What Were the REAL Gifts You Got This Year? (#296)

Merry Christmas!

Thanks to everyone for sending me emails and encouraging me after my last post about how we all must do good after the recent Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. Each one of your emails and comments means a lot to me and it is encouraging to see that there are still plenty of good people that care and want to do good in this world.

I hope everyone is enjoying time with their loved ones during this holiday season. I’ll be spending the next two weeks with my wife’s family and childhood friends. It’ll be great for Ethan to play with his cousins and meet new friends.

Ethan is growing up so fast! Somehow his learning capability increased dramatically in the past few days. Prior to that, he would learn to say things after repeated exposures. But now, he can learn to identify an object and say it IMMEDIATELY after you teach him!

Taking Ethan to his favorite activity; watching buses zoom by!

I started to teach him how to count from one to five, and also teach him the colors. It’s been a joy and a blast to watch his learning progress as his brain develops each day.

A Time for Reflection and Gratitude

Christmas time is also “downtime” for many of us, and it allows us to reflect on the past year.

We all had our triumphs and defeats.

We all had our happy moments and sad times.

One thing that we all still have is Life, which means that we can be better each day.

And if nothing else, we should be grateful for that alone.

We should also be thankful for 2012 because if we had the right attitude, to learn from our mistakes and strive to be better each day, we are better today than we were in 2011.

When I talk about being “better,” I don’t necessarily mean material possessions or money. Those are trivial, and they are not what life is about.

I am talking about becoming better through wisdom and experience.

Money and material possessions come and go. You can lose it all and gain it all back, plus more, if you have the wisdom and experience. If you don’t believe me, many self-made millionaires were broke and even bankrupt before they made it big (e.g., see Donald Trump).

What Gifts Did You Get in 2012?

Recently we talked about the two Best Gifts that you can give someone are the Gift of Knowledge and the Gift of Experience.

It is okay to make mistakes, but we must learn from the mistakes and get better. That is where we get the advantage of the Gift of Knowledge and the Gift of Experience.

Just remember that mistakes are ok as long as we don’t repeat our mistakes. Making the same mistakes over and over again is what makes us failures.

So looking back at 2012, what were the main challenges that you faced?

What were the big lessons that you learned from those challenges?

And most importantly, how did those lessons make you better and wiser today?

Was it the skills that you learned, or a mindset change, or a new philosophy towards life?

Hopefully you have learned from your mistakes and are better today than when you started out 2012.

The lessons you learned are the best gifts you received this past year.

Use Specific Moments As Reference Points

If you didn’t write things down and can’t remember what you learned or how you changed, here is a helpful tip.

Go back and remember a specific moment that stands out in your memory. It could be something good or bad that happened, or when you traveled somewhere.

Use that moment as a reference point.

As you mentally bring yourself back to that moment, ask yourself what you were like at that time.

What do you know now that you did not know back then?

Reference points are great tools to remind us of our journey in life and what we have experienced.

Sydney in March

One specific Reference Point that revealed to me the mistakes that I’ve made and how I’ve gotten better was my trip to Sydney in March, when I spoke at the Sydney Convention Centre.

I had a great time in Sydney, and it seems like only two weeks ago that I was down there.

Simon In Darling Harbour — In Darling Harbour (Sydney, Australia)

Where you are five years from now is determined by the books you read, audios you listen to, the people you meet and the places you travel. Travel is such an educational experience that I think it should be mandatory if you want to live a meaningful life.

Sydney is one of the Reference Points that I use as I reflect back on 2012.

I can’t remember how I was back in March, but if you ask me how I was before Sydney, I can remember exactly how I was thanks to the Sydney experience. Sydney just stands out for me because it was such an awesome trip.

Since that trip, I have developed a huge network of friends in Australia thanks to my network marketing business. Before March, I didn’t know many Australians or much about Australian culture, but now I have a great group of Australian friends, and I’m already planning my next trip down there to Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney!

In terms of lessons, every time I think back to Sydney, I realize the huge mistakes I made… I also see how much I have grown as a network marketing leader, an Internet marketer, a father, a husband and most importantly, how much I’ve learned about establishing the proper balance in life.

Sydney is my Reference Point, and it helps me remember my journey in life.

What is the Reference Point that you can use to take inventory of the lessons you’ve learned and see how you’ve gotten better?

Before You Set Goals for 2013

As we reflect on the mistakes and lessons that we encountered this year, it helps us with our Goal Setting for next year.

Setting random goals is useless. Unless we know what happened this year and how we need to do better, it is tough to set useful goals.

Did we set unrealistic goals?

Did we fail to have accountability?

Did that lack of accountability lead us to fail?

Or maybe you achieved all your goals because your goals were too easy?

We will talk about productive goal setting next week, but if you haven’t done so yet, start thinking about your goals for 2013 now because you only have one week left!

Have a Happy and Safe Holiday!

There is much to be grateful for during this holiday season.

Here are some of the lessons that I am grateful for:
1) Learning to be super focused on my projects.
2) Accomplishing more in less time due to fanatical time management.
3) Learning how to create the best learning environment for Ethan.
4) Learning and using advanced Internet Marketing strategies.
5) Delegating projects that I am not good at so that I can focus on my strengths.
6) Giving my body proper rest so that I can get better results working out.
7) Learning how to maximize my self-development time.

What did you learn? What are you grateful for?

Write down ten things that you learned this year and how you plan to use them to make 2013 the best year of your life!

Sincerely,

Simon Chan

P.S. Many of you have contacted me and enjoy the lessons that I have included in my past blogs. If you are hungry and want to learn more tips on how to increase your productivity, improve your life and become more successful, I would like to invite you to become a member of Simon Chan Insider’s Circle. For a limited time Membership is FREE. Click Here to learn more.
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