“What your mind conceive, Believe you can Achieve”
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The mind is a very powerful part of the body. Believe in the saying that anything that the mind can conceive can be achieved. Success lies in the positive thinking that there is nothing that can’t be done. ~ Dean kosage
The Top 6 Secrets To Achieve What Your Mind Can Conceive:
1. THINK AS IF IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO FAIL
Failure and success are both figment of the mind. To achieve greater things, pick just one of them. It’s either you fail or succeed. Definitely, we’ll choose to succeed. If it be the case, you’ll do everything to succeed and never fail. If you focus on the thought that failure is without a place in your life, then failure won’t come to you.
Success at all times, and in everything you do must be embedded in the mind, and then you will never know failure. However, success must not be equated with perfectionism. Perfection is God and no one can be God. Perfection has no criterion, which means that the term is nothing but a crap.
Time is a very important element in everything we do. As the saying goes, do things with utmost dedication. Live life as if it is your last. With this in mind, it is likely that every day of your life will be worthwhile and lived at its best.
Think of which path you really would want to take. Most of us will feel confusion on things, life and people. When this empty and lost feeling hovers around you, try to picture your past. Think of your mistakes and conceptualize methods on how to correct or remedy them. Have a straightforward outlook in life and focus only for the best things.
4. DO NOT SETTLE FOR GOOD BUT FOR THE “BEST”
Good enough is not enough. Success will hardly come to you if you remain contented on simple things or in living a stereotypic life. Life must always be lived to the fullest. Make it a point to reach a higher goal. Consider life as a struggle. Think of life as a pyramid and each of us deserve a peak.
5. FIND DIAMONDS AS COMPANIONS
Choose your friends. Friends have no perfect definition. It is rather on a case to case basis. Friends need not be someone who can give you everything, but one who’ll be with you in your bad times. True friends are one who will never tolerate you doing bad. Success is better savored together with people you love dearly and trust at all times and in everything.
6. SOLI DEO GLORIA (“To God Be the Glory”)
In everything you do, always bear in mind that your life is just a borrowed one. Everything we do is in God’s name and for his greater glory. We simply are agents who benefit from a gift. Remember when you fail, you then fail God. It is more shameful than anything else.
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Money Milestones for Kids: A Timeline
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How Do We Teach Children to Save?
Whether or not your child’s idea of a fun toy is a cash register and fake coins, the fact remains that as a parent, it’s your job to talk about financial responsibility with your kid.But how young is too young to talk about budgeting or, say, credit reports? After all, we don’t want them to grow up and start hiding money under their pull-out futons. ~ Dean Kosage
We tapped Erica Sandberg, national personal finance expert and author of “Expecting Money: The Essential Financial Plan for New and Growing Families,” to help us lay out money milestones for every age.
“It’s important to remember that every child grows and matures at a different rate,” Sandberg said. “But if you stick with this general guideline, you’ll be off to a great start—and you won’t miss any important topics.”
Timeline
Click on your kid’s age to get to the financial milestone for that year.
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Age 3: Practice Waiting
At this age, kids should be learning about patience, and how to respond when they don’t get something they want right away. The simple lesson of delayed gratification will benefit them for the rest of their lives.
Activity: Tell your toddler that you’ll give him a cookie now if he wants it, but you’ll give him two cookies if he waits an extra ten minutes. See what he chooses and try to encourage him to wait for the extra cookie.
Lesson Learned: Be patient and wait for a bigger payoff, rather than always going for instant gratification.
Age 4: Go Over Counting
Your kid won’t understand the finances behind money at this age, but he should be good at counting and basic addition. So, this is the year to start linking those budding math skills to the concept of money.
Activity: Give your kid a mix of coins and have her start by counting how many there are. Each week, introduce a new coin with its name (“this is called a quarter”) and have her practice picking it out of a pile. Once she’s learned all of the coin names, have her separate the pile into all of the different types, and keep growing the pile each week to escalate the challenge.
Lesson Learned: The names and sizes of each coin (plus math practice).
Age 5: Associate “No” With Spending
Kindergarten is when peer pressure starts to rear its ugly head, so stop the peer-inspired begging for stuff (“but Tommy has one!”) before it even starts.
Activity: Tell your kid that you can’t buy everything you want, so you have to choose the items that are most important to you. The next time your kid sees two things he wants at the store, make him choose just one. It can be just as hard for moms to say no as it is for kids to hear it.
Lesson Learned: It costs money to buy things, so you can’t always get everything you want.
Age 6: Start Giving Allowance
This is the year of “make it work.” Many experts advise starting kids with an allowance around age six, which means that if they want something just for fun, it’s up to them to save and figure out how they’ll get it.
Activity: Start giving your kid an allowance on a weekly basis. The exact amount will vary depending on your situation and personal history, but a rule of thumb is a dollar per year of age. So, you might want to start your kid with about $6 a week. Note that some experts say allowance shouldn’t be tied to chores: It’s a tool to teach your kid about managing money, not to pay her for household duties she should be doing anyway. Get answers to any other allowance questions you might have here.
Lesson Learned: If you want something, figure out how much it will cost and save up.
Age 7: “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?”
This is about the age when teachers start to ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. That makes this a good time to talk to your child about career and work. You should cover the fact that, though you go to work to earn money, if you’re lucky, you also enjoy it. Try to instill positive feelings toward work and earning an income.
Activity: Ask your kid what he wants to be when he grows up, and have him draw a picture representing his dream job. Do this activity with him, sketching out a picture of you and your job (it doesn’t need to be artistic). Then explain what you do at work, why you chose that field and why you like it.
Lesson Learned: People work in order to make money, but they should try to choose their jobs based on what they enjoy.
Age 8: Show What Household Things Cost
By this age, your kid’s understanding of addition and subtraction should be advanced enough that she can easily understand the broad concept of money coming in and going out. So, this is a good age to introduce her to the fact that, although you make money at work, you have to spend some of it on bills.
Activity: From now on, let your child sit next to you while you pay the bills. These numbers—especially rent or mortgage—will be too big for your kid to thoroughly comprehend, but you can let her help you with some of the math operations to balance your checkbook, like adding up the cents column in your transaction ledger.
Lesson Learned: Adults have to pay bills, but that’s not a problem as long as they save up money from their paychecks.
Age 9: Open a Savings Account
By age nine, kids are old enough (and self-possessed enough) to understand the concept of saving money for items they need and want. This is the right age not only to set up a savings account but also to include your kid in the action so he feels ownership over it.
Activity: Open a custodial savings account with about $30 (here’s how), and tell him you’ve done so. Don’t let him withdraw money at will—if he wants to save up for a bigger purchase like a bike, he should talk to you about it—but tell him that you’ll take him to the bank to make deposits whenever he wants. For every dollar he contributes, consider offering to match it. For more tips to get your kid interested in saving, read this.
Lesson Learned: It’s fun to save money!
Age 10: Teach the Truth About Cards
By the time your kid is in late elementary school, she’ll almost certainly hear people mention credit cards. So, before she takes in misinformation or bad habits from her peers, make sure she learns constructive (and true) information about the different kinds of cards and accounts people have.
Action: Take all of your cards out of your wallet and go over which one is for debit, which is for credit, etc. Explain the differences between them. Then, when you’re at the grocery store, let her swipe your card for you. Point out what that means for your money: If it’s a debit card, she’s deducting money from your checking account. If it’s a credit card, you might want to say something like, “Swiping this equals borrowing money from the company that gave it to me—if I don’t pay it back on time, they’ll charge me extra, but I always pay it back on time!”
Lesson Learned: How debit and credit cards work, and the importance of always paying back credit cards in full and on time.
Age 11: Immunize Against Advertising
Middle school is an era all about fitting in. At this age, kids are getting a ton of messages from all over the place, all about how they should do or buy certain things to be “cool.” Take this time to bring your kid back to earth.
Activity: Go through a magazine together and point out how many different ads there are for different brands. Take guesses at how much those advertisers paid for those ads, and the fact that they’re trying to manipulate the emotions of consumers to get them to buy more. Even things that are trendy are often cool because advertisers paid to make them seem cool. Do the same thing whenever you watch TV.
Lesson Learned: Don’t fall for the brand-name trap.
Age 12: Demonstrate Wise Purchases
As preteens start to reach puberty, they should start preparing to make their own wise purchasing decisions. Plus, within a few years they’ll start settling into more adult sizes, so they should start discerning when to go cheap and when to buy quality items—and how to identify that quality.
Activity: Take your kid shopping. At the store, point out a cheaply-made object and a higher quality alternative. Explain how you tell the difference (the feel of fabric, cut, reputable brands, etc.) and when you choose the cheapest option versus when you go for higher quality. If you feel strongly about buying sustainable or eco-conscious products, explain what that means, how to identify those labels and why you’re willing to sometimes spend more on them.
Lesson Learned: Price isn’t always the determining factor in buying decisions—the key is to choosesmart purchases rather than just the nicest or the cheapest.
Age 13: Interact With the Stock Market
By now your kid will recognize this word when she hears it, either on the news or in school. Too many adults feel a total lack of confidence around money, so get your child in the habit of asking for clarification on financial concepts she doesn’t understand rather than simply nodding along. Start by making a hard topic accessible: the stock market.
Activity: Tell your kid, “I invest my money in the stock market to help it grow; in the short term, there’s the risk of losing money, but over the long-term it’s one of the best ways to make the most of my money.” Show her a historical graph of the S&P 500 (you don’t have to tell her that name—you can just call it “the market” for now) so she can see that, although the numbers sometimes dip, they tend to rise over time. If you want more guidance on these topics yourself, check out our weekly newsletter,
Lesson Learned: How the stock market works, what it is and why people invest in it.
Age 14: Make Your Kid Work
At this age, young teens start going out with their friends and spending money more independently than before. Allowance might no longer cover everything your kid wants, so, if that’s the case, make him work for it.
Activity: Whether it’s babysitting or mowing neighbors’ lawns, let your kid feel his own power to make money and the freedom that comes from making his own spending decisions with that money. Hammer home the point with specific examples of how everything you buy can be measured with time. For example, if your teen wants a $120 sweater, explain that he’d have to babysit for 12 hours at $10 per hour to afford it.
Lesson Learned: You have to work in order to get what you want … but if you do make money, you have a lot more options.
Age 15: Open a Checking Account
We think that you should open up a checking account for your kid as early as she’ll be able to handle it. If she’s responsible by nature, now’s a good time to open a checking account where she can store her money and write checks. Do not add money to this account for her. She should seed this account from her savings or money from her after school job.
Activity: In order to have an account in her name, you’ll need to be a cosigner. You may need to sit down with a bank official to explain that you’d like to teach your kid financial independence as early as possible. Although you’re a cosigner, let her know that she’ll suffer her own consequences if she overspends from this account. Have her write checks for costs like her student activity fees, and sit down with her monthly to balance her checkbook.
Lesson Learned: How to keep an eye on your bigger financial picture—and how to manage a checking account.
Age 16: Finding Balance
Junior year of high school is a pivotal time. Teens tend to be incredibly busy: sports, extracurriculars, community service projects, AP classes … This is a good time for them to learn how not to lose their heads. After all, adults can also be overwhelmed by trying to balance work, outside projects and a personal life. And finances are often one of the first things to be pushed aside when you’re under stress.
Activity: If you suspect your teen is becoming overwhelmed, set aside an afternoon to find a solution. Make some hot chocolate, bake some cookies and go over his activity schedule together. Figure out whether he can shift around any obligations, and whether his schedule is unhealthily busy. Talk about how he handles stress, and what he does to relax.
Lesson Learned: Everyone has limits, and you can only push so far. Money is great, but it’s worthless if you’re not leading a balanced life.
Age 17: Explain Credit Reports
Your teen may be getting ready to go to college, but even if she isn’t, she’ll need to understand the ideas behind credit. Make sure to go over this with her now, before the bad habits of her peers get ingrained in her.
Activity: Look up her credit report and score with her online (even if she doesn’t have any credit yet, it’s a good exercise to show her the steps involved—if that’s the case, you can just look up your own score).Make sure she understands the importance of keeping her credit score high by paying off every bill in full and on time. She’ll need to develop good credit in order to eventually get loans for things she wants, like a house or a car, and it takes many years to develop a good track record.
Lesson Learned: How to check your credit report and score, and why they’re important.
Age 18: Decide on Student or General Loans
Before your teen heads off to college or into the working world, he needs to fully understand how loans work—he is borrowing money to use now, but he’ll be paying interest on that money even while he pays it back. Since you’ve already covered credit reports, follow up that lesson with the absolute importance of always paying account minimums, and, whenever possible, even more than that.
Activity: Sit down together to go over student loans. Talk about whether your young adult will be taking on this financial burden, and whether you’ll be helping. Make sure that both of you understand the terms of any and all loans before signing them. For example, verify that he doesn’t accept any student loans that start charging interest while he’s still in college. Together, come up with a solid plan for saving money while in college and repaying those loans afterward.
Lesson Learned: Student loans can be a huge burden, and the worst thing to do would be to bomb your credit score in the process. Before entering into a loan agreement, make sure you understand all of the ins and outs, and that you’re choosing the best loans for your needs.
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Bugs Power a Smartphone With Their Circus Tricks
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Internet users have been bitten by the viral video bug. In “The Bug Circus Generator” ad from telecommunications company Qualcomm, creepy crawlers inhabit a miniature circus and power a smartphone with their limbs.
The 89-second commercial for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon platform features a praying mantis on a bike, tarantula on a treadmill, scorpion on a rotating wheel as well as Madagascar cockroaches and a death feigning beetle on the merry-go-round and in a cannon. At one point, the clip flashes, “100% Bug Powered Smartphone.”
Seeing bugs in an ad for Snapdragon — a family of mobile system-on-chips — may seem odd at first glance, but their inclusion is quite fitting because Snapdragon’s CPU is called Scorpion.
Social media agency Denizen Company created “Bug Circus” for Qualcomm, which wanted to tout its Snapdragon processors to mainstream consumers and grow its fan bases on Facebook and YouTube.
“Denizen Company hired a professional bug wrangler/entomologist who specializes in bug film making and has his own bug farm,”. “Denizen Company also had a representative from the American Humane Society onsite to ensure the care of the insects.”
The video has already attracted more than 600,000 pageviews on YouTube in just a few days.
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‘PASSION’ – The secret ingredient to success!
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True happiness and success comes when you do what you are most passionate about! ~ Dean Kosage
One of the biggest things that most of us lack is passion. Ask any successful person, entrepreneur, millionaire and they will all tell you the same thing; you must be passionate about what you do! A recent survey shows that 75% of the population do not know what their true passion is. Perhaps this is why there is so much unhappiness in our society for to be truly happy, you have to really love and be passionate about what you do.
Here is a list of 7 things you need to ask and answer for yourself to help you find and understand what you are passionate about.
What puts a smile on your face?
Following what makes you truly happy is a wonderful way to figuring out what you were put on Earth for. Think about something that you do or that perhaps you used to do that brings you total happiness!
What do you find easy?
What we find easy for us to do, will be related to what we are passionate about. It’s very hard to hate something that is very easy for us!
What sparks your creativity?
Think about something in your life where you seem to always expand its horizon, always coming up with new, fun, and exciting ideas relating to that subject. Whatever makes you creative is something that you are passionate about.
What would you do for free?
Think about something that you would just love to do, even if you were not getting paid. Think about something that you look forward to do, something that you wish you could do all the time
What do you like to talk about?
Most of the time, we aren’t aware of this. A good way to figure this out properly, is to ask your friends. Ask them what they believe you like to talk about the most, what topic makes your eyes brighten up, and changes your entire behaviour.
What makes you unafraid of failure?
When you do what you are passionate about, you have total confidence in your abilities. This makes you not worry about failing, because in your mind, how can you fail when you do what you love?
What would you regret not having tried?
If you were at the end of your life, what would you regret not having pursued? What would you have liked to do, that you didn’t get a chance to?
Watch this video below, a compilation of the greats sharing their advice on the importance of finding your Passion!
Feeling Great at the Office
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We focus intensely on how we feel at home but we put little time into how we feel at the office, the geographical center of our careers.
Here, 10 tips, nutrition and fitness to feeling great at the office:
1. “Think ‘breakslow,’ not breakfast. Plan it, enjoy it, take extra time with it. It should be bigger than your lunch which should be bigger than your dinner. I bet you do that backwards now. Time to right your ship.”
2. “Fitting in a work-out before work not only gets it out of the way, but it will make you feel sharper and more alert than a cup of coffee. And the increase in your metabolism will keep you burning calories during those morning meetings.”
3. “Drink up. Keep a large bottle of water at your desk to sip from all day. Staying hydrated helps you maintain focus and think clearly.”
4. “Keep your blood and fluids flowing by taking a shake break. Stand at your desk, listen to your favorite upbeat song and bounce up and down and shake your whole body –arms, legs, and head, for three minutes. Your brain and heart will wake right up. It’s instant happiness.”
A Mother’s Unconditional Love
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This reminds me of the relationship so many people have with their mothers… and how I wish mine was the same … ~ Dean Kosage
Below is a great story of people who inspires us in many different ways..
My mom only had one eye. I hated her, she was such an embarrassment. My mom ran a small shop at a flea market.She collected little weeds and such to sell, anything for the money we needed she was such an embarrassment.There was this one day during elementary school. I remember that it was field day, and my mom came. I was so embarrassed. How could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ran out. The next day at school…”Your mom only has one eye?!” and they taunted me.
I wished that my mom would just disappear from this world so I said to my mom, “Mom, why don’t you have the other eye?! You’re only going to make me a laughingstock. Why don’t you just die?” My mom did not respond. I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to think that I had said what I’d wanted to say all this time. Maybe it was because my mom hadn’t punished me, but I didn’t think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.That night…I woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake me. I took a look at her, and then turned away. Because of the thing I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart.
Even so, I hated my mother who was crying out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would grow up and become successful, because I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty.Then I studied really hard. I left my mother and came to Seoul and studied, and got accepted in the Seoul University with all the confidence I had.
Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I’m living happily as a successful man. I like it here because it’s a place that doesn’t remind me of my mom.This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when someone unexpected came to see me “What?! Who’s this?!”… It was my mother…Still with her one eye. It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little girl ran away, scared of my mom’s eye.And I asked her, “Who are you? I don’t know you!!!” as if I tried to make that real. I screamed at her “How dare you come to my house and scare my daughter! Get out here now!” And to this, my mother quietly answered, “oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address,” and she disappeared. Thank good ness… she doesn’t recognize me. I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn’t going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life.Then a wave of relief came upon me… one day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. I lied to my wife saying that I was going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack, that I used to call a house…just out of curiosity there, I found my mother fallen on the cold ground. But I did not shed a single tear. She had a piece of paper in her hand…. it was a letter to me.
My Son,
I think my life has been long enough now. And… I won’t visit Seoul anymore… but would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come visit me once in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school…. For you… I’m sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you.You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye… so I gave you mine… I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. The couple times that you were angry with me. I thought to myself, ‘it’s because he loves me.’ I miss the times when you were still young around me.
“I miss you so much. I love you. You mean the world to me.” My world shattered! Then I cried for the person who lived for me. My Mother..
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