Do You Get What You Pay For in Luxury Items?

 

Basically anything in the luxury brand category.

Whether it’s Rolex watches, Louis Vuitton bags, Montblanc fountain pens, etc. they are all extremely expensive but don’t do as good a job at their core function as a cheap $10 variant.

The reason is because, unless you’re made of money and throw $100,000 down the drain without a second thought, these products are so expensive that you end up babying them to the point that you aren’t using them for their intended use: instead these luxury items are using you as their babysitter.

I can’t count the number of fountain pen enthusiasts I’ve seen throughout the years keeping their Montblanks and Pelikans in shiny leather metal cases, only taking them out during fountain pen meets to show off to other enthusiasts.

Not a single one of them used these pens as their daily drivers. The pens were so expensive that the thought of misplacing them or denting or even just scratching them was a horrifying proposition.

So these super pens never saw the light of day, only to sit in some glass case to be admired, never to be used.

Meanwhile the same person will go around using a cheap $20 Pilot or Lamy in their pocket every day without a care, using them for their intended purpose which is to write with.

My mother has a Rolex that was given to her by her father. She has never used it not once. It sits at home in a cabinet never to be used.

Even in the not-so-luxury market you will see similar things. Smartphones?

It never ceases to amuse me how so many people will drop $1000 on a phone then buy a $200 case and a $20 tempered glass screen to protect it, because it’s so expensive they’d just cry if it got so much as a nick on its shiny anodized finish.

Meanwhile I’m going around with a $100 phone that’s cheaper than their case, bare naked and don’t give a care in the world, my phone still has fewer scratches on it than their $200 case (the case is not as scratch resistant as the phone most of the time — I think case makers do this on purpose to emphasize to foolish users that their phone might get damaged when in truth the phone is not going to get scratched as easily).

That’s the real problem with expensive products: they demand so much attention and care that they stop being tools we use, and we become tools they use for babysitting.

   

   -Erwin Anciano

5 Powerful Habits That Will Change Your Life

5 powerful habits that will change your life:

1. Never follow the crowd:
   Set YOUR goals, own them and pursue them.
   Don't take your dreams to the grave!
2. Embrace change:
   Change is a part of life.
   Disrupt yourself BEFORE change disrupts you.
3. Live outside your comfort zone:
   Your comfort zone is your DEATH zone.
   Everything you want lies on the edge of your comfort zone.
4. Pursue knowledge:
   The moment you stop LEARNING, you stop growing.
   When we stop growing, we start dying.
5. Choose your relationships wisely.
   We become like the people we spend the most time with.
   Remember, eagles don't fly with pigeons

   -Hector Quintanilla

“Bhaiya I have only three months left for my exams, I haven't studied enough, I ought to fail, I can't achieve focus now. I am stressed. What can I do now?”

This is the most common message I get with some difference in the remaining time period.

I reply by asking a counter-question.

“What option to you have now?”

1. Quit
2. Cry
3. Regret
4. Procrastinate
5. Get stressed.

All the options lead you to one particular result- Failure.

The chance of getting this result is 100%

The only option skipped above is utilising the remaining time in doing the best you can do, which is “hard work.”

At least cover the most important topics and not waste the remaining period.

This option will slowly increase your chances of success and keep you in the game.

Among the six options, choose the best one as you perceive it.

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For developing an attitude of working hard-

1. You have to trust hard work, it won't do magic, but would definitely bring a positive change in future, and give you a significant chance to succeed.
2. You have to realise that it's the only valid option in front of you. The other option is to quit, procrastinate and regret.
3. You have to understand that the only way you can compete with talent, fate and luck is through hard work, complaining and jealousy would only make you inferior.
4. You have to have a long term view of your goals and desires; the quick urge to get things will kill the intent to work hard.
5. You need to develop love towards whatever you do and not only the results, identify the correct reasons to pursue any goal, hard work can only be done if the work itself motivates you.

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The people who work hard and succeed aren't special; they just succeeded in having a practical vision towards the reality of life.

It's all in your mind, the way you perceive things.

  -Anubhav Jain

6 Years ago, My Oldest Son Disappeared From Home....

 6 years ago, my oldest son disappeared from home. A week later, people found his dead body in an auto; he was just 40. A part of me died with him, but burdened by responsibilities, I didn’t even have the time to mourn–the next day, I was back on the road, driving my auto.

But 2 years later, sorrow struck us again–I lost my other son too. While driving, I got a call–‘Your son’s body has been found on platform number 4…suicide kar liya hai usne.’ Do beto ki chitaon ko aag diya hain maine, isse buri baat ek baap ke liye kya ho sakti hai?

 
It was the responsibility of my daughter-in-law & their 4 children that kept me going. After the cremation, my granddaughter, who was in class 9, asked me, ‘Dadaji, will I have to quit school?’ I gathered all my courage & reassured her, ‘Never! You study as much as you want.’

  
I started working long hours–I’d leave home at 6 AM & drive my auto till midnight. Only then, would I be able to make 10,000 Rs a month. After spending 6000 on their school fees, I’d be left with barely 4000 to feed my family of 7.

 
On most days, we’d barely have anything to eat. Once, when my wife fell sick, I had to run door to door begging for money to buy her medicines.

 
But everything seemed worth it when last year, my granddaughter told me that she’d scored 80% in her 12th boards–I was on cloud nine! The whole day, I gave a free ride to all my customers! She said to me, ‘Dadaji, I want to do a B.Ed course in Delhi.’

 
Educating her in another city was way beyond my capacity, but I had to fulfill her dreams…at any cost. So, I sold our house & paid her fees. Then, I sent my wife, daughter-in-law & other grandkids to our relatives’ home in our village, while I continued staying in Mumbai without a roof.

 
It’s been a year now & honestly, life’s not bad–I eat & sleep in my auto & during the day, I ferry my passengers. Bas baithe baithe kabhi pair me dard ho jaata hai, but then my granddaughter calls & tells me, ‘I came first in my class,’ & all my pain vanishes.

 
I can’t wait for her to become a teacher, so that I can hug her & say, ‘You’ve made me so proud.’ She’s going to be the first graduate in our family–main toh poore hafte sakbo free ride dunga!”

Negative Thoughts vs Quality of Life

 

Negative thoughts must be replaced, not removed.

Before I tell you why, I want to say I am proud of you for recognizing that your thoughts are negative. People go their entire lives filling their head with negativity and fail to think about what they’re thinking about.

Negative thoughts cannot be removed. They can only be replaced.

The Law of Conservation says matter cannot magically appear or disappear, it simply changes from one form to another.

Your thoughts work similarly.

You cannot force your thoughts to be removed from your mind. But go ahead, try it—

Remove your thoughts.

Think of nothing.

Did it work?

If it worked, stop reading right here.

If your brain, like normal people, continued to whir thoughts around in your head then here’s the solution to “removing” negative ones.

The solution to removing negative thoughts is to replace them with positive ones.

It’s natural to have negative thoughts. We get anxious before a first date, we worry about our loved ones, and so on. It’s human.

And so it happens to all of us.

The next time you find yourself having negative thoughts, immediately replace it with a positive one.

If you were thinking “I don’t know if he’ll like me, we only talked on the phone before, what if he thinks I’m weird in person” — cut that shit out and instead feed your mind the winning thought of “we’re having a date because he’s interested in getting to know me and I know we’ll exchange some great stories.”

Your thoughts are so powerful.

Whether you decide to fill your head with negative ones or positive ones, it shapes your view of the world and how you respond to life.

Your actions, your feelings, your perspectives and you beliefs stem from your thoughts.

Sticking to the first date metaphor, if you keep thinking that he’ll think you’re weird, I bet that on your first date, you’re going to say something odd or show strange behavior because your brain wants to fulfill what you’re feeding it.

The worst thing you can do with negative thoughts is try to remove them from your mind with force.

It’s ineffective and wears you down.

In Psycho-Cybernetics, Dr. Maxwell Maltz writes, “A ‘bad’ feeling is not dispelled by conscious effort or willpower… concentrate on positive imagery— on filling the mind with wholesome, positive, desirable images, imaginations, and memories. If we do this, the negative feelings take care of themselves. They simply evaporate. We develop new feeling-tones appropriate to the new imagery.”

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I hope this helps.

I just finished reading Psycho-Cybernetics and it is a classic.

Rooting for you, always.

      

     -Kaila J. Lim 

{ Blogger's Note : See if the negative thoughts are based on reality, if They are then try to address the cause }

Straight Up Facts That You Won't Swallow

 

Fact 1: The way you are today is the standard you accept

The physical fitness of your body is an area you have complete control over. You deciding to push your workouts, eat more processed foods and maintain that visceral layer of fat is the standard of fitness you are accepting, whether you know it or not.

The acne and acne scars on your face are from you not being able to control your abusive skin picking habits or stick to your routine of washing your face 2X a day.

Raise your standards. Design your habits to match those new standards and only accept anything at that level and above. As you design your habits what you’ll notice is that over time, those habits will design you.

Fact 2: You are privileged

Everyone’s childhood was imperfect and it’s easy to feel like a victim to our circumstances. But if you’re reading this right now, you are privileged. If you have internet access, the world is at your finger tips.

If you’ve ever been stressed with deciding between jobs or feeling anxiety around “how do I find my purpose in life?” you are privileged.

Because there are many people in the world who do not get to pick what they do with their life. They do not get to even ponder the thought of what life’s calling could be. They do not get to explore their potential. They are born into societies that already decided for them.

Fact 3: Jealousy is not a compliment toward you

There is a large misunderstanding that someone being jealous of you is a form of flattery. But it’s not.

Jealousy stems from such deep-rooted insecurity in another person that it can be toxic. It’s negative energy and it can be poison.

I used to be a very jealous person when I was younger. The person who I was jealous of could only do so much, it was a lot of my own innerwork that was required to grow out of the jealousness.

However, something that helped was when they’d open up about their journey, showing me the parts of them that were also once broken or less than ideal. I believe that being that vulnerable couldn’t have been easy but it helped me.

A lot of it was my own self development work, journaling, and adjusting my attitude.

I feel like being jealous is closer to hate than it is to love.

Don’t get it confused.

Fact #4: The best time to start was 5 years ago and the second best time is now

That book you always wanted to write? The online business you dreamed of starting? The one thing you keep telling everyone you’ll eventually do?

Yeah, that.

It was best to do it years ago. However, the next best time is to get started on it today.

2014 you is kicking you in the butt for not creating content back then. I guarantee you that 2026 you will kick you in the butt for not starting to create right now.

Fact #5: There is someone much younger than you who is coming for the spot you’re in today

People believe they are each a special snowflake. If their work is their own art, only they could hold that special place in the market.

But that’s not true.

Someone somewhere else in the world is working harder, practicing more, and following in your footsteps.

Especially if you are publishing work online and have built up an audience, understand that there are followers who are inspired by what you do. They have more time and a higher risk profile.

You’ve worked hard to come this far. The challenge is staying there and becoming better.

Keep working your craft and let your work change with you. The only competition you have is with yourself. Stay focused.

I’m rooting for you.

  

    -Kaila J. Lim

“ Very Successful People Say ‘NO’ To Almost Everything”

Luigi has a great business idea.

Everyone tells him it's a fantastic project, many of his friends and family want to invest or be involved in his vision.

After months of analyzing this idea, he is now finding the courage to pursue this dream he now feels so passionate about.

Luigi is excited, he can't sleep at night and can't wait for the sun to rise.

“Tiii Tiii Tiii Tiii… Tiii Tiii Tiii Tiii,” the alarm goes off, and Luigi jumps out of bed. He’s ready to work!

“Hey, Luigi, can you do me a favor before you go to your office?” asks his wife.

“Yes, sure, honey!”

“Please get me some fruit from the supermarket.”

Luigi runs to the supermarket and brings home the fruit… he is now ready to start his day of work.

The phone rings, “Hey Luigi, I need your help, dude!” his friend Mario asks.

“Sure, Mario, anything for you, my friend!”

“Can I invite you for a coffee?”

“Sure, I’ll be there!” Luigi says.

It's noon and Luigi hasn't started work…

“Got to go to work, Mario. Bye!”

Luigi is on his way to start his workday. As soon as he gets to his office, his assistant grabs him, “Hey Luigi, you have four phone calls to return!”

“Okay, pass them through…” Luigi takes care of his calls.

Time for lunch.

“I’ll grab a quick lunch and get started on my work!” Luigi makes the commitment.

He rushes for lunch and comes back to his office to an inbox full of other people's emails.

“Ohh, I need to get back to these people, I’ll answer emails first…”

Two hours later… 4:00 PM.

“Hey boss, I’ll be leaving early, but my car broke down, can you please take me to the nearest bus stop?”

“I’ll be glad to!” says Luigi.

Next, his wife calls, “Hey Luigi, I need you to pick up our kids at 6:00PM on your way back home.”

“Yes, honey!” Luigi says.

DAY IS OVER!

---

What happened to Luigi's project?

Luigi is a very kind man but has NO character when it comes to leading his own life. He’s a people pleaser, and as a result, he always sets his priorities at the bottom of his agenda.

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Now, to answer your question, Warren Buffet said that “very successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” Do you think this is good advice for building a successful career?

It may sound selfish, but Mr. Warren Buffett is in control of HIS agenda, and this is one of the reasons he is successful.

It’s impossible to achieve YOUR goals if you don’t control YOUR time.

There are two type of people in the world:

1. Those who know what they want and go after it.
2. Those who serve the people who know what they want.

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NOTE: This answer is about Character, not selfishness.

Differentiating this is critical. Mr. Warren Buffett is the perfect example of a man who’s NOT selfish (giving away all his fortune,) yet a man of strong character!

  -Hector Quintanilla

 

Your Life Will Change

 

The best and the fastest way to improve life is to—

Stop complaining.

Just stop it.

Go 7 days without complaining.

Then after 7 days, see how you feel, and go another 7 days. Then go 30 days.

Your life will change.

Let me explain.

First, why do we complain?

• We complain because it’s easy. It’s easier to stay in a job that you hate and complain about it each day than it is to do the research, tailor your resume, expand your network, and find a new a job.
• We complain because it’s how we start small talk. It’s less effort to make an obvious remark about the economy being shitty than it is to muster up the courage and strike a conversation with a stranger that starts with a compliment or a question.
• We complain because we’re addicted. It’s low-brain, endless activity to rattle off all the things wrong with the world and how you’re the victim and you’re right and life owes you.

OK so you just complained, now what?

• Whatever you were complaining about is still a problem. Those minutes of “feel good get it off my chest” could have been used towards actually fixing it.
• Maybe you made a new friend who also loves to also complain (oh fabulous) so now you two have this clusterf*ck of negativity whirring all around you
• You complaining is not valuable or useful to anyone. And you know what—

People do not care what you have to complain about.

Now let’s take the long term view.

Perhaps you drag yourself through life always complaining — about the smaller things (didn’t bring cash to a cash-only cafe, someone honked at you, etc.) and the bigger things (your landlord says she’s selling the building, your boss underpays you, etc).

It has become your MO.

Something happens, you complain. This is how you function.

Here’s the hard truth—

1. Life does not owe you anything
   When we were infants and we wanted something, we cried. Then hands would magically appear to cradle us, hold us close, and feed us milk.
   
   Some adults still approach life like this. They complain because they think if they complain enough, the problem will get fixed.
   
   No one is coming to save you.
   
   And all that energy you use on complaining could be used on (a) figuring out a solution or (b) changing your attitude about it.
   
   We’re all dealt our own cards.
   
   What you need to do is watch Will Smith’s “Fault VS. Responsibility” talk on YouTube.
2. The more you talk about something, the more power give to it
   If we were friends in my early 20s, you knew about my father. You’d hear me rant and worry and talk about how fucked up my situation is and how I’m stressed about it.
   
   I thought I had to atleast mention it because it always on my mind and my heart.
   
   But it’s the opposite—
   
   The more I talked about it, the more space I let it mentally and emotionally occupy. Every time I talk about it, I have to think about it and relive it.
   
   One morning, I made a promise to myself to stop bringing up my father or the details of my home life in conversation. No more.
   
   And in time, I talked about other things in my life. I started to build friendships on stronger, more positive foundations. My mind and my heart were filled with my passion for running, public speaking, and meeting people.
   
   And my father’s “space” in my head got smaller and smaller.
3. What you keep doing becomes part of your personal brand
   People remember what is most consistent. If you’re always the girl who keeps complaining about shit, you’re going to stop getting invited places.
   
   We all know someone who always wants to complain — are they the first person you call to share good news?
   
   Exactly.

Complaining is unproductive. It’s toxic language and it amplifies the negative in your life.

The next time you feel like complaining OR you realize that you’re already doing it, make the conscious choice to stop.

"Life instantly improves when you don’t blame other people and focus on what you can control." - James Clear

   

 -Kaila J. Lim

Healthy Relation & Partner Selection

 

1. Partner selection. A lot of relationship problems can be avoided by careful partner selection. Many people feel feelings in their feel-parts, then plunge headlong into a relationship, naively believing that Love Conquers All. Then they wake up some time later to discover they have totally different ideas about sex, family, children, priorities, work, or whatever, and they start trying to figure out how to “get” their partner to be compatible with them. You don’t marry an incompatible partner and try to make them compatible. That doesn’t work.
2. Personal responsibility. One of the hardest of all life lessons is this: Just because I feel bad doesn’t necessarily mean someone else is doing something wrong. Just because I feel good doesn’t necessarily mean what I am doing is right. On some level, you are responsible for your feelings and actions. That doesn’t mean your partner can’t affect you; intimacy is all about allowing someone else close enough to affect you very deeply. But it does mean your feelings aren’t your partner’s fault. Nowhere is this more true than with jealousy. Inexperienced people with poorly developed emotional skills say “never, ever do anything that makes your partner jealous.” More experienced people know jealousy is rooted in insecurity, which means it is impossible to remove every trigger that can lead to jealousy. Instead, you handle jealousy by building personal security.
3. Communication. The easiest way to tell the health of a relationship is by the quality of the communication in it. Alas, many people deliberately build barriers to communication, sometimes out of shame, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of insecurity. They are afraid to talk about their past, about their sexual desires, about their former relationships—and then they say things like “My spouse doesn’t really know me. I guess men and women just can’t understand each other!” No, men and women can’t read minds. Every single thing you can’t or won’t talk about is a barrier to intimacy.
4. Trust. You can’t have a healthy relationship without trust. Can’t be done. If you need to see your partner’s phone or email accounts, you don’t trust them. “I have trust issues” is the world’s greatest cop-out. You learn to ride a bike by getting on a bike and riding. You learn to trust by trusting.
5. Respect. Again, you can’t have a healthy relationship without it. The moment your partner becomes your adversary rather than your ally, you’re done. Oh, and regarding point 4 above, respect includes respecting your partner’s privacy. If you feel you have to have your partner’s passwords and cell phone passcode, congratulations! You’ve got two relationship-killers for the price of one.
6. Interdependence, not codependency. If your partner is your whole world, your reason for being, your everything, the reason you wake up in the morning…that’s codependent, and over time will likely strangle your relationship stone dead and then continue clinging to the lifeless husk. Healthy people have, and healthy relationships allow room for, other hobbies, interests, and friends.
7. Speaking of other friends, yes, married people can and should have those. In fact, if anyone tells you otherwise, look out. Any abuse counselor or therapist will tell you that attempting to control your partner’s social activities is invariably the first step down the road to abuse.
8. Mutual, reciprocal support. A healthy relationship always has a balance between what each person brings to the relationship and what they receive from the relationship. If you find that your relationship is all give and no take, especially if you’re expected to sacrifice your dreams to help your partner reach theirs, look out. Good relationships are partnerships between people who can reach further and accomplish more together than they could apart. If your relationship offers no support for you in accomplishing your goals, something’s wrong.
9. Consent. In all aspects of the relationship, not just sex. Healthy relationships are voluntary. They are not prisons. If you can not set boundaries and have them respected, something’s dysfunctional. (Remember, though, that boundaries concern access to yourself—your body, your intimacy, your emotions. “Don’t talk to me like that” is a boundary. “Don’t talk to your ex” is not a boundary.) If you feel like you can’t say no, or you can’t tell your partner something they don’t want to hear, or you are trapped and can’t leave the relationship, that relationship is dysfunctional.
10. Space to be yourself. You are an independent person, not a cog in the relationship. You have the right to express yourself, to hold opinions, to advocate for your needs, to say no, and to have your values respected. That doesn’t mean you have the right to be obeyed; your partner, too, is an independent person.
11. Security. Insecurity is toxic to relationships. It often causes us to act out in ways that cause the very thing we’re afraid of. Being able to acknowledge insecurity for what it is and ask for support from your partner is a blessing. Blaming your partner, mistreating your partner, or trying to deal with your insecurities by controlling your partner (“you aren’t allowed to be friends with other women,” “I don’t want you going anywhere without me”) is toxic.
12. Directness. Advocate for your needs. Talk openly and directly about what you want. Never, ever play games: “I want him to chase me,” “if she really cared about me she’d know what was wrong.” Do not engage in protest behavior.
13. Assume good intent. Your partner is there because they love you and want to be with you. If you can’t assume good intent from your partner, it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong…you’re done for.
14. Vulnerability. A healthy intimate relationship requires that you be able to show up as your authentic self, and that means vulnerability. If you want your partner to see you, you have to let them in. That means being who you are, not who you think your spouse wants you to be. It means being honest about your fears and weaknesses. It means being able to be unguarded. This is scary. Love is not for cowards. Show up or go home.