It’s not real estate. It’s not mutual funds. It’s not even Google stocks! The best investment you can ever have is yourself. It’s the only thing that really matters in the long run.

Commit Healthy Mistakes

My mom always told me and my siblings that we should commit all our mistakes as early as possible. It is a great principle to live by. The fact is it is very healthy to make mistakes, just as long as it impacts you in a way you will forever learn from the experience.

Read Great and Helpful Books

I didn’t always love reading. Back in elementary, I was just like any other ordinary kid who loved playing more than reading. But I learned to love it after reading the The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. Believe me, it changed me forever.

I can’t see anybody being successful without reading books. It’s not just the book, it’s the principle when reading the book. It’s the thirst for improvement, the drive to learn new things and empowering oneself.

I highly recommend reading these books, these are some of my favorites and the books that have made an impact to me.

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad
• Who Moved My Cheese?

I’ve read every book below except the 7 Habits for Highly Effective People since I read the The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Teens.

Hone Your Talents and Skills

We are simple gifted with extraordinary talents that we sometimes take for granted. It doesn’t necessarily mean being able to play basketball like Michael Jordan or golf like Tiger Woods. It could be simpler than that.

• Enroll in a short culinary course and expand your cooking recipes.
• Apprentice in a filming studio and enhance your camera angles and video editing skills.
• Take free tutorials online and practice your programming skills.
• Work part-time for a fast food chain to learn the what and the hows in running your own restaurant business.
• Take acting and modeling workshops to further push your modeling career.
• The possibilities are endless.

Hone your talents and skills, don’t be afraid to try them out. Ive actually done several things on that list, and believe me it was worth it.

I worked part-time in McDonalds during my first year in college, the pay can’t compare to what I’m earning with my web development business but the lessons and experiences I gained are priceless!

I even got to represent my McDonalds family during the Mad Dash competition. It was truly an unforgettable experience.

Build Your Credentials!

I cannot add more weight in the importance of building your credentials. I believe school and diplomas don’t make a person successful, but it could really make it a whole lot easier for him! Say you’re hiring a person, like it or not, his educational level and name of his school institution is a big factor.

Although in our new generation, many big businessmen have dropped out of school so it’s not only about school. It’s among many other things. Like what accomplishments have you done, what projects have you been dealing with and who are the people you have associated yourself with.

But whether you like it or not, you need to have very good credentials before people will start listening to you.

Eat Healthy with Vegetables and Fruits

The best investment is indeed yourself, which also includes your body. Listen to your mom, vegetables and fruits are both tasty and healthy. Their good for you and you know it.

Exercise by Jogging or Hitting the Gym

The great thing about our body is even though our minds are all stressed out from doing paperwork, the body isn’t. It’s actually refreshing for me when I hit the gym after long hours of work.

Not only do you feel good because you exercise, you also gain a lot of confidence when you look fit and healthy.

Creating Balance in Your Life

There should always be balance. In everything we do, we cannot rely on one big thing it’s the many little things that counts. Do you agree? What other things have you been concentrating in your life?

I hope you enjoyed and learned something from my post. If you loved it, please consider stumbling it or subscribing to my feeds. Enjoy!

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Getting things done is easier said than done. A lot of times, I found myself working on a project but not finishing it on my recommended time because of too much distractions. Yes. The internet is full of it.

For the past few days, I’ve been running after some project deadlines and these are the top 5 internet distractions to avoid.

1. Instant Messengers

If you really want to focus all your energy on finishing your work, I suggest you sign out of your instant messengers for the time being. Or at the very least, appear invisible to your contacts. You really can’t focus with your work especially if people keep sending you messages every 3 minutes.

2. Emails

Check your emails once and then sign out. Focus first on what you need to finish before getting back to your emails. The last thing you want to do is to ruin your concentration whenever a new email comes in.

3. Social Media Websites

Let’s face it. Social Media Sites are great for networking and are good time wasters. But if you plan to finish a project with a nearing deadline, stay as far away from social media sites as possible!

4. RSS Feed Readers

You might have very few blogs that you are subscribed to, but if you open your rss reader and try to skim your subscribed blogs, you might find an interesting article that could forever keep you away from going back to your work.

The worst part is being surprised how from one interesting article, you managed to read a whole lot of other articles you never had the plan to open.

5. Live Video Streaming Websites

Just like reading an interesting article, if you start streaming some videos, you might find a series you love and get hooked up. I’ve had some experiences where I told myself that this will be the last episode that I’ll watch but only to find out I’ve already watched 5-6 last episodes.

Has this ever happened to you? Or did you experience other distractions not found in the list?

Hope you guys found this post useful. If you did, please consider subscribing to my feeds. Cheers.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Speed Racer goes to theaters, reported by USA Today. It’s not really a big deal with all the recent big-screen TV adaptations going on lately. But the fact that this is being headed by The Wachowski Brothers, creators of The Matrix, is enough reason for me to watch this movie.

I’ve been a big fan of The Matrix, it was the movie which popularized the “Bullet-Time” effects which simple kicks ass. And judging by the preview pictures provided for Speed Racer, I can’t helped but drool. The special effects are truly awesome!

The effects are beyond belief. We called it ‘car fu,’ because it was like kung fu with the cars,” Silver says. “We couldn’t have made this movie until right now.

That’s sweet! Aside from the heart pounding special effects, the producers have also included John Goodman and Christina Ricci in the project.

More pictures after the jump!
Continue reading this post »

Popularity: 6% [?]

My good friend Gyutae of WinningTheWeb is running an awesome contest and is giving away a $400 ReviewMe from John Chow. The value of that prize is a big amount of money and will certainly drive your site a lot of traffic!

Basically, the contest will run for the next 2 weeks, WinningTheWeb will display a phrase or words, adding a letter at a time in 11 next posts. These letters of course will only appear in the feed reader, so you need to subscribe to his RSS feed.

Once all the 11 letters unscrambled, you can guess the secret words/phrase, and if you are the first to guess the correct answer, you win the awesome ReviewMe.

Contest Summary:

• Letters will be added to the scrambled message in random upcoming posts on Winning the Web. You must subscribe to the RSS feed to view it.
• To take a guess at the unscrambled word/phrase, you must comment on this post.
• You can guess what the word/phrase is at any time in the process, but only 1 entry per person (by website & ip address).
• You must enter the web site you want reviewed when commenting on the post.
• Winner will be announced Friday, December 21, 2007.

I’m very much excited to this contest. I’ve been subscribed to Gyutae’s feeds for some time now, and this contest is just an added bonus. I’m also hoping that one of my readers can win this contest. That would be an added treat.

My Domain was mentioned in John Chow’s Front Page

I’d like to extend my thanks my good friend Charles of Nierva for giving me the heads up on this. Apparently, my domain was mentioned in John Chow’s post through Gyutae’s blog audit. And currently, I’m getting a boost of my blog’s traffic coming from all sources.

Thanks again you guys. I hope to see more of you here.

Popularity: 5% [?]

The blogosphere is literally crowded with millions of blogs. So why the hell should a person read yours? *pause* Because you offer something the other millions don’t.

I know, you’ve heard it a million times. Make your blog stand out of the crowd. Differentiate yourself from the pack. And a whole lot of getting your blog to be as unique as possible tips. Okay, I might have exaggerated on the million thing, maybe just a thousand.

Anyway, my point is, you’ve heard it many times. Why? Because it really is important!

Adding Visual Style and Trademarks

The truth is the visual design of your blog is a very big factor why readers would keep coming back. It’s not going to be the main reason, but will be a big factor. Be sure to choose your design wisely and how you associate your blog to a certain color scheme and visual logo.

Darren of ProBlogger uses an image with rounded corners in the top-left corner of most of his posts. This technique can be well associated with your blog and if used correctly, brand your blog to stand out of the crowd.

Adding Writing Style and Formatting Trademarks

Adding trademark visually is one thing. Creating a trademark style with your writing and formatting is another. It would be best to utilize both as readers are not there for the eye candy but mainly for your contents.

Maki of DoshDosh has done a great job in this with his quality over quantity trademark. He has started publishing less articles but when he does, they are very long and literally overflowing with information.

Literally Offering A Unique Service or Freebies

All of us are not gifted with the literary genius in writing or the eye candy for design. But how about offering something unique in your own field. Take for example in the line of programming or your other skills and talents.

Jeremy of Shoemoney offers a Search Engine Ranking Position or SERPs web tool that he has personally coded. This can be a big help to make your blog stand out of the pack.

No Follow

No. I’m not referring to those Google nofollow pagerank issues. I’m referring to not following on the trends and styles of other bloggers, especially the A-list bloggers.

It’s good to use their success as inspiration, but don’t even try to follow. You can easily imitate, but you certainly cannot duplicate their success. Start with your own and stand out of the crowd who are just following.

I hope you enjoyed my post. If you did, you might want to consider subscribing to my feeds via rss or via email.

What do you think? Do you have other tips on how to make your blog stand out of the pack?

Popularity: 10% [?]