion on what would be the key to success & winning…  I wasn’t very sure about what would that be… But I answered: perseverance

Most of the winners in this life, have faced lots of failures and disappointments in their life & career, but they never stopped believing in the beauty of their dreams… and Never gave up!

In one of my lectures at one of the universities, I had an interesting question:“How should we know when to take an opportunity and when we should wait for the next one?”

I hesitated to answer, since there’s virtually no guarantee that an opportunity will be the right one or that the next one (if there was one) will be the right one… so here it was the answer I gave that young lady:

“The Short Answer is that you WON’T KNOW… But it’s not a game of chance and that you need to gamble with opportunities, All you have to understand about opportunities is that they are MEANS, and not DESTINATIONS; So you get an opportunity to have an interview, an opportunity to meet someone, an opportunity to showcase your work to some buyers… And therefore, if you don’t have a destination in mind, all opportunities would look the same to you…”

The Key to Winning is to NEVER GIVE UP, and to try to fuel your chances by taking the opportunities that would get you closer to realizing your dreams.

Cheers,
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 “I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended.”
― Nelson Mandela

Photo Credit: Samer Chidiac
Scene Location: Belarus
Model: Elena Chepak

Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Be like the Ant: Never give up, look ahead, stay positive and do all you can!

Posted in Motivation, ProductivityTagged , , , , 1 Comment

One of my favorite and most probably one of the first stories I heard when I was a kid at school, was the story of the Ant and the Cricket, the cricket that was singing all summer while the Ant was working, and when the winter arrived, the cricket paid the price while the ant ripped off the benefit of hard work.

The summary of the story is goes something like this:

Once upon a time… one hot summer, a cricket sang cheerfully on the branch of a tree, while down below, a long line of ants struggled gamely under the weight of their load of grains; and between one song and the next, the cricket spoke to the ants. “Why are you working so hard? Come into the shade, away from the sun, and sing a song with me.” But the tireless ants went on with the work… “We can’t do that,” they said, “We must store away food for the winter. When the weather`s cold and the ground white with snow, there’s nothing to eat, and we’ll survive the winter only if the pantry is full.”

“There’s plenty of summer to come,” replied the cricket, “and lots of time to fill the pantry before winter. I’d rather sing! How can anyone work in this heat and sun?”

And so all summer, the cricket sang while the ants laboured. But the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months. Autumn came, the leaves began to fall and the cricket left the bare tree. The grass too was turning thin and yellow. One morning, the cricket woke shivering with cold. An early frost tinged the fields with white and turned the last of the green leaves brown: winter had come at last.

The cricket wandered, feeding on the few dry stalks left on the hard frozen ground. Then the snow fell and she could find nothing at all to eat. Trembling and famished, she thought sadly of the warmth and her summer songs. One evening, she saw a speck of light in the distance, and trampling through the thick snow, made her way towards it.

“Open the door! Please open the door! I’m starving. Give me some food!” An ant leant out of the window.

“Who’s there? Who is it?”
“It’s me – the cricket. I’m cold and hungry, with no roof over my head.”

“The cricket? Ah, yes! I remember you. And what were you doing all summer while we were getting ready for winter?”

“Me? I was singing and filling the whole earth and sky with my song!”

“Singing, eh?” said the ant. “Well, try dancing now!”

Although this is a story designed for children, it’s very true in the world of business, entrepreneurship and leadership; you see, Ants are fascinating creatures, they don’t have left and right brain to think logically and creatively and they don’t have a Facebook account to brag about what they are doing or watching, instead, they are only driven by their instinct to fulfill their life mission and goal. 

If they’re headed somewhere and you try to stop them; they’ll look for another way. When I was a kid, I used to place a straw to prevent the ant from continuing its path and the response was, they’ll climb over, they’ll climb under, and they’ll climb around. They keep looking for another way.

This week’s tip, is about learning 3 things from this amazing tiny creature,

  1. Look ahead
  2. Work in a team towards a common goal
  3. Stay positive and do all you can 

Have a nice week,
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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project

Sometimes you need to hear what you don’t want to

Posted in MotivationTagged , 1 Comment

At points in time, we feel that we have everything figured out in life, as if we know exactly what we want and how do we want it… Yet we would NOT be willing to do what it takes to get what we really want… It’s probably one of the most mysterious concepts in human psychology…

When I was very young, I have always have admiration to those tiny ANTS who taught me more about determination than probably all the business schools I have ever visited and attended… Those tiny creatures, that NO MATTER how much the 6 years old kid tried to keep them away from their path… They keep going back… And they Won’t Stop!

…Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.

~Steve Jobs

In this week’s tip, I’d like to highlight something very important, it’s about being determined to get what you really want… What you really want to achieve in Life… That’s why you have to do EVERYTHING THAT YOU NEED TO DO in order to get there… I can list countless examples from productivity to life lessons to economics and even to literature… That shows how most of the times you would NEED to do something you don’t like to get to something you want.

I have done so many talks about motivation to people who really wanted to listen… So many times I can’t even remember, and Yet I can almost still recall every individual talk I’ve had with someone who NEEDED to hear me out..

And I can’t illustrate it better than sharing with you the monologue from a very nice talk between Sean and Will (Robbin Williams and Matt Damon) in the movie Good Will Hunting.

So if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written… Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life’s work, criticisms, political aspirations.
But you couldn’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling.

And if I asked you about women I’m sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and maybe you’ve been laid a few times too.
But you couldn’t tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy.

If I asked you about war you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material,
but you’ve never been in one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help.

And if I asked you about love I’d get a sonnet, but you’ve never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable. Known that someone could kill you with a look.
That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you.

And you wouldn’t know how it felt to be her angel. To have the love be there for her forever. Through anything, through cancer. You wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term “visiting hours” didn’t apply to you.

And you wouldn’t know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you’ve never dared to love anything that much.

I look at you and I don’t see an intelligent confident man, I don’t see a peer, and I don’t see my equal. I see a boy. Nobody could possibly understand you, right Will?

So wherever you are right now, whatever you are doing, when you get the chance… JUST OPEN Your Heart and LISTEN…

Enjoy your Week!

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Samer Chidiac

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project