Tip 111: Winning contests

I finally had time to blog again. It was premature to previously target 10,000 blog posts in my life time, but I am sure such endeavours are honorable. I still believe that a blogging daddy is a reflecting daddy, plus you are leaving behind a documentary of the labour of love in parenting that one day your kids can read about. I currently prioritise my blogging such that its something I do after finishing all my work, including any freelance project work I undertake. Having contacts in Japan and knowing how to look for research resources in Japan, have opened a door of opportunity and I have been doing 4-6 market research projects a year and one just ended after 2 months of tedious work with my highest payment so far of USD$15k. Its quite taxing on time where I have to put in extra hours after my day job and time in the weekends, but I reckon its always good to work a little harder while you're young (before 40?50?) and save more for unexpected expenses, children's education and retirement/holiday, plus learn something new through additional projects. Nevertheless, I still find time to bath Haruka my daughter every night, go out with my family on both weekends, have lunch with my wife near my workplace once a week, join cell group/bible study once a week after work, attend church service on Sunday and enter competitions. Its certainly not easy to balance what's important in life and most of what I am doing is probably not important enough to sacrifice a proper 8 hour sleep a day and the luxury of lazing around. (Though I gain in having productive sleep and not turning around in bed at all). It is hard to resist the opportunistic instinct in me and that's keeping me tuned in to joining contests wherever I go. The desire to win. Recently, I did win a few contests in London and that makes me satisfied. It's a kind of hobby for me and I think anyone can do it if they have a desire to win. I wrote a guide to winning contests in my previous website, but this tip will contain more insights after 8 years has passed. This is from someone with a track record of winnings of over a hundred contests (including small ones). In my previous guide, I concluded with the line "The bottom line is hard work reaps results". I said the more applications, the higher the chance of winning and be as creative, funny and catchy with your slogans as possible. The tip still holds true as judges of contest wants to see such efforts. Yet, in today's world of global competition, you compete with thousands of contest enthusiasts and you may feel that your labour is in vain. Putting your whole heart into a contest, then feeling worn out that you have not seen any results in all your applications can be disheartening. The solution is to mass produce good results and search for more avenues to submit the good results. Usually, when you are used to joining contests, you somehow would be able to think of slogans quickly. It would be good to keep a record of some of the good slogans you have written on a document in your computer where you can refer to them whenever you are looking for inspirations. You begin to build a slogan databank after a while of all things that rhymes. You can also take it one step further to post in on your blog or website, to crystalize these sentimental slogans, so it could amuse you one day of your slogan writing prowess. After a while, it begins to be effortless to mass produce good results, write poems at a blink of an eye and enjoy doing what you are good at. You then need to know where to look for contests. These days, newspapers especially the free ones that depend on advertisements are littered with most contests. Search for their website as its easiest to be entering contests through websites, since you need not be sending any applications through post. Plus, you may also want to join using a few User IDs submitting different answers to increase your chances. Even, while travelling to London, I have recently won a few contests including a nice lunch overlooking a horse race. Priorities change over time and the key to living is balancing what's important. But, for now, winning contests do provide joys that I can give thanks for.

Anyone else who is a contest buff? Share your tips and your winnings at my comment section. (Photo shows Kempton Park Race Course, London with my family, Richmond Park and Horse Guard Arch)

Tip 110: Knowing what women feel they want L.A.S.H.

Thought I would attempt a crucial life changing tip, yet a controversial one if not presented right. Wondered why the bible did not touch on this as its key in defining the quality of life. I watched the movie What Women Want starring Mel Gibson who suddenly received the gift of hearing the thoughts of every woman he came in contact with. The actor then had the revelation that women have loads on their mind all the time, thinking a variety of different concerns at any one time. Since a woman needs to entertain many concerns at any one time, they would want to think of how to best address all of them in a most sensitive and thoughtful manner. Most of the time, the women know they cannot realistically have all these wants and solve all the problems of this world. Having so many different wants, the women actually cannot decide what they really want. When they finally get to decide, their emotions and feelings would control their thought process such that new wants emerge, creating guilty feelings for abandoning previous wants which then create a vicious emotional cycle of unmet wants. There are of course women who can control their feelings well and prioritise what they want which then sometimes leave them feeling guilty for being less sensitive and thoughtful than their other girlfriends. To take away these guilty feelings, women usually create further wants by pampering themselves with things, which usually leave them unsatisfied when they start to dwell on their previous wants and concerns. Men on the other hand can control their emotions by will power such that they need not feel a sense of immense emotion and guilt when making decisions. This post is not meant to belittle women as I will get into a lot of problem. The simple yet essential tip for any men, son, husband, daddy is just to value women that they are thoughtful and understand that they have valuable emotions. Its a simple trick called Listen, Acknowledge, Suggest Humbly (L.A.S.H.). Another one of my original acronyms and this time lash, being meant negatively as an aggresive and impulsive action could be turned into a sensitive reflex that any men can adopt once they practice this quick and easy response.















Most daddies would already know the above briefly, but stop halfway and merely come to the conclusion that women are their weak counterpart. They would sigh in disbelief at why their wife need to go through all the unnecessary stress. They would utter sarcastic remarks or at best pass snide jokes like why the women would drive them crazy. Now, women on the other hand cannot understand why men can be so heartless, thoughtless and emotionless. If they have not been taught not to judge, they would view this insensitivity to their complex emotional make up as a selfish trait of a man or at best a commonly acknowledged trait of men being M.C.P. Men have of course heard of the need to listen to their wives, but many give up as they cannot handle the emotional diarrhea from their wives which could end up either into an argument or at best in them being the losing party and having to give up their views. Yet, listening is the first step for men to gain control of the situation. Not for 10 minutes or even 30 minutes, but just 1-5 minutes to understand the gist of the emotions. Trust me, we men are not as intelligent and cannot fully fathom the complex emotional process at work and should not be entangled in a web of emotions in a 30 minute listening discourse. If it does not reveal our lack of intelligence, it would reveal out short attention span. I wonder if God listens to a women for longer than 5 minutes? :) So, just stop after a brief moment and acknowledge your wife's thoughtfulness. Praise if you may or just nod to give a variety of responses so it may be received as a genuine response. The next response is probably the hardest, since men usually get egoistic when they can think of a contribution that will solve the complex women problem. How can they not since its such a simple problem, yet the women can not figure the most simple solutions that are usually very straight forward. Yet, by presenting it as a humble suggestion that it could be wrong and not match the complex situation at hand, the women find the solution irresistably packaged in a nice emotional presentation. Didn't they teach men that presentation and packaging is all that counts in any present? Even the most stubborn of women will then agree to calm down and possibly at least consider that solution at a later period of time. That would be the most effective L.A.S.H. a men can have on his woman. Hey, but women would love to receive it gladly calling it love. As Bette Midler in that movie said, "If Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and you can speak Venusian, the world can be yours."














Ok, I am not so experienced in this yet, since this wisdom is still at the theorethical stage. But hey, it sounds like good theory that can do some practicing. The more feedback and reflection of its effectiveness, the more refined this can be. So please try it and leave a comment to encourage my lashing. :) And to my women audience, sorry for such a detailed account, as men need such methodical explanations if you have not already known as understanding women can be complex to our low level technology minds and hearts.














(Photos show Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey church and the Houses of Parliament/Westminster Palace)