A BETTER WAY TO KICK-OFF A BUSINESS

If you are actually planning to start your business, I bet you are planning to put a capital from your own money or use the money of others. In other words there might be thousands of crediting or loaning or whatsoever out there, but whatever is that it is called debt or equity.

Debt means using others money barrowing from banks or other lending companies to start your business. Equity is using your own fund or your own savings to start up your business.

The question is which is which? Sounds obvious? Let’s see!

EQUITY FUNDING

Here’s what we called bootstrapping in equity funding business kick-off. It involves adjusting your own living expenses or using your savings to fund your business. Sometimes I heard it like “shrinking your budget to fit to the size of your dream or shrinking your dream to fit to the size of your budget” – either way you have no choice if the budget speaks.

Ok. For bootstrapping businessmen out there here are your advantages:

• You have complete independence and command over your business. Remember, if things turn worst to worst then you have only your own money to lose without hang-ups over your creditors.

• Bootstrappers tend to be more cautious about using the budget especially if it’s hard-won. Others would tend to be more spend mongers like some credit card holders. It’s not your money anyway.

• The best thing is the lack of budget is a blessing in disguise in the form of honed selling instincts. Because the lack of budget gets you to the edge of the cliff which pushes you to grapple for survival, thus necessitating the sale of the product asap.

• In bootstrapping wastage is damnable and there will be nothing to waste anyway.

Bootstrappers downside are as follows:

• Of course underfunding is one of your major downside. You use your own budget obviously. But for me it really depends on what kind of business you want to establish and how affluent you are.

• Lack of business plans. According to some business consultants this usually happens to bootstrapping business; they usually don’t have plans. Well, perhaps fewer feedbacks or advices to hear from investors. Again, it depends. Individual values speak sometimes.

CREDIT FUNDING

Credit funding serves great help for a non-saver monkey in the entrepreneur world. It will let anybody allow to start business in a fabulous budget at the expense of the creditor. But you have to be careful because this business start-up fashion gets into the nerve of your business in the form of walloping interest rates.

Your advantages get to be like these:

• It catches your business’ surging overhead even before your capital is drawn out from your hard work.

• Saves you more time – quick and easy – though for credit cards only.

• Credits are good temporary solutions. It comes to the rescue if you comes short of your budget.

• Again with credits you can start with nothing on the pocket or and as long as your business has a promising daylight.

Your disgrace if things get out of rail:

• Of course a debt is a debt until death. Without wiser thoughts on handling debts or credits then you’ll be running through hell.

• You don’t have full control over your business in a sense that creditors keep hacking at your back while you work harder each day or else double it.

• You’ll have constant race between debts and your profit. Unless, business goes well then all ends well.

The final scruple is to never go into business you don’t have knowledge to. That is the very basic principle every businessman knows and follows. Knowledge is queen to building a business, while capital is king.

TAXES BLUES: PAY TAX LIKE A PRO

They said that tax is like a form of legalized robbery. Businessmen abhor paying taxes because they see nothing out of what they scrape from their hard work. Everything goes out of the blue like a smoke gone with the wind.

We dislike taxes the way we fear death. But weather we like it or not, according to some advocates, tax is as inevitable as death. Tax on the other side of the same coin is the lifeblood of our physical society. It is in taxes that we build bridges, schools, highways, hospitals and the likes. But it is also in taxes that the social raptors get into our nerves and thus build walls against them instead of bridges.

Tax evasion is a criminal act, that is to clarify things. If the government is dexterous in formulating laws in labs to siphon more taxes, then businessmen are as much cunning in scheming ways to evade tax hits like the famous bullet-timing of The Matrix by Neo.

Nevertheless, there are smart ways of paying taxes – that is to say minimizing the grasp of its fangs on your hard-won earnings or business profit.

TAX SYSTEM IS AS COMPLICATED AS LIFE ITSELF

Let’s accept it that taxation is a complicated piece of systematized suction machine at the expense of our government – not the paying itself. Paying tax is as easy as eating an apple pie. What makes it complicated anyway? It’s just a tango of mathematical operations such as plus and minus.

The complications of taxation add up to the complexity of starting your own business at least here in the Philippines. Further, taxes are a capital burdening leeches sometimes that frustrates businessmen. That is why businessmen held high their brows in quoting their CPA about tax deductions and exemptions. This leaves sour grins between entrepreneurs and the government.

TAX FIRST THINGS FIRST

Businessmen, employee, self-employed or any body that is concerned of earning money must at least know the basic taxation system in our country. Knowing what to pay for is basic as where to spend your last penny – because how badly do you need to minimize your tax payment?

Some businesses are heavily taxed because of the very simple ignorance of not knowing tax exemptions. Collecting sector won’t mind telling you what exemptions are if you won’t mind yourself asking. It’s for their own advantage anyway.

Businesses are first of all advised to hire accounting staff or consultant to check on this matter.

SAVING FACTORS: EXEMPTIONS

Again exemptions are exemptions as long as you dared asked for it. It is never obligatorily imposed on you by the government, if it is then no business will be taxed in a daredevil amount. Unless you asked, you’ll never get it. I guess this is where the government plays a little bit safe into their canopy.

First rule it to find as much medium as you can to minimize tax obligations. You can haggle on your proper use of deductions, the lowering of declared gross income and the proper use of tax credits.

KNOW WHICH IS WHICH

Know what sector of your business is to answer the inquisition of taxation. The basic figure is that administrative sector of the business may differ in taxation from the second which is the manufacturing. The manufacturing requires heavy materials, more labors, electricity and therefore more expenses. Administratives are the staff, accounting, marketing and clerical of the company.

If you happened to buy to one of the biggest pharmaceutical stores in the country, you are perhaps asked for a discount card for points. In the same fashion the Finance Department would issue the what we call Tax Certificate as (meager) tax shield. This will lower your tax liability.

GOOD BOOK KEEPING

While paying tax is a way, keeping a good tracking of all your tax outputs is another thing. It would be unwise to go into big business and answer the beaconing of taxes without a good accountant to paddle your canoe.

Paying taxes on time may actually lower your tax obligation if you happened to heed to its scruples.

Tax has never been burdensome than paying for what you must have saved by knowing its basic ground operations. And it may never be as annoying as your neighbors shrieking maids or as frightening as death if you know the rule of the game.

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE SEVENTEEN)

For a Better Way to Live

Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness I s a perfume you cannot pour on other without getting a few drops on yourself.

Ok. You have the question “how to be really really happy?” The answer is “it's all up to you!” No hurt feelings because I have to tell you even the most illustrious and most mentally favored philosopher in the world doesn't have an answer to that – or at least doesn't have a specific answer on how you would be happy with your life.

Aristotle just said “happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” So where is the answer to that?

Socrates himself leaves one of the most quoted quotable quotations in the world “know thy self.” But Socrates left us hanging in the mid-air searching and wondering for the unfinished part of the “book.” The statement is so plane and easy as eating an apple pie but is so imperatively persuasive that you'll be pushed to the edge to look for the answer to the statement – because the more you know yourself, the more that you'll be happy.

They said it's money, but this has been a perennial fact and argument that money is hell to others. So that's not money (alone). They said friends will make you happy, yeah, they will. But there are those individuals who have a lot of friends lurking and spawning around but cannot appreciate it. So, who and how you gonna make yourself happy?

There are lots of premises about this but I have to make it simple – happiness is within you! Because happiness is a feeling. Happiness is not like a fly-away butterfly that will only make you happy once you caught it into a net. Happiness is within yourself it's up to you to stir it up. Don't oblige others to make you happy – it's not their responsibility. God has given you the responsibility to be happy. Don't even oblige God to make you happy – or else – that won't work certainly. God has planted within ourselves that seed of happiness. Now you have to cultivate it.

Others think, to be happy is so expensive, that is why they surround themselves with astounding wealth, mansions, luxury cars, casinos and lots of night-outs and fat checks. Others think also that these things won't make them happy – so they remain in poverty – and so neither they are happy! Perhaps, both of them are missing the point. Perhaps, both of them are busy catching butterflies in the wild.

Happiness is a feeling, an emotion, a perception and a reaction. All of them are all pressed down into your heart. There is no emotion, perception or whatsoever in diamonds, money, mansions, cars because again man is the measure of all things. The happiness you feel depends upon the way you measure things around you.

The problem is that because of our self-made hectic fast switching society our sense of emotional, mental and personal well-being have been left behind and we are fast getting ahead of ourselves. We have forgotten to give values to small but significant details of our lives. We have forgotten the basic instruction that an 8-hour sleep is essential to our happiness. We have forgotten that a basic respect and “thank you” to whoever gave us favor is basic to our happiness. We have forgotten that a little is better than nothing at all. We have forgotten that sharing is fundamental to happiness.

Happiness is like facing a mirror; happiness cannot help but be reflected back to you. If you smile, the mirror smiles back at you. If you give, the mirror gives back at you. That is all the same with the opposite.

If I could suggest something to make you happy it is no other than sharing. If you have already found the fountain of happiness then the pinnacle of what we call happiness is when you let others get wet with that fountain of happiness you've found.

Finally, at Og's last Rule I'd like to share a brainchild by George Carlin of how we are missing a lot about life -and happiness!

And at the culmination of this book review I pray that your life will be prospered by God cause this is how your life is meant to be.

God bless you!

THE PARADOX OF OUR TIME

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, (or just never mind).

Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

PENG SERVICES

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE SIXTEEN)

For a Better Way to Live

Search for the seed of good in every adversity. Master that principle and you will own a precious shield that will guard you well through all the darkest valleys you must traverse. Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the mountaintop. So will you learn things in adversity that you would never have discovered without trouble. There is always seed of good. Find it and prosper.

They said, we learn more from our mistakes than from our success. True enough, man's nature is that, when one becomes successful then he tends to be complacent – this is where man's virtue (of learning) tends to be idle and tends to rest in slumber. This is perhaps an interesting psychological phenomenon that an easy come success is an easy go success. Because you have nothing to hold on to. There will be no reason strong enough calling you to treasure your success if you haven't failed at least once. Well, I don't mean you have to fail voluntarily or intentionally.

Failures in the form of adversities will teach us more for success. Sometimes adversities will also redirect us from a more conventional way of doing things to a more sophisticated one. God uses this even; God would give you a share of trouble not to trouble you but as a redirection – cause you might be in the wrong place with the right capability.

Always look for the good thing in all unwanted that is happening around.

Speaking of unwanted, I don't know if it's really “unwanted” but one of the most expensive and coveted mineral wonder in the world is the pearl. You might, I presume, knew how it was being formed. Here's how it is formed, “the formation of a natural pearl begins when a foreign substance slips into the oyster between the mantle and the shell, which irritates the mantle. It's kind of like the oyster getting a splinter. The oyster's natural reaction is to cover up that irritant to protect itself. The mantle covers the irritant with layers of the same nacre substance that is used to create the shell. This eventually forms a pearl.” (howstuffworks.com)

The problem with us is that even in times of prosperity or peace we tend to always see scarcity and and trouble – or are just really fault finder? No doubt that it is even harder for us to see good in adversities.

It is said that necessity is the mother of inventions. For without it who would dare spend a lifetime of scheming a way to produce an incandescent lamp to light a dark room? For without adversities who would teach white hat hackers how to defend a web site from the havoc of black hat hackers? For without the adversities of a typhoon who would awaken the spirit of brotherhood and humane faculties of Filipinos who have been affected by it?

Adversities may also teach you to bend a little bit after you have been so obstinate with all the growing ups you've learned. It teaches you to be humble the way it teaches you to become a real man – not cry baby!

One surprising thing about eagle is that they love to stay in the storm! All the birds in the animal kingdom would take shelter in caves and big trees when storm strikes, the eagle would not. The eagle surfs against the storm! They seem to be enjoying the storm instead. They said that this is the time where the eagle trains himself how to soar and hone his agility to hunt for prey. By the way eagles don't fly – they soar! I don't know the difference but I guess there is.

So fly like an eagle in times of adversities – if animals can, why can't you!

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE FIFTEEN)

For a Better Way to Live

Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealousy, and envy. Guard your fragile life carefully. Only God can shape a flower, but any foolish child can pull it to pieces.

How do you know if you are the fairest of them all? Or the most talented, the most sought after among them all? Is that you have lots of detractors!

When people usually see you in front of their face, they see you in a picture frame. That's who you should be as they want it that way. But if you are the one who is growing, improving and going better than they do, then you are actually outgrowing that picture frame where they usually see you. They are not use to seeing you getting out of that picture frame and so the tendency is that they'll pull you back to fit again into that damned frame they built for you.

Don't allow yourself to be affected by jealousy, hate, gossips and discrimination because all these leeches are going to exhaust all your enthusiasm and energy – unless you'll be one of them!

Gossips are like swarms of flies they'll going to look for wounds and scabies and they're not there to hasten it's healing but to further aggravate the malady.

People who are fault-finder are like this they'll find small leak in your personality and pester on it despite of the wonderful things they see on you.

Don't pay hate with hate or anger with anger. This might sound a bit difficult when you’re in the heat of the argument, but hey you cannot really put off a fire by another fire, isn't it? What you'll get if you did is just a psychological recompense the other would be legal and financial liabilities which are worst choices.

Remember this, life is short. Always keep that in your mind, life is short.

Hoarding anger, hate, revengeful thoughts and the likes shortens it the more. Worst, it shortens life to nothing but the worst. In other words you’re just wasting your time dealing with people who are so angry, hateful and gossipers. Immediately cancel your business with them and run as fast as you can away from them, except if you want to help them get over it.

But here's one great thing about you, yes you, if someone gets into your nerve, “nothing external can have power over your thoughts if you don't allow them.” The problem is we do allow it to sabotage our peace of mind. Always make it a practice every day to tell yourself: “Nothing external can have any power over me.”

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE FOURTEEN)

For a Better Way to Live

You will achieve your grand dream, a day at a time, so set goals for each day – not long and difficult projects, but chores that will take you , step by step, towards your rainbow. Write them down, if you must, but limit your list so that you won't have to drag today's undone matters into tomorrow. Remember that you cannot build your pyramid in twenty-four hours. Be patient. Never allow your day to become so cluttered that you neglect your most important goal – to do the best you can, enjoy this day, and rest satisfied with what you have accomplished.

There are people who have been so successful all their lives they've got even to be the most influential person in the city. The problem is that when they reckon themselves they see a hallow pit within themselves; because all these days they have been doing things they do not love and they haven't learned to love.

But sometimes you've got to love what you do. There is a saying that goes “true happiness lies not in doing what you like but in liking what you do.” I don't know exactly what this means, but for me it's either way.

Sometimes you have to do both. Sometimes you abhor medications but since your body needs it, you have to take it. Everybody wants easy money. Typically nobody wants handwork but you have do it to make a living or for money. But unless you'll learn to put value or to find the value in everything that you do then only we can say that you've got to do things one at time.

When you set goal for that day be sure to do it or finish it before the day ends. Those unfinished task usually clings like barnacles on your shoulders ones they are undone and will accumulate tomorrow.

In my experience of working in a corporate world where work is more than what my job description has been telling me to do, sometimes a work done at a day is better and more stress relieving than several tasks left halfway or undone. I always make it a habit to focus on one task at a time and make sure that it is done before the day is off.

Enjoy your work until it ceases to be work anymore.

☺☺☺


INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE THIRTEEN)

For a Better Way to Live

Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what yo were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don't waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.

I have one question. Ask me what?

Who could have made this day for you? Who made this day for you now that you are still alive?

Nobody?!

Even if you’re the son or a daughter of the richest man on earth. A day is the most precious jewel being dropped from heaven by the One who made you – God. And usually it is received with great deal of ingratitude, worries and sarcasm. Well, most of us do.

If you woke up worried and anxious about the day, calm down, cause even the most influential figure or man on earth do feel the same way sometimes. These individuals would rather dive down into their pillows and conceal themselves from the outside...perhaps even Superman do.

But the best thing is that you're still alive! No other rhetoric is greater than that.

Don't you ever wonder that despite others are more successful than you are, more handsome than you are, more talented than you are, and a lot richer than you are and here you are still alive while they are dead?! Don't you think you have been given more chances that haven't been given to them when you wake-up each day?

Better yet buy a daily newspaper turn several pages from the cover and look for...The Obituaries! Hola, which do you prefer more, the obituary or this day to live?

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE TWELVE)

For a Better Way to Live

Never neglect the little things. Never skimp on that extra effort, that additional few minutes, that soft word of praise or thanks, that delivery of the very best that you can do. It does not matter what others think, it is of prime importance, however, what you think about you. You can never do your best, which should always be your trademark, if you are cutting corners and shrinking responsibilities. You are special. Act it. Never neglect the little things!

What makes a crystalline silver strand of one of the most coveted beaches here in the Philippines is it's sand composition – a single sand particle. This is where Boracay is known of. Every sand particle cooperates to give the beach a white crystal clear appearance.

They said man is the measure of all things. The little measure of praise you effortlessly give to a co-worker or to a kid each day might be a megaton worth. And a megaton of effort might be nothing to the one who doesn't care. But nevertheless, don't neglect little things even big things either for what is big and what is small but by the way you handle it.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta India said “we can do no great things, only small things with great love.”

It's not again in how big things you are doing, it is in how great is your love for what you are doing that makes sense after all.

What made Rolex expensive but the small parts painstakingly intertwined to produce the watch such as the OCSC (Officially Certified Superlative Chronometer). A very small mechanical part of the watch that took them a year to make a single unit not counting series of rigorous testing that makes Rolex of high quality watch at a very high price.

Now, what makes a man valuable more than any Rolex thing? It is no other than the (little) values he has developed under rigorous testing for many years. Cause what makes also gold a coveted metal but the every molecule that has been purified from impurities after series of firing from the furnace. Same thing, a man's value can only be tested on fire big or small.

Value is never applied in a world where lots of friends abide and comfort abounds, true value can only be tested outside of that comfort zone. True value is tested in the wilderness – in the jungle. Sometimes, your true character and values will surface once you are alone and nobody's watching.

Let me offer a poem from Douglas Malloch which presses on to the best thing that we can do not of how little or big we are:

BE THE BEST OF WHATEVER YOU ARE

If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill
Be a scrub in the valley--but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.

If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway some happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass--
But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here.
There's big work to do and there's lesser to do,
And the task we must do is the near.

If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail--
Be the best of whatever you are!

☺☺☺


INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE ELEVEN)

For a Better Way to Live

Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat of the moment. Banish tension and concern and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously.

There is a saying that goes “never take life too seriously, you will never get out alive.”

Never take life too seriously is the rule of the game that you must learn, especially to corporate people who are doing serious corporate jobs. If you can please squeeze-in few drops of laughter into your agenda and in your cup of tea - do it!

Laughter has no prescription over-the-counter of a drugstore, if it has, then your family doctor must have asked you to take it every day before work. But it's not. It's everybody’s business. No one would dare tell you what would make you happy, not even a blockbuster film.

In fact happiness and laughter is a gift. There are people who can easy laugh with no hypocrisy bubbling down. They can easily pick up pieces from the bits of life and laugh about it.

Many comedians lived and died in this world but they cannot guarantee that they are happy. And certainly they can make other people laugh – but cannot guarantee to themselves.

One famous comedian said one day in one of his depressive days, "sometimes I would like to stay under the rain, so that no one can see me cry."

So happiness?! It's everybody's business!

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE TEN)

For a Better Way to Live

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet, friend or foe, loved one or stranger, as if they were going to be dead at midnight. Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

If in time you have to treat it with urgency, then in your fellow you have to treat them with time, tender loving care. Why? It's not because you'd be gone by tomorrow but they themselves might be past of tomorrow and just be part of your history – they might be gone tomorrow.

You can only treat your fellow like a rose if you have forgiven your past grudges about them and have forgiven what they will be doing to you in the future. This seems so mean to you but hey, how badly you needed change!

You can achieve living this day if you will be happy with everybody. You can only be happy if you allow it to yourself. No comedian in the world can make you happy except by laughing with yourself. And always bear this in mind – there is no amount of things that can make you happy except by being happy with it. There are people who are making big things and yet they are not happy and there are people also who are making small things such as a kid lending a hand to his mom baking cookie and yet as happy as a king.

In everything that you do – do it like a king would do. If you laugh, laugh like a king. If you dance, dance like a king. If you forgive, forgive like a king. If you'd be happy, be happy like a king. If you love, love like a king!

Believe this – that the best thing in life is free!

By the way, who owns happiness? Who owns love? Who owns laughter? Nobody does. Nobody has the monopoly of it. Rich people have it as well as poor once. There is hefty abundance of it among them. You own it. It varies only on how people use it and respond to it. How you make and respond to it is not the problem of love and happiness anymore. It all depends on you.

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE NINE)

For a Better Way to Live

Live this day as if it will be your last. Remember that you will only find “tomorrow” on the calendars of fools. Forget yesterday's defeats, and ignore the problems of tomorrow. This is it. Doomsday. All you have. Make it the best day of your year. The saddest words you can ever utter are, “If I had my life to live over again...” Take the baton, now. Run with it! This is your day!

Well, most people who never succeeded treated themselves as if they have thousands of years to live. I'll tell you even the richest man in the world cannot buy a single second of his portion of life. Nobody owns time. Treat it with scarcity.

You know people who have “thousands” of years to live, those are people who drink, party, worry, work and do things to the excess and afford themselves a couple of hours sleep a day – only to know that time is knocking at their door fast.

What you CAN do today – do it!

Don't wait for tomorrow. Who says you own tomorrow or you have tomorrow – you only have this day to live! You only have this day as a crowned jewel of your existence. Yesterday is a pile of rubles and tomorrow is an engineered blueprint of your now. But tomorrow is a distant dimension farther than an unknown galaxy yet.

What you have is now – it's in your hand. Go! Run with that today's baton in your hand and make this day your day – only and only if you have forgiven the past and the excitement of the future thrills your soul.

When your head romances the pillow assure yourself that you have done it best. It is the best that nobody could have done but you.

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE EIGHT

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE EIGHT)

For a Better Way to Live

Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it come along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not there to fritter always your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busywork. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!

In my four years of working in a certain company I feel that I came to a point that I'm going nowhere. The meager light that I use on my way through the dark highway has stopped giving me clues of the road ahead. Nothing but days of prayers have been spent. I asked God to show me back the light – and He did!

At this penning I'm actually fixing myself for another career goal or rather another employment which I deemed more auspicious. But again my headlights span only few meters on the dark highway of fate. The ahead of the road just keeps unveiling as I kept mustering the courage to put my best foot forward without actually knowing what's ahead – but my Divine Master knows it all. To whomever read this – pray for me please. Thank you!

I bet you sometimes feel that you've been so busy once in your life but at the end of the day you feel like you've done nothing, you haven't turned a stone. This I might relate to what we call a rat race.

Like a hamster that keeps running in a circular rat cage without really going somewhere else but the cage. When you realized things like this in your life it's high time for you to rekindle your dreams again. It's high time again for you to start doing things with an end in the mind. Don't let fate dictates what will you going to do and who will you be, instead let yourself dictate fate.

Og Mandino calls this as “killswitch” in a car engine. This switch terminates motor operation in a car whenever it is forcibly opened or carjacked. The killswitch will suspend the operation of the under chassis but excluding electrical lines and other minor operations. So the car seems to be ok. If you test it the horn blows, the windshield wipes and the stereo sings. The only thing that will heat you up is that you are going nowhere because the engine is dead.

Well, again if you feel like somebody had triggered on your killswitch it's time for you to extend a hand for yourself and turn off that killswitch.

Somebody in the past might have done that to you. Your family member, your close friend, your classmate or your neighbor or you yourself – it doesn't matter now. Just go ahead and set your dreams again on track. Tangle yourself away from that rat race.

Set dreams, goals and perspective. That's the only way you can get ahead of others andgive purpose to your life.

Stop the petty busywork. If there is a need for you to be busy then it's no other than building up your dreams to reality – for it's a better way to live!

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE SEVEN

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN

FOR A BETTER WAY TO LIVE (RULE SEVEN)

For a Better Way to Live

Each day is a special gift from God, and while life may not always be fair, you must never allow the pains, hurdles, and handicaps of the moment to poison your attitude and plans for yourself and your future. You can never win when you wear the ugly cloak of self-pity, and the sour sound of whining will certainly frighten away any opportunity for success. Never again. There is a better way to live.

Persons who never find joy in what they are doing might always feel that life isn't really fair, right?!

Sometimes, you might be working too hard instead the other gets the credit. Sometimes, your best might not be enough. You feel that you have fallen into a bad hand, the problem is you got one. The problem is that we always compare in bad spirit. We compare to make us more envious rather than more inspired.

Be the best of whoever you are. Always bear in mind that whoever you are in this world, you serve to complete the beautiful picture puzzle of this world. I may again remind you that however unfortunate you are and you feel – somebody out there is willing to bargain with you.

Here's a poem suggested by Og Mandino. This serves him a lot every time the sting of discontentment and grudges towards life:

Today, upon a bus, I saw a girl with golden hair.
I envied her, she seemed so gay, and wished I was as fair.
When suddenly she rose to leave, I saw her hobbled down the aisle.
She had one leg and wore a crutch.
And as she passed... a smile.

Oh God, forgive me when I whine.
I have 2 legs, the world is mine

I stopped to buy some candy. The lad who sold it had such charm.
I talked with him, he seemed so glad.
If I were late, it'd do no harm.
And as I left, he said to me, "I thank you, you've been so kind.
It's nice to talk with folks like you. You see," he said, "I'm blind."

Oh God, forgive me when I whine.
I have 2 eyes, the world is mine.

Later while walking down the street,
I saw a child with eyes of blue.
He stood and watched the others play.
He did not know what to do.
I stopped a moment and then I said,
"Why don't you join the others, dear?"
He looked ahead without a word. And then I knew,
he couldn't hear.

Oh God, forgive me when I whine.
I have 2 ears, the world is mine.
With feet to take me where I'd go.
With eyes to see the sunset's glow.
With ears to hear what I'd know.

Oh God, forgive me when I whine.
I've been blessed indeed, the world is mine...

Certainly, there is Better Way to Live!

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INTRODUCTION

RULE ONE

RULE TWO

RULE THREE

RULE FOUR

RULE FIVE

RULE SIX

RULE EIGHT

RULE NINE

RULE TEN

RULE ELEVEN

RULE TWELVE

RULE THIRTEEN

RULE FOURTEEN

RULE FIFTEEN

RULE SIXTEEN

RULE SEVENTEEN