My Hat's Off to Jon Meade Huntsman

I learned about Jon M. Huntsman from the book I picked up by chance from the National Library. It is the book written by the billionaire himself, Winners Never Cheat: Everyday Values We Learned as Children (But May Have Forgotten).

In my opinion, some of the points illustrated regarding honesty and playing by the rules are on the extreme ends but as an individual, he is truly remarkable. Not only the sum of his donation was humongous (more than $1.2 billion), he had taken out bank loans to meet his philanthropic pledges in bad economic times. I can comprehend if a man dies broke by giving his money away to various charities but cannot help wondering what went through his mind to borrow money from someone just to give away to others. Simply amazing.

A brief info about Jon Huntsman can be found on Wikipedia. It is inspiring to learn that such a man exist in the world.

The Courage to Make Mistakes

Courage was never a value I learn from young. The same goes for making mistakes. In school, I was taught to get the right answers and score in exams. Making mistakes was not valued.

Ironically, to get the right answers, sometimes we need to know the wrong ones. How do we know what is right and what is wrong? As they say, good judgments come from experience and experience comes from bad judgments. We can always learn from other people's experience but its never the same experiencing ourselves. Just because everybody says something is not right doesn't mean it is definitely not right. For example, back in those days, people used to think that Earth is the center of the universe. Today, we know that our Mother Earth revolves round the sun.

Curiosity is alluring and I want to remain a curious cat who keep questioning. Of course, there's also a saying that goes, "Curiosity kills the cat". So, I pray for courage. I pray for courage so that I shall walk a path less traveled by. In other words, dare to be different and do what others are not willing to do. I also pray for courage to speak my mind and do what I believe is right. The latter has proven to be much more challenging.

Well, what that's worth doing is worth doing after all. If I make mistakes, I wish for people around me to open my eyes and the wisdom to learn from the mistakes. So, I hope not to be perfect but for courage to make mistakes and learn from them. 

Taiping International Marathon

Sept 16 2012 was the second time they organized the Taiping International Marathon. I used to cycle around town and the outskirts back in high school but would not have run in my beloved home town had it not for the marathon this morning.

It was my first half marathon. Could not run any more for the last 5 kilometres but I am proud to complete the run within 2 hours and 42 minutes. Not too shabby eh? :)

Winner Never Cheats?

Started reading the book, Winner Never Cheat by Jon M. Huntsman. The title itself is intriguing and the fact that the book is written by a self-made billionaire makes it a must read for me.

There is an except which elicited my attention. Huntsman was telling a story when he was 10 years old and making about 50 cents a day selling and delivering the local newspaper.

"I entered the store while on my route one day and no one seemed to be around. Ice cream sandwiches had just come on the market. It was hot and I wanted to try one. I reached inside the small freezer and grabbed an ice cream bar. I slipped the wrapped sandwich into my pocket. Moments later, Mrs. Edwards appeared, asking if she could me.

"No, thanks," I answered politely and headed for the door. Just before it slammed shut, I heard her say, "Jon, are you going to pay for that ice cream sandwich?" Embarrassed, I turned around and sheepishly walked back to the freezer where my slightly shaking hand returned the ice cream sandwich to its rightful place, Mrs. Edwards never said another word."

I like this except because I can related to a past experience back when 8 or 9. Back then, I was observing the class teacher asking for the owners of the stationery dropped and found in the class. The stationery found were never mine and the younger me thought to myself, "Do those stuff really belong to people who raised their hands?"

The simple-minded me decided to give a try on a decent looking plastic ruler and raised my hand. Obviously, the rightful owner also raised his hand and challenged that my ruler is a wooden one. I felt embarrassed. Couldn't remember how I found my way out but it was a priceless lesson learned.

Moral of the story is, it is wrong to take that which doesn't belong to us.

An unlucky day?

It was only last night I was talking about positive thinking and attitudes, today I was challenged.

I could not handle an easy negotiation properly, lost out in a competition even though I had an advantage and broke my car window. Everything seems to go wrong. Tough luck, isn't it?

Its easy to blame luck when things are not going smoothly but come on, let's face the truth. I couldn't handle the negotiation properly because of lack of skill. I lost out in a competition because I lack competence or maybe I didn't work hard enough. I broke my car window because of negligence. So, who is to blame?

The questions I am more interested to answer are how can I turn this around, what can I learn from what happened today and what should I do so that the defeat today will pave the road to my victory tomorrow. By the way, I do not believe in luck. Its simply not logical to believe in luck when I believe in God and myself.

Special thanks to Nim for kindly allowing me to keep the car in his house.

The Winning Attitude

Just finish reading the book, The Winning Attitude by John C. Maxwell. The Winning Attitude is good but the other 2 books I read from John Maxwell, Failing Forward and The 360 Degree Leader, are much more interesting. Failing Forward was extremely relevant when I read it for the second time out of boredom 2-3 months ago.

I remember an ex-boss saying the problem with me is that I have mental block. Coming from an engineering background, my brain is developed to solve problems. So I cannot help being critical and seeing problems, big or small, all the time and trying to solve them. Although a competent problem solver, occasionally I do not get immediate solutions to problems I see. This caused me to have mental block and limit my potential. Fortunately, I am a competent problem solver and the problem with mental block is quite easy to solve.

Today, being a salesman, I constantly train myself to see beyond the problems I see and look for opportunities instead. Positive thinking and commendable attitudes are essential. Therefore, in life there is no problem. Rather, there are challenges and where there are challenges, there are opportunities. Its really up to us to seize the opportunities. Quoting Louis Pasteur, "Fortune favors the prepared mind".

Beg, Borrow and Steal

To beg and borrow is nothing uncommon for me. I thought that I would and should never resort to stealing but I was so dead wrong.

Now that I think about it, I should have been stealing all the time and anywhere possible. If I am capable of stealing, I may not need to beg or borrow after all. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about stealing tangibles stuff or anything which may harm others.

The one thing I want to steal is people's heart. Don't you agree that we should be stealing whenever possible?