The universe is constantly moving. It is constantly doing things with or without your consent. Stock markets collapse, people get promoted, people get fired. The world spins madly on. It may all look like chaos, it may look like a mess, but the fact is that there is a pattern; we are just too small to see it.

Life gives you a choice, you can either roll with the punches or you can stand up for yourself and fight. We lose so many opportunities because we don’t have the courage to seize them. We are afraid of failure and we are even afraid of our own greatness, so we sit back and let opportunity pass us by. We could have had a great love with our first crush, we could have gotten that big promotion in the office, but we don’t, because we never asked. We never asked our crush how they felt, we never asked our superiors to consider us for a higher position or we never turned that idea into a business.

Then we complain. We never got what we feel we deserved. We never got what we didn’t ask for, what we didn’t fight for. Of course we don’t put it in those words. We say that life is unfair, that we are undervalued, that we are unlucky.

I believe that life isn’t something that just happens to us. We make our lives what they are by our actions and our inactions. We are the ones to blame. We are not puppets dancing to the beat of a puppet master. We are individuals capable of shaping our own destinies. We are responsible for our own choices.

If your life is not what you want it to be, then that is because you aren’t surrendering and doing enough. It’s easy to place blame on external factors. That is our coping mechanism. The truth is that we don’t have the things we want, simply because we never asked.

Believing and the Law of Attraction go hand in hand. You have to believe you’ll get what you desire most in order to manifest, on the physical plane, those things you want and those goals you want to accomplish. Unfortunately, many of us have grown up surrounded by a lot of disbelief. We internalize this negativity, which blinds us to the infinite possibilities in front of us. We are literally stiff and crippled by the beliefs that have been handed down to us.

To break free, we need to stretch our minds, much like we stretch our bodies when we do yoga. Stretch our minds to believe that we can get what we want, believing that we deserve the good things in life.

What is the one thing you want more than anything? Concentrate on that. Stretch your mind to encompass actually having that which you want. See it. Feel it. Breathe it in and believe. Stretch your mind and believe you have it. Practice this whenever you think of what you want, but make sure you envision yourself having that which you desire. By believing and using the Law of Attraction, you will generate a positive attitude. Believing is one of the steps in achieving what you desire most in life.

Speak to yourself as if you already have what you desire. In this way, you are kind of tricking your body into believing you really do have it. Once you have such positive belief patterns established in your life, you’ll start attracting other positives – be it positive people or positive events. Being surrounded by positives will attract even more positives into your life. You will then achieve what you’ve desired all along.

Believing and the Law of Attraction means stretching your mind and encompassing the possibilities. Believe and achieve.

A sculptor needs a chisel to sculpt. A carpenter needs a hammer. A painter needs paint. A golfer needs a club. Without these tools they would not be able to complete their tasks. So how important are the ‘tools’ for the ‘trade’?

They say only weak players blame their equipment. This statement is both true and false. Tools cannot make up for the lack of talent, but it would be foolish to say that they don’t make any difference. Superior equipment will give superior results. Let’s say you were trying to make patterns on a sheet of paper. You could either use a knife to cut the sheet or a pair of scissors. Do I need to point out which would give you a better result?

It is not enough to have the correct tool. You need to know how to use it. A carpenter would not use sandpaper to hammer nails. Always use the right tool for the right job. Every business man and business woman needs a host of tools to conduct his/her business.

The quality of a business man is not judged solely on how good his tools are but also on how well he can put those tools to use.  The best equipment in the world won’t do you any good, if you don’t know how to use it.  With the rate at which technology is progressing, it is important for everyone to learn how to use the amazing new inventions that science is constantly throwing at us.

If you are in business, you need to take the time to find out what tools are available to you.  You need to know how and when to use each and every tool in your tool box. The tools do not make the man, but they certainly make his life easier.

Sambo was a good cook. One day there was a gathering in the neighborhood. The caterer was stuck due to bad weather. There was no food for the people. After some time, everyone started complaining. They wanted something to eat.

Sambo lived close by. He ran to his house and cooked a large pot of stew. Everyone fell in love with Sambo’s Stew. It started with the neighbors coming to Sambo’s house for a meal. When Sambo said, he had run out of supplies, the neighbors said they would be willing to pay for a bowl. Sambo started to deliver his delicious Stew. Money started to flow in.

The news of the Sambo’s Stew spread far and wide. People started coming from far away. Sambo had to set up a separate shed in his courtyard, for people to collect the Stew from. He spent days building the shed. People were complaining constantly. They wanted stew; they didn’t care about the shed.

Sometimes he would have to travel quite a distance to make a delivery. Sambo was not the greatest navigator and would often get lost. He could not leave the shed because carriages were always stopping by, to pick up his stew. He was having difficulty keeping track of the money owed to him. One day Sambo collapsed from the stress of trying to do it all.

Someone should have told Sambo to hire a waiter, a delivery boy, and an accountant. People who would be good at the jobs they were assigned. When it comes to work, Divided We Rule! Unfortunately it’s too late; no one will ever taste Sambo’s Stew. He has sworn never to make a pot again. He now does gardening. Don’t be like Sambo. Division of labor is the key to success.

Yesterday, I was thinking about ideologies and since then I haven’t been able to stop. I proposed that ‘We are what we think.’ What that means is that we make decisions based on our thoughts and opinions. Our decisions shape our lives. How we live our lives, defines who we are. Thus our thoughts and opinions eventually define our personalities.

Our thought process influences our decision making ability. Imagine you have a cat. One day on your way home from work, you find an abandoned puppy.  You believe that cats and dogs cannot live together. Even though you are capable of taking care of that puppy, even though you have the desire to take it home, you don’t. There is ample proof of the fact that felines and K9’s can co-exist; especially if they are introduced to one another at an early age. You know this. Your belief forces you to over ride common sense. This is the power of ideology.

Ideologies influence people in every part of their lives. From the decisions they make while dealing with friends, while shopping and at home. This got me thinking, how much do personal beliefs affect business decision making? More importantly, should personal beliefs influence decision making?

If you are involved in business activities, you need to have an objective mind. You need to be able to make the right decisions without hesitation. The problem is, that our ideologies are so deeply engrained that they influence us at a subconscious level. So, whenever you are making a business decision, disassociate yourself from the situation. Analyze it without any personal pre-existing inferences.  Ensure that your decision is based on the facts in front of you and not on the facts based in your thinking.

I’m sitting in my car sending an E-Mail to a potential client in France. Just as I press the ‘send’ button on my iphone, I see something, a big red post box. The sight makes me smile. I can’t remember the last time I used one. As I pass by it, I can’t help but wonder what it was like before, before E-Mail, Internet or modern transport.

Imagine the merchants of days gone by. The delivery of cargo, back then, was an enterprise in itself. The merchant would hire two or three caravans. One would hold the cargo, the other would be for the guards, and the third would carry the provisions required by the entire party. They would battle the elements on the way to their destination. Halfway there, they would be attacked by bandits. They would choose between fight and flight. Depending on the outcome of the skirmish, either a tired and smaller party would arrive to finish the delivery or the cargo would be lost forever.

Today all you need to do is call FedEx. Technology has come so far. There are so many wonders, science has provided. It is thanks, to this technological progress, that we live in a truly global economy. There are so many tools available to the modern business man, yet there are so many who will still insist on using papyrus rolls to send a message. Okay, so maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it is a fact that a large number of businessmen/women are still blithely unaware of the advancements in technology.

It is very important that entrepreneurs take the time to research the technologies that are relevant to their business activity. There is so much that technology can do that it is important to make sure we are putting it to the best use.