The entrepreneurial spirit

I never saw myself as a person who could sell.

Until I sold biscuits, coffee, and sweets at my office.

I was the shy type. I had difficulty in asking people to "buy my stuff". But one day, I told my officemates I was selling food.

I knew I had competition, yet I persisted.

My capital has quadrupled in 2 years now. The growth is sluggish because I'm selling small stuff. I understand. To catch bigger fish, one must use a bigger bait.

If I could go back in time, I wish someome had nurtured the entrepreneurial spirit in me. My father was a businessman, but he died before I could learn from his trade. My mother is a government employee who admits she has no knack for running a business.

I too, am a government employee, yet the burning desire to have my own business grows each day.

The only sensible thing I can do is to nurture it.

When failure happens

Do these 10 things:

1. Feel the feeling of failure;

2. Don't dwell on it;

3. Shake off the dirt;

4. Stand up;

5. Move on with your life;

6. View it as an experiment;

7. View it as a learning experience;

8. Treat is as an instructor;

9. Resolve to learn from every experience with failure;

10. Rename failure

There's always a reason

Events happen for a reason.

There's a reason why I attended today's Regional Consultation Meeting on Crime Prevention Program.

I met people who are passionate about their work. I met people who are passionate about our country. I met people who are passionate about our society.

But most importantly, I gained wisdom, understanding, and a new book to download.

The output of the activity will be eventually be submitted to our president (after much consolidation).... that was what was mentioned during the welcome message

This motivates and inspires me to improve my work. To render excellent service as a public servant. 

But first, let me reread the book I discovered during this workshop....

When dreams knock

When I read a comic, I can feel this throbbing inside my chest.

It's my dreams knocking once more.

It's my dreams telling me to "make that comic regardless of professional quality".

Have you felt the same knock in your heart as well?

Confidence and Leadership

I vented my frustrations on my sister.

Paphu was difficult to house train.

"You know, Paphu is learning a lot from you, and you are learning a lot from Paphu. Confidence and leadership. Aren't those what you wanted?" Were my sister's words.

Yes. Those were.

Patience. To be the alpha means to be the leader of the pack. To  respected means I must respect them first.

"Paphu is a dog. An animal, not human. They communicate differently from us. You gotta learn to step down to their level to understand them".

I gotta extend my own patience. This is a parcel of responsible pet ownership.

Why I write random stuff

I have absolutely no idea, only that.. it feels right and easy.

Looking back though my old posts, it was so different. I went from art, to game development, to preachy-inspirational, to professional-looking blogs, to lists, to dogs... 

My entries don't make sense at all. 

I want to build a community. That's a nice dream, right? I think that's every blogger's dream. 

I have followed tons of bloggers who also preach what I'm aiming for. James Clear. Jeff Goins. Alexander Hayne, Nicolas Cole....

Majority of them preach of looking for your audience, posting lengthy entries, finding your niche, do this and not that....the list goes on and on. I reached this point of analysis by paralysis. 

There was just too much bloggers with too much advice. 

.......then Seth Godin entered the picture like The Flash.

His advice was profoundly simple: Show up Sit Down and *insert activity*, or SUSDA

Blog daily? I can't even sketch daily!

I tried his concept in April, but it panned. Then I stopped posting in May... until I re-discovered CJ Chilvers in June 2016. 

CJ Chilvers known for The Lesser Photographer. I read his work when it was still a free PDF document that you could download over tumblr. I believe he took it down and is currently selling the book. 

Apparently, CJ also dances the same groove Seth Godin does. Go to Chilver's blog and you'll see what I mean. He writes daily. His posts are short. 

Hey, I could try that. 

So I wrote daily. I wrote two entries a day: post the first one, automate the second one to post on the next day. 

The next day, I did it again. The next next day, I did it again. 

Rinse. Repeat. 

Combine SUSDA with the idea that you don't have to please every body. That nobody's even reading it. Just post. Show up. 

So I write stuff that interests me. I keep a jot down notebook for potential entries. Some sound good, some don't. But hey, it's still an idea. 

I continue to write random stuff. I know that I'll eventually discover my niche, my voice and my market.

But first, let me write daily. 

Blog post buffers

I like buffers.

They remove a tiny percentage of worry whether I'm up to date with my posts.
I had a problem with maintaining buffers when I was still in the webcomic scene.

I could not delay my gratification. Instead of posting 2 pages per week, I would post the entire pages I drew. I burned out. I lost interest in the projects. Couple that with a high expectations to have a lot of fans. Life doesn't work that way, well sometimes, it can be a lottery. Sometimes it's not.

The slight edge philosophy taught me that.It's the small things you consistently do on a daily basis that pushes a person to greatness.... or downfall.

Anyway, back to buffers.

Creating a blog post buffer helps me keep my mind on focus. I'm not worried whether I posted, or not.

Automation also helps. I check my blog every other day because of this. Every day, I write 2 day's worth of entries and automate them.

Ramit Sethi (of I will teach you to be rich fame) once praised the wonders of automation.

He was soooo right.
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