By Yow Kia

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

When we talk about motivational thing, some people may feel skeptical towards it. They might have spent thousands of dollars on motivational workshops and books, but still remain as a normal person. They started to doubt the effectiveness of motivational products. Do motivational products really work to us? Spending so much money to motivational workshops and books, just to get people to motivate us? Well, I feel that motivation will assist us to better our life. The main thing is how we keep ourselves to stay motivated always and apply whatever theories stated in the motivational workshops and books.

The first self-improvement book that I read was “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki (with Sharon L. Lechter). It was quite a popular book during my university days. I read the whole book and totally agreed with what the author stated inside the book. “Does school prepare children for the real world?” – Robert T. Kiyosaki. Yup, the school really doesn’t prepare children for the real world. We have to find our own ways to prepare ourselves for the real world. Frankly speaking, this book did not really touch my heart as I didn’t execute the plans stated inside the book. Perhaps I should put it this way; I didn’t know how to execute the plans recommended inside the book. Whenever people recommended me another self-improvement book, I had the same kind of feeling that whatever stated inside the book is true, but I have no idea in how to execute the plans.

I had heard of the name of Adam Khoo a couple of years ago since he launched his Best-selling book. I knew he is very famous and rich. However, I had no interest in knowing what’s written in his book. I thought it’s just another normal type of self-improvement book. Until one day, I can’t stand with the Adam Khoo’s advertisements in Today’s newspaper and started to type in “Adam Khoo” in Google search bar. I was totally inspired by his background. From a totally hopeless kid, he became a self-made millionaire. He must have got some tactics to work on. One more surprise that I got from his biography is that he was born in a rich family but the route he becoming a millionaire was all by himself! He was not like those lucky rich family kids who took over their parent’s business and became rich. He created his own business, own company! Impressive!!

While searching his website, I found one link to get a FREE E-book from him. Without thinking so much, I downloaded the free E-book and finished reading it within one day. I was totally thrilled by his passion to share his secrets of becoming a millionaire. The momentum was kept on rolling inside my heart and I bought one of his E-books called “Master your mind, design your destiny! - co-author: Stuart Tan”. One good news! I found that this is not a normal type of self-improvement book! There are clear step-by-step activities for you to follow, for you to think about. Guess what, the results that I got turned out to be something good! One of his suggested activities is to tell the whole world about your dream, if you want to fulfill your dream. You have no more excuse for not executing your plan to fulfill your dream since you have told the whole world about your dream. That’s why I started to build a website to talk about my journey towards possessing excellent communication skills – that’s my dream. After I launched my website, I received a number of comments from my friends saying that I have done a great job! These feedbacks serve as momentum to me, pushing me to go further.

One good thing about owning an E-book instead of a physical book is you can read the book in your office without knowing by someone. Your boss may think that you are so hardworking, facing the computer for the whole day. I hope my boss is not reading this article now. Haha… Anyway, if I were a boss, I would feel very happy if my staff are reading “Master your mind, design your destiny!”. In fact, I would encourage my staff to read this book so that my staff will stay motivated always and know the way to “Master your mind, design your destiny!”