Happiness

"The less you think about yourself, the happier you will be."

Joyce Meyer

How do I change?

If I feel depressed I will sing.
If I feel sad I will laugh.
If I feel ill I will double my labour.
If I feel fear I will plunge ahead.
If I feel inferior I will wear new garments.
If I feel uncertain I will raise my voice.
If I feel poverty I will think of wealth to come.
If I feel incompetent I will think of past success.
If I feel insignificant I will remember my goals.

Today I will be the master of my emotions.

Og Mandino

No more clutter,

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 comes along. 

This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. 

You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. 

No more busy work. 

No more hiding from success. 

Leave time, leave space, to grow. 

Now. Now! Not tomorrow!

Og Mandino

Is close enough, good enough?

"Excellence is an attitude not an event.

We shouldn't accept close enough as good enough.
We won't be perfect but we should aim for the best.
In the U.S they measured some things where, if you accepted 99.9%, this is what you would get.

2,000,000 documents would be lost by the I.R.S. each year,
22,000 cheques would be deducted from the wrong bank account in the next hour,
12 babies would be given to the wrong parents every day,
268.000 defective tyres would be sold this year,
2,500,000 books will be shipped with the wrong cover,
3,000 copies of tomorrows Wall Street Journal will be missing three sections,
18,000,000 pieces of mail will be mishandled in the next hour,
291 pacemaker operations will be performed incorrectly this year.

If you think close enough is good enough just ask these 291 people if they agree with you."

Peter Irvine Co-Founder, Gloria Jeans Coffees.

So often we bounce through life believing our mistakes will have no impact on others.
You see, the above example gives an indication of what would happen if they accepted 99.9% as good enough. Obviously they don't.

In six months last year British Airways lost the bags of over 550,000 passengers.
They cap restitution at $1,500.00. Get your calculator out and examine how much this would potentially cost the airline.

We Aussies have a saying "she'll be right".

Will it?
Is it?

Is close enough, good enough?

Battlers get a win.

King of Castle defies Gladstone airport
Author: Peter Morley
Publication: The Courier Mail
Date: 10 September 2008

The following story highlights what can be achieved when, in unity, we stand up for our rights and fight the battle that lesser people would walk away from.

A family of real-life "Kerrigans" have won the battle to keep their castle beside Gladstone Airport safer - and a great deal quieter - for the family of seven.

Gladstone Regional Council had wanted to use a taxiway as a temporary runway while the main one was upgraded and lengthened.

But the Civil Aviation Safety Authority has ruled this would be unsafe, exposing the Chinerys and other residents to possible danger and unacceptable noise.

Like the Kerrigans in the classic Australian movie The Castle, Jamie Chinery and his wife, Tasha, had threatened the highest legal action to stop an airline using the taxiway while they lived in Aerodrome Rd, just 75m from the proposed temporary strip.

"It has taken since April but we have stopped this threat to our safety from a plane veering off the taxiway and ending up in our lounge room," said Mr Chinery, a father of five.

A CASA spokesman said: "We knocked back the taxiway's use for a range of safety issues, one of which was proximity to homes."

The council said it was "disappointed" CASA had not accepted consultants' reports that QantasLink could safely use the taxiway while the runway underwent a $60 million redevelopment.

The problem facing the council is how to upgrade the runway while maintaining regular services to the industrial city where passenger numbers are increasing.

Strength or weakness?

John Maxwell says "One of the ways that you can tell your working in an area of strength is that it actually gives you energy. Even if you are in the early stages of your career or are starting out on a new venture and your not very good at something your doing, you can still tell it's an area of strength by paying attention to how you respond to your failures.
Mistakes that challenge you show your areas of strength.
Mistakes that threaten you show your areas of weakness."

We're told that we should always work to our strengths. This is another way of identifying those strengths

Have you ever thought about how your reaction to mistakes and failures may point to your areas of strength and weakness? It's an interesting thought.

Some mistakes motivate us to get it right, to do better, while others seem to make us defensive, unmotivated or angry.
Paying attention to the mistakes that challenge and motivate us will help us focus on our areas of strength.
Continuing to work in areas where mistakes threaten us will only succeed in making us unhappy and unmotivated.

When you encounter mistakes or failures that appear to motivate you take note, as they could be an area of strength for you and one which you can continue to focus on.

The Cautious Man.

The was a very cautious man,

who never laughed or cried.

He never risked, he never lost,

he never won nor tried.

And when one day he passed away,

his insurance was denied,

For since he never really lived,

they claimed he never died.

Anonymous.

Bank switching plan "not working"

In the Townsville Bulletin
1 September 2008

THE Federal Government needs to come up with a new plan that allows consumers to more easily switch their bank mortgages, the opposition says.
The government should be looking at consumer laws in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands as alternatives to its own account switching plan, opposition housing spokeswoman Susan Ley said today. 



She said Treasurer Wayne Swan had failed to compel banks to provide their lists of penalties for transferring customers and had been unable to do anything about excessive exit fees. 

"Unless banks provide customers with accurate account records showing debit and credit histories and until exit fees reflect administrative costs only, not some punitive disincentive to move your loan, mortgage holders are not going to be able to change banks and competition in the banking sector is going to decline." 



The UK had more specific laws to protect consumers entering contracts with their banks and the Netherlands had a successful system where the same account number could be moved from one bank to another, negating the need to contact numerous direct debtors, Ms Ley said. 

"Mr Swan's bank-switching package is going nowhere fast," she said.

Why is it that when it comes to keeping banks honest, policy makers lack backbone? 

Some of the fees and penalties imposed on us by banks when we try and exercise our right to change lenders is outrageous. Banks obviously make huge profits, staggering amounts of money. 

I don't seek to deny anyone making money however, in the real world if a supplier is not competitively priced or fails to deliver on promised service levels then we, the consumers can simply take our business elsewhere. 

Coles and Woolworths are continually competing for my grocery business. The tools they use, among others, are price and product quality. They don't place a fine on me for not shopping with them. Could you imagine the uproar if they did. 

Yet with banks, the practice of penalising us for shopping elsewhere is condoned by the regulators. I know this is a simplistic view however, the only difference between banks and the supermarkets is the product that they offer us. 

Are banks that unsure of their products ability to perform for their customer that they have to impose financial penalties for changing suppliers?

Our policy makers need to simply remember that financial institutions are just another provider of a service. Only this time the service is money.

Maybe that's why it is so difficult for our politicians