10 Steps to Overcome Shyness

According to a news item in the New Straits Times, Tan Sri Hasmy Agam, the Executive Chairman of the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, says most Malaysian diplomats are handicapped by a poor command of English and they are too shy to speak up or make presentations. How do you overcome shyness? Here are the ten steps:


1. Self-esteem: One of the reasons why you are shy is because you have low self-esteem. You focus too much attention on your weaknesses instead of what you do best. It is good to identify your weaknesses, but you have to do something about it in order to boost your self-esteem.

2. Personal weaknesses: What are your weaknesses and what can you do about it? Eliminating your weaknesses will increase your self- esteem and self-confidence. Weaknesses can be bad habits or a lack of certain skills. Take gradual steps to replace your bad habits with good ones. If you are lacking in certain skills then the best thing to do is to make an effort to acquire the necessary skills as soon as possible.

3. Skill learning: As an example, the diplomats are weak in English. The best thing they can do is to take intensive courses to brush up their English and at the same time involve themselves more often in situations where they have to use English. There is no other way to master a language except to use the language every day in order to be proficient.

4. Build self-confidence: You will be more confident about your self when you have taken steps to acquire the skills you need and replace bad habits with good ones. You will appreciate and value yourself more because you will have higher self-esteem

5. Forget yourself in the company of others: Now that you feel good about yourself you are ready to mix around with people. The most important thing to remember is not to think of yourself in the company of others. In other words, don’t be too self-conscious.

6. Don’t think of your weaknesses: The other point is not to look at yourself negatively. Always put yourself in the best light.

7. Don’t worry: The last thing to forget is about the mistakes you have made in previous gatherings. Relax and be cool, calm, and collected.

8. Focus on the conversation: In the company of others, focus your attention on the topic of conversation and participate actively

9. Talk about the other person: The other thing that you should do is to encourage the other person in front of you to talk more about himself or herself. While listening, look for pointers to compliment him or her.

10. Be sociable: As you get used to meeting people you should mix around more often. The rules are still the same; you forget about yourself and just participate in the conversation and encourage others to talk about their interests and you look for things to say some nice words about them. You will find that not only you are no longer shy but you are getting popular in the company of others.
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Do you think this article is helpful to overcome your shyness?

10 Instant Ways to Live a Richer and Fuller Life

Here are 10 ways to live a richer life by being positive in your attitude toward others:


1. Be kind: Say something nice and sincere to people you meet every day. It costs you nothing but it uplifts their mood and cheers them up. As you get along in your daily life, be alert to lend your hand to others. Kindness begets kindness

2. Be appreciative: Appreciate your talents, appreciate the support from your family members, and be thankful to your friends and colleagues. .Adopt an attitude of gratitude in life.

3. Empathetic: Do not think just for yourself; consider the other person’s point of view and his or her feelings.

4. Thoughtful: The easier way to show how much you care is to remember someone’s birthday and send a gift. The other thing that you can do is to share with your neighbor when you have cooked something special for dinner.

5. Love: Love yourself and love your family. Bear hatred to no one but fill your heart with love. The only way to have peace of mind is to forgive and forget.

6. Humble: Be friendly and cheerful. Greet people you meet and smile. There is no need for you to show off because there is always someone who is better than you.

7. Serve: Participate in community services or provide tuition to poor children in subjects that you are good at.

8. Conscience: Uphold moral values and betray nobody. You sleep with a soft pillow and a clear conscience

9. Thankful to God: Thankful to God that you are alive and living a wonderful life and enjoying what you have. Just count your blessings.

10. Generous: Share your knowledge to enrich otter people’s life. Donate to the needy. Give words of encouragement and enlightenment to those in despair


Your sharing and caring attitude will make your life richer than your material wealth.

10 Traits of Happy People

Happy people behave and share more or less the same traits. Here are the 10 qualities of happy people:


1. Have an aim in life: They know what they want in life because they know their interests and passion. They work on it every day. They fill their life with enthusiasm, excitement and satisfaction. There is a direction in life and for them life is fulfilling.

2. Kind: They hold no grudges against anyone. Their hearts are filled with kindness instead of hatred and resentment. Their mind is peaceful and calm.

3. PMA: They are hopeful in life. They look forward to each new day with high hopes and expectations. They are optimistic about their future.

4. Positive emotions: They feel good about themselves. They are cheerful and they like the way as they are.

5. Live in the moment: They don’t dwell on the regrets of the past and they don’t worry much about the future. They just focus their attention to enjoy what they do at the moment.

6. Keep fit: They live a healthy lifestyle. They exercise every day and they follow a balanced diet. They sleep well and they are early risers.

7. Connected: They are not loners. They have a tight family unit. They have mutual friendship and network. They have good support system that they can depend on.

8. Enjoy what they have: They are not greedy people. They make the best of what they have. They count their blessings instead of wanting more in life.

9. Just be happy: It is their nature to be happy. After all it is a part of positive emotions. You make a choice: to be or not to be. Why not be happy and be upbeat in your mood?

10. Live within their means: As they are contented people, they don’t look for more material wealth. Thy have no financial worries because they have no debt.


Happiness boils down to how you feel about yourself. Just think happy thoughts, be happy and you make every minute worth living.

10 Tips to Avoid Financial Crisis

Caution is the keyword in personal finance. The world is full of temptation to lure you to spend and spend to get what you want in life. Can you discipline yourself to control your spending? Here are the vital points


1. Loan: The moment you are in debt you are in danger water. One wrong move you will enter into a crisis situation. The most important thing is to factor in the loan amount into your monthly budget. If your budget cannot accommodate the extra amount, do not go for the loan.

2. Loan shark: If you must borrow, keep the loan sharks at arm’s length. They will charge you an exorbitant interest rate and they will resort to unethical means to recover the loan plus interest from you when you are unable to meet their repayment schedule

3. Terms and conditions: Shop around for a loan, go for one which has the best terms and conditions in your favor.

4. Settle credit card bills promptly and fully every month: This is to avoid high-interest charges on the outstanding amounts and late charges. When you opt for the minimum amount to pay you are building up debt to a point that is beyond your means to settle. It finally leads to bankruptcy. The other thing is to build a flawless credit record so that in future when you do need a loan you can get better terms.

5. Emergency fund: It is prudent to keep three to six months of an emergency fund to meet the usual payments and expenses just in case you are out of work.

6. Spend wisely on needs but not wants: Curb the urge to buy what you want, learn to be happy with what you have. The less you spend the more money you will have for your retirement and the more likely for you to enjoy your financial freedom in your golden years.

7. Budget and follow the budget: The moment you spend more than what you have earned you are in debt. The worst thing is that getting into debt is easy but getting out of it is the most difficult thing to do. Spend less than your income is the only way to sleep soundly at night.

8. Avoid gambling: Don’t be greedy. There is no way to make money out of gambling or else gambling outlets will be out of business.

9. Distinguish between good debt and bad debt: You can borrow to further your education or when it is a solid investment like the purchase of a property in a prime location. Don’t do it when there is no return on the amount borrowed.

10. 开源节流（kai yuan jie liu）: This is a Chinese proverb. It literary means to open up more income streams and reduce outflows. It sums up the golden rule of personal financial management.


When you are debt-free you are the happiest person in the world.

10 Things to Bring You Success in Life

The following are important areas of lifelong success. Have you got what it takes to be successful in life?


1. Effective use of time: You don’t manage time, it is here and now. You fill the time with productive activities. The main point is not to waste time. However, you don’t work from one task to another back to back. You take breaks in between tasks. You also take time off to relax and unwind. You do not burn the candle at both ends. You make sure you have sufficient sleep at night.

2. Health: The quality of your life depends on the state of your health. You work harder, enjoy more, and get more out of life when you are healthy and fit.

3. Simplicity: The most important things are to do less and go slow. Do not cram and do too many things in a day. Do one thing at a time. Enjoy the moment; look at the setting sun and the rising moon. Be appreciative of nature and its wonders.

4. Relationships: The only way to make people like you is to take a keen interest in other people. Develop a pleasing personality by being humble, cheerful, and approachable.

5. Creativity: To be successful you need to be resourceful and creative. It means you think, imagine, and create original and unique ideas. It is the same in writing articles. All the subjects are already written, so when you write it has to be different from others.

6. Happiness: True happiness is from within; it is not what you have or in the distant future, just think of happy and cheerful thoughts. Do remember that this is one of the things in life that is within your control. So, choose happiness instead of misery.

7. Character: Be a trusted person; deliver what you have promised. Be enthusiastic and do more than expected. Discipline yourself to do only the right things.

8. Goals: Do you have goals in life? Goals direct your energy and you focus on doing the task leading to your objectives. Don’t drift aimlessly in life. It is a waste of time and energy and there is no fun and excitement in life without meaningful goals.

9. Organization: It is more effective to put your goals in writing so that you can plan and arrange your tasks ahead in an orderly manner. Likewise, you need to organize your life so that it is balanced. Life is a juggling act. You have to take care not only yourself but your family, your friends, your work and react to things beyond your control all at the same time.

10. Positive mental attitude: Be sure of yourself that things can be done and problems can be solved. What you need is perseverance to go all the way. You may fail but you keep trying and learn from defeat.


This is a competitive world and we need to be outstanding to achieve lasting success in life.

10 Easy and Simple Ways to be More Creative

According to the results of a recent IBM survey of 1,500 chief executives worldwide show that creativity is the most crucial trait for success—more so than management skills, discipline, integrity, and vision.

How to be more creative? Here are the 10 easy and simple ways:


1. Think: The most powerful way is to tell yourself that whatever you do, there must be a better way. On a daily basis look at the things that you are doing critically, think, and find out how you can get things done in less time without sacrificing quality. Can you do away with it? Can you simplify it?

2. Change: Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results. The keyword here is change. Do a thing in a different way, experience it; test it until you get a better result.

3. Imitate: Imitation is not just copying per se. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review (April 2010), Imitation is More Valuable Than Innovation, imitators often overshadow innovators

• White Castle (imitator: McDonald’s)
• Diners Club (imitators: Visa, MasterCard, American Express)
• Korvette (imitator: Wal-Mart)
• Saehan Mpman (imitator: Apple iPod)

The reasons are that imitators are creative. They copy the ideas and they adjust, combine, modify, and improve the concepts to suit their own needs. In the article, researchers looked at 48 innovations and discovered that 34 of them- almost three-quarters - were copied.

4. Observe: Study and examine to see how things are done. A lot can be learned from others. Capitalized on their good points.

5. Read: The more you read, the more you know about how things get done. The more you know the more innovative you are.

6. Sleep: Think hard about your problem and sleep over it. Let your subconscious mind work on it. You never know when you wake up the next day; the answer is already in your mind. By the way, when you sleep well, your mind is refreshed and you can think better, it means you will be more creative.

7. Relax: You can’t be creative when you are stressed. Learn to unwind and relax. Creative juice can only be nurtured when you are cool, calm, and collected.

8. Move: It means to exercise every day, especially aerobic exercise like jogging to send more oxygen to your brain. Vigorous exercise stimulates your thinking process and enhances your creativity

9. Talk: Get away from your work and talk to someone about everything and anything. Shift your mind’s focus. Ideas can occur while you talk casually to someone.

10. Ask: To ask is to probe. Find out the what, who, why, when, and how of everything to satisfy your curiosity. What you get may give you the “Ah-Ha!” effect to your problems.


To be more creative, think more often, read more widely, observe more carefully, ask more questions, identify more bright ideas, and make more changes.

10 Advantages of blogging

Blogging is more than just writing words on your blog. It is a place to showcase your talents and capabilities in writing. You will also be able to find out instantly how good you are as a writer. Here are the good things about blogging:


1. Freedom of expression: There is no restriction on what you wish to write. Write things that you are interested in. This is a platform to express yourself freely. The best part is that you share your feelings with everyone on the Net and they comment on what you have said.

2. Writing: The more you write the better it gets. You develop quality in writing after writing continuously for many months. The most important thing is to start, write daily, and become a good habit.

3. Making money: Money is only a by-product of what you do. In this case, your primary objective is writing. Your articles attract the attention of readers because they find your articles easy to understand, useful, able to solve their problems, and lift their mood. You put Adsense ads on your article pages and you earn when readers click on the ads. Write for the readers and the readers will click on your ads.

4. Technology: You learn the nitty-gritty of blogging such as SEO, keywords, links, HTML, ping, upload images, and many other things. Learning new things is good for you and your brain

5. Networking: Getting connected with others takes a new dimension on the Net. You make friends worldwide instantly through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. In the past, it is pen pals and snail mail

6. Building a brand: You write articles in a particular subject regularly and consistently and soon you develop yourself as an expert in this particular niche. You build up a name for yourself over time.

7. Credentials: Your articles are proof of what you know in a particular area of interest. You get favorable comments on what you have written. The articles and comments are a good gauge of what you are capable of. When you are accepted as a guest writer by other bloggers it is further proof of your ability.

8. Your credibility on the Net: You have to wait for your annual appraisal to find out your performance when you are an employee. On the Net, you are appraised every day by the number of visitors to your blog. Readers’ visit to your blog is a popular vote of what you are offering. Your popularity is translated into Traffic Rank; the quality of your writing is determined by PageRank and Technorati’s Authority Rank. All these markers will determine your position on the Net. The followers of your blog are also an indication of your acceptance by others.

9. Passion: Are you passionate about writing and blogging? You can turn blogging as your career goal. I do. I am only doing this part-time and I look forward to doing full time when I have more readers

10. Satisfaction: As for me, the greatest reward of blogging is that I have improved my writing. However, there is still plenty of room to improve further. The next thing is that I am thrilled to see my TrafficRank and my Authority Rank go up. It is a good sign that my articles are acceptable to my readers.


Blogging is very challenging and it is for the long term. The most important thing is to write continuously for the readers with quality articles