Author Archives: Guus

Customers or employees?

I had a bit of a strange conversation tonight with a friend of mine who is working for Globe, the internet service provider I complained about that they are hacking websites. And the strange thing to me is that he is defending his company and kind of implicitly states that he doesn’t care about me. And I am a bit confused, as I guess he knows that I have the technical knowledge to figure out what is going on and that indeed Globe is the party inserting scripts into websites where they are supposed to only provide the internet highway, as also my friend confirms they are supposed to do.

So we talked a bit further and I asked him why he is working with Globe, why he is with his current job, also implying a bit like ‘who would want to work for a company doing things like this’, although I’m not fully sure if he got that. And then he mentioned the culture and the benefit Globe gives to their employees.

So this whole conversation made me think, as it completely seems to go against what Napoleon Hill stands for, something like ‘the customer comes first’, service comes first. As with Globe apparently the employees come first, not the customer, as my friend even stated that my internet connection will not survive long anymore ‘as when the access point is getting full, you’ll lose your connection’ and ‘your connection should have never been installed’. But as a customer I feel completely lost with these statements, as my previous, old technology connection worked for a long time, ‘until the access point was full’ and Globe decided to end the service without even noticing our company, even an internet company. And right now we are using a ‘new technology’ connection that is working very reliable and fast. So it is working and can work. So why scare me and why let go of me where I think I am a very loyal customer.

And yes, I know it’s partly the culture, Philippine culture. And maybe I don’t understand business that well and maybe I am alone with not understanding why you would piss off a ‘life time type’ customer. But yes, I am very pissed with all this, especially as all the advertisements of Globe state that ‘the customer comes first’ or at least that is what I understand. But somehow they are not practicing this and it really scares me that they would just let go of me where they have been able to service our location for a long, long time very well, whether out of their procedures or technical limits or whatever.

So how come that these companies thrive and that I can barely make a living by trying to serve my customers the best I can. Should I also just kick out customers that are not profitable, even though they depend on me?

I don’t think so, but I am more and more amazed how the world works in 2014, not really serving customers, but more scaring them.

Or am I just alone with this? Am I really that special?

Persistence (and not stubbornness)

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People have always called me stubborn, especially when I was younger. And I always thought it is and was the same as persistence, as being persistent. But somehow I’m starting to see the two are different, although slightly I guess.

As what I am starting to experience is that stubbornness is just pushing through what you want, regardless of other people’s feelings and stuff. And persistence is more like continuing going against all odds without offending other people, with letting other people be who they are or want to be.

So my big crazy project is helping me to be persistent, be myself, how crazy I may be. And I guess is learning me to be less stubborn, less insisting on my ways.

And the strange thing is that no matter how crazy my original idea was for Cagayan de Oro City, it could really become true. And the strange thing is I don’t even remember how that whole idea came together, like what was first.

Crazy, isn’t it?

Empty

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My mind is a bit empty as it was a very busy day as I planned a bit too much. But somehow I still managed to finish everything I planned, even though the start of the day was very emotional, which kind of turned me off.

So nothing really inspirational to say, except that the day ended good and had some nice surprises, including a phone call with someone from a submarine cable company, a company that at first was not that easy to reach. But no, I didn’t get the sixty rejections yet that I often read about when people want something, so maybe I’m lucky by only having to send five or ten e-mails before I get a reply.

And I still don’t get why so many people, so many companies don’t reply to e-mails, as to me that is just courtesy and also something I learned. And often I am wondering if I am so bad in replying to e-mails, but I don’t think so, even though of course sometimes also I don’t reply to e-mails of people that deserve to be replied to.

Anyhow, it is late and it has been a busy day, so I’ll sleep soon. I wish you all a good day or good night, whatever applies to you.

Back to the origins

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For a few days now I have in mind going back to the origins or Inspiration for Success, back to the beginning. And in my mind are things like that I wanted to share my journey to success using the Principles of Success as described by Napoleon Hill. And something like improving the world. And related to the principles of success something like that I was not good in Master Mind and that that was the thing to ‘work on’ as I made some kind of score table related to the Principles of Success. And then I wanted to add value, ‘give’ something, yes in order to be rich, become rich through this site, through this project. Ah, and yes, somehow the promise to myself to write every day, except Sunday, as I found that seven days a week is just too much, I found that a human being needs some rest, some point to let go of ‘work’, of obligations.

And I am afraid this is going to be quite a long post, as I did and wrote an awful lot of things since starting this site, since registering the domain inspiration-for-success.com on April 3, 2013. And am I successful? Well, not really, as I still don’t earn enough even to support my current life and I did not reach my main goal, my definite purpose yet as I wrote it down in my desire document around one and a half years ago. Ah, and yes, there is no team anymore, I am still doing everything myself, even though on some projects related to what I want it seems some kind of team is starting to form. And yes, my promise to the team to get one million dollar each still stands, as I found that indeed sticking with decisions is very important. Sticking with dates is more difficult though, as I passed quite some dates without achieving the goal I had set for those dates. Ah, yes, planning, that was also a weakness of mine and somehow still is. Although I do have a plan now, a way of planning things, and the method is improving and growing.

Ah, and yes, I am still jealous of all those people who seem to have ‘made it’ much more easy than me, especially if they did so at a very young age. Samples are Richard Branson and Donald Trump and Leonardo DiCaprio and more of those. But the more I look around I also see many people who indeed are (only?) successful at a later age, older than forty, sometimes older than fifty. Like I was amazed that the actors playing James Bond were often in their late forties and fifties. And yes, Richard Branson and Donald Trump are older, quite a bit, than me, so maybe not such good people to compare with as they also grew up in a different time. And also Bill Gates is a bit older than me, a bit younger though than Richard Branson and Donald Trump.

So where do I stand? Well, I’m not fully sure. The most amazing thing is that some of the things in my desire document changed from completely insane and impossible to at least possible or plausible. I also noticed that after a while, I think like six to nine months after I wrote the initial version, I started to ‘live’ my desire document, like everything that happened and happens to me somehow gets a place in the things I wrote in the desire document. And this happened quite naturally. And maybe the most important change that I noticed is that my self confidence grew from practically zero to ‘pretty self confident’ right now. And yes, any idea I get now I take quite seriously. I don’t consider any idea ‘crazy’ anymore.

So yes, no matter where I stand right now, the Principles of Success of Napoleon Hill, somehow make sense, somehow have put me on a road to, well, I guess success.

Being appreciated

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I am still struggling with being appreciated, with having the feeling, or maybe the confirmation, that I am doing something useful. And I was thinking about that as I was just working on the tool I am developing to help you achieve more success by scoring yourself on each of the Principles of Success. And I was a bit frustrated, as I did not get any real feedback on it, except from one of the team members, who suggested that I should develop a more common tool about achieving goals, like a goal planning tool. But there are many goal planning tools available, probably better than I could ever imagine or build, so I don’t see any added value on that. And I also think I would not do justice to the ideas of Napoleon Hill by ‘just’ developing a goal achieving tool. As his ideas go much further than just achieving a goal, even though I think the Principles of Success could certainly help you achieve goals, any goal.

And yes, I am still confronted with my inability to create a team, to connect to people in a way that I would like, to inspire people to do, to create what I want, what I have in mind. As I believe that is what real leaders do. But no, on the contrary, I still find myself doing things myself instead of having people around me doing at least part of the work. But yes, I am starting to see now that there is indeed some kind of energy you can tap into as a human, an energy that can indeed create universes, so why not a simple website, a simple web application like I have in mind for Inspiration for Success. But until now I was still not able to really tap into that, even though the last few weeks a few times I felt some of the flow that I know belongs to that. So maybe indeed the keywords here are still patience and persistence.

But still, when looking at people like Bill Gates or Richard Branson they must have something I don’t have, as they seem to be able to create really big things. And they started doing that at a very young age.

So how to get my really big project of the ground? Patience? As that is where I feel the energy flow when presenting that or parts of it to people.

And yes, would you be willing to check my tools and use them or give feedback on them? Then at least I wouldn’t feel so alone and it may even help you on your way to success.