Category: Personal

In relation to my earlier post about promises to myself, the forwarded email I received today from one of managers came in time.

It is truly inspiring and something that is worth reflecting for. Sharing the same with all of you…

Ducks or Eagles?

No one can make you serve customers well.
That’s because great service is a choice.

Harvey Mackay tells a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point.

He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey .

He handed my friend a laminated card and said: ‘I’m Wally, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk I’d like you to read my mission statement.’

Taken aback, Harvey read the card.

It said: Wally’s Mission Statement:
To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.’

My friend said jokingly, ‘No, I’d prefer a soft drink.’

Wally smiled and said, ‘No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.’

Almost stuttering, Harvey said, ‘I’ll take a Diet Coke.’

Handing him his drink, Wally said, ‘If you’d like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.’

As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card, ‘These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d
like to listen to the radio.’

And as if that weren’t enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him.

Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he’d be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.

‘Tell me, Wally,’ my amazed friend asked the driver, ‘have you always served customers like this?’

Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. ‘No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day.

He had just written a book called You’ll See It When You Believe It . Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, ‘Stop complaining!
Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.”

‘That hit me right between the eyes,’ said Wally. ‘Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy.. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I
did more.’

‘I take it that has paid off for you,’ Harvey said.

‘It sure has,’ Wally replied. ‘My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I’ll probably quadruple it.
You were lucky to get me today. I don’t sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can’t pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action.’

Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I’ve probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call.. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn’t do any of what I was suggesting.

Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles.

How about us?

Smile, and the whole world smiles with you… The ball is in our hands!

A man reaps what he sows. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up… let us do good to all people.

Ducks Quack, Eagles Soar

This song by Avril Lavigne explains whatever I’m feeling now…

“MY HAPPY ENDING”

So much for my happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh…

Let’s talk this over
It’s not like we’re dead
Was it something I did?
Was it something You said?
Don’t leave me hanging
In a city so dead
Held up so high
On such a breakable thread

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought we could be

[Chorus:]
You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending
Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh…

You’ve got your dumb friends
I know what they say
They tell you I’m difficult
But so are they
But they don’t know me
Do they even know you?
All the things you hide from me
All the shit that you do
All the stuff that you do

You were all the things I thought I knew
And I thought we could be

[Chorus]

It’s nice to know that you were there
Thanks for acting like you cared
And making me feel like I was the only one
It’s nice to know we had it all
Thanks for watching as I fall
And letting me know we were done

[Chorus x2]

[x2]
Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh…
So much for my happy ending

Oh oh, oh oh, oh oh…

Jo sent me a forwarded email that is soooooooo inspiring. This is worth sharing to everybody, I hope you do read it. I totally agree that we should never settle for less, we do deserve the best. But ofcourse, we also should know if we are already with the best person for us, learn to appreciate what we have as well 🙂

Settling for Less Than the Best
by David Hawkins

Don’t say you haven’t done it. I won’t believe you. All of us are guilty of settling for less at some time in our lives.

Yep, we’ve all done it, shaking our heads in confusion the whole time. With that gnawing feeling in the pit of our stomach, we rationalize our situation, knowing we’re treading water, or slowly sinking.

You know the routine. You’ve been dating a guy for a year and a half. He’s nice enough, your friends and family like him, but, like a stale piece of gum, the zip isn’t there.

Perhaps you’ve got a different problem. You’re dating a guy who not only has spark, you have to take a fire extinguisher along on dates to keep the flames under control. But, besides being incredibly irresistible, he’s hopelessly irresponsible.

Again, you settle. Your gut says it’s time to move on, but you question yourself. You really want to move on, but you rationalize the situation.

• “He’s not that bad.”
• “I kind of like being with him.”
• “There are good times with the bad.”
• “He tells me I won’t find anyone like him.”

In any case, you’re wasting your time. Precious time. Clock-ticking, second-counting, life-wasting time.

I have a friend who offered the following advice:

“David,” he said in his fatherly voice, “I keep track of how many hours of life I have left, assuming I live to be eighty-two. I want to remind myself that every hour, every minute of life is precious. I want to remind myself not to waste time doing anything that is not best for me.”
Wow! Is that ever a reality check!

I received a phone call the other day from a former client. At first I was concerned when I heard Gini’s voice, knowing her previous situation. Sounding animated and excited, I knew something had changed.

“You remember where I was a year ago,” Gini began. “I was stuck in a relationship that was going nowhere, with a man I cared about but who abused me with his control tactics. I couldn’t breathe unless I asked permission.”

“Yes, I remember your situation, Gini,” I said.
Before I could respond further, Gini continued sharing her insights.

“I was too insecure, Dr. David. I was afraid I wouldn’t find anyone better. My friends had warned me about setting my standards too high. I was afraid they were right, and so I settled.”

“Fear stops us from really listening to our hearts,” I added. “Deep inside I think we know the truth. And God keeps sending us messages, but it’s scary to follow the truth of our hearts.”

“Well, I finally left Jim. You probably knew it was going to happen, and after I quit counseling I finally did it. Leaving Jim was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. He didn’t make it easy to leave him, that’s for sure.”

“So, have things changed?” I asked curiously.

“Yep. I finally recognized some important truths,” she said warmly. “As long as I wasted time with Jim, I missed other opportunities to find the love of my life. As long as I was with Jim, my self-esteem was always going to take a beating. I was caught in a vicious cycle of doubt, fear, more control and then more doubt. I had to get to the point where it was too painful to stay.”

“You were certainly fed up a number of times when we worked together,” I reminded her. “But, there were some good things you didn’t want to lose in the relationship.”

“Well,” she added, “that’s true. There were good things, and I missed some of them for a while after I left him. But, I’ve got to tell you what’s happened in the past several months.”

“I’d love to hear what’s happened,” I said, encouraged and excited to hear her news.

“Since I had the courage to leave Jim, I met a man who’s a perfect mate for me. We’ve been dating about nine months and we’re getting engaged soon. He attends a new church I’ve been attending, and loves my kids. He’s not controlling and loves me for who I am. I never would have met him if I were still dating Jim. So, I just wanted you to share in my happiness.”

“I’m so pleased for you, Gini,” I said. “You deserve the best and I’m glad you found it.”

“I have a favorite verse that helped me during the rough times. ‘For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind.’ It’s really helped me.”

“God will help us be courageous, Gini.”

“There’s one more thing, Dr. David.”

“What?”

“Tell everyone you know not to settle for anything less than the best. Not only will they be unhappy, but they’re missing out on God’s absolute best for them. And time’s wasting.”

“I’ll tell them, Gini. Don’t settle for less than the best.”

I realized that I’m living my life one day at a time and not setting on any goals.
It’s like whatever comes, comes. I don’t even think about it and just jump right through whatever opportunities that come my way.

I’ve been reflecting a lot the past few days.. Realized that I really don’t have any direction in my life now and I have to do something about it so I can be happier & contented.

Here is a list of things that I promise myself I will do:

• Start Exercising – I tried jogging before but stopped after 1 month, I just cannot sustain it. This time I promise myself that even if I’m really getting so lazy to get up and drive to UP for a jog, I’ll punish myself (like no comfort food for a week or something!) 😛
• Be Conscious on what I Eat – I gained 10 pounds since last month. Before I damage my figure, I better take charge and do something about it. I promise to eat just a considerable amount of rice 😛 stop eating too much (I tend to overeat). And when at home, try to skip dinner (when I’m out, I’m still going to eat hehehe).
• Better Time Management – This is most applicable to how I manage time at work. A perfect example is now, it is a saturday and I’m at the office trying to catch up work. Here is my promise, I’ll work strictly 8am-5pm or 9am-6pm & when i have night calls only. I will have a schedule for emails, meetings, break, lunch, etc. On a personal note, I will also have a schedule for blog, sleep, jog, etc.
• Keep Track of Expenses – I don’t know what happened but I haven’t been spending much for the past few months but it seems my money is diminishing fast. It’s weird. And I don’t know why. So my promise is to keep track of every centavo that I spend, organize via categories (food, bills, car expenses, etc) and enter those in an excel file. I’ll start tomorrow.

There are a lot more things that I need to work on but the most important thing that I know will need most work is this…

• Be Happy Inside & Out – One thing I realized is that I’m drowning myself in loneliness & sorrow, though I look like a cheerful person outside, deep inside I’m never happy. And because of this, I became so vulnerable and people can take advantage of that and play with my emotions. I know that my life isn’t as wonderful as most people are but what is important is how we react to whatever we have. I promise to start thinking positively, I know this is going to be real hard especially since I’ve been thinking negatively ever since I was a child. I will look at things positively and I will control whatever emotions I have (especially when angry). If people disappoint or hurt me, I’ll just take it as it is and move on as quick as possible. I will smile a lot, not just on the outside but also on the inside. I’ll see life in a different way even if I’m alone. I’ll do my best to always think of happy thoughts and learn to love being alive in this world. I know this is going to be a difficult thing to do but I’ll do my best 🙂

I will just update this list as soon as I think of something. I would like to broadcast this to everyone so I don’t have any choice but to follow them hahahaha 😛