A very inspiring article, picked this one from here

In 2004 I was in Brazil, walking down the hill in Lapa to get some lunch. I was with a friend who I had met in the hostel I was staying - his name was Ofer. We were having a discussion about intelligence, and what role it plays in success.

Then out of the side of the road stepped a man. He was holding a knife in one hand and a bottle in the other hand. He spoke to us in fast portugese, clearly asking us to hand over the things we held. I stood there, not very sure what to do. Ofer started speaking quickly to the man, telling the man not to rob us.

What you have to know about Ofer is that he had been an Israeli soldier. He hated violence of any form, but he knew how to be violent.

The man threw the bottle on the floor and it broke into pieces, he picked up the bottle and lunged at us. I ran a short distance off, and Ofer stood there and dodged the man, all the while talking to him. The man attacked several times, and each time Ofer just moved aside.

Then finally, Ofer kicked the weapons out of the guys hands, punched him, and he fell. He then told me to run, and we ran down the hill to the restaurant.

We sat there and he continued what we had spoken about. He said: That demonstrates what I mean. The man with the knife did not know how to use that knife. If he had been as trained in knife fighting as I was in hand combat, he would have been able to destroy me. But he had a tool that he felt gave him an advantage, but it's nothing compared to a person who has no tool, but has worked to develop what he has.

Intelligence is like a knife. If you are intelligent, you are at a clear advantage against people who are not intelligent. But if you are intelligent, and another person is not as intelligent, but the other person is willing to train harder than you, the other person will very quickly overtake you in ability.

How your intelligence will destroy you

People who are born intelligent start off life with everything easy for them. They don't have to work hard to get good grades, they never really have to do much to get ahead. The major challenge of early life is school - and school is designed for average people. So intelligent people just breeze through.

But there is a point where every intelligent person faces something that requires more than intelligence. It requires hard work, it requires the ability to fail, it requires being able to do tough tasks, boring tasks. For the first time in their life, in spite of their intelligence, these intelligent people are challenged, and they start failing. Like when they first attempt to create a startup.

And that's where most of them retreat. They focus on things they can't fail on, and ignore the other important things. They start to blame other things (like the school system). They procrastinate. They refuse to face new problems because they know they will not be able to handle them, and this does not fit into their worldview that they are invincible.

Let me tell another story. In 2007, I had dinner with the father of my girlfriend in Paris. He is currently a vice president at one of the top 5 consulting companies in the world. He is a jewish french immigrant from Morroco - he came in the 70s to France with no money and no connections, and he made it up to become Vice President, even though he studied to be an engineer.

I asked him: How did you do it? How did you start from being an immigrant to become executive material? He told me: I got this far because I'm intelligent. He continued: But there were many many people as intelligent as I am who graduated together with me. They are still engineers right now. The difference between me and them is that when I arrived, I knew that I did not have family here in france, I did not have connections. And I knew there were a lot of other people as intelligent as I was, and who had all these advantages. The only way to be successful then would be to gain a slight advantage over them - I had to work and train harder than they did, I had to get to know more people than they did, I had to learn more about more things that they did.

We started off equals, but at some point all the effort I put in started to pay off, and where they stopped improving themselves, I continued, and I got better and better. Where they were afraid to try new things because they would fail, I tried and I got better and knew more, till I was good enough for the job I hold now.

How this relates to you

Being intelligent is like having a knife. If you train every day in using the knife, you will be invincible. If you think that just having a knife will make you win any battle you fight, then you will fail. This believe in your own inherent ability is what will kill your startup. Success comes from the work and ability you put in becoming better than the others, and not from some brilliance you feel you may have within you.

So don't believe that the brilliance of your idea is what will make you successful. What will make you successful is when you are out there every day, doing something new, challenging yourself, trying new methods, studying new ways, having a lot of small failures, then getting better every day.

Lagu ni memang pelik, tajuknya "I am so happy to finally be back home", lagu ni ditulis semasa zaman 80'an di zaman Soviet tgh konflik. Apa-apa pun, yang peliknya, bila dah dengar lagu ni, rasa macam nak dgr lagi. Oh yeah!

I am a person who likes to sleep in front of TV. Our TV is located close to the balcony where at night, I can just open the sliding door, and let the natural air flow into our house facing Black Mountain/Botanical Garden.

2 weeks after we moved in to the new house, I experienced a minor heart burn. It feels like having acid reflux due to excessive consumption of oranges (due to Chinese New Year? Might be). I bought Gaviscon which is nothing but a brand of magnesium trisilicate, ya know, kind of gastric relief, but it doesn't work.

I realized that I have a tendency to swallow mucus that continuously generated near my throat. I can't automatically spit them out nor pretend that it doesn't exists. Well, maybe because of a minor cold.

Siti postulated that the heart burn sensation might triggered due to stomach uneaseness, cause by the mucus. Wow, I never think of that. Well, we bought some stuff like Vicks Inhaler and Vaporub to ease the minor cold, and it works!! Now I feel relief, and no heart burn/gastric sensation again!

Next time, if you are staying in a cold place close to the woods, make sure you close the direct ventilation towards the house. Or better yet, turn up the heater, make sure you don't catch cold in the morning.

I was 14 when I first attempted to play table tennis. Naturally, I suck at sports. The only sport that I can be confident of is gym sport. Weightlifting is a no-sweat thing for me. And running? I used to run 7 km everyday when I was in UM back then in 2001.

My officemate Mr Hemant Singh kindly taught me on how to play table tennis. I finally get the grip of steadily keeping the flow of the game, while giving him every attempt for smashing the ball. Why? Because he'll be participating the table tennis tournament next week.

Good. Now I can be confident for this sport, next time if you want to get a table tennis partner, call me (^_^)

Health:

1.    Drink plenty of water.
2.    Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3.    Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4.    Live with the 3 E's -- Energy,  Enthusiasm, and Empathy.
5.    Don't forget your prayer.
6.    Play more games.
7.    Read more books than you did in 2009.
8.    Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9     Sleep for 7 hours.
10.  Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:

11.  Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12.  Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13.  Don't overdo. Keep your limits.
14.  Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15.  Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16.  Dream more while you are awake.
17.  Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18.  Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19.  Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20.  Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21.  No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22.  Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn.  Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23.  Smile and laugh more.
24.  You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Society:

25.  Call your family often.
26.  Each day give something good to others.
27.  Forgive everyone for everything.
28.  Spend time with people over the age of 70 &under the age of 6.
29.  Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30.  What other people think of you is none of your business.
31.  Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your family and friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:

32.  Do the right thing!
33.  Always speak the truth even if it leads to your death.
34.  GOD heals everything.
35.  However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36.  No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37.  The best is yet to come.
38.  When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39.  Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

Last but not the least:

40.  Please Forward this to everyone you care about.