13
Feb 10

Don’t Just Settle!

I’ve always found it strange that numerous people will simply settle for what is given without so much as even attempting to do any better. Being content and grateful for what you have is applaudable, and am all for it, but only if you have absolutely tried your very best to get the best that you can. I’d rather be content after defeat, than immediately throw in the towel without taking a swing.

If you feel like you are not good enough for something, give it a shot anyway. If you fail, step back, see where you went wrong, work on it, and go back in! I don’t consider myself to be talented or special in anyway, but I know that I can persist and as a result have become numb to failure. Numb to it in the sense that I accept it as part of the journey to success. Because of this, I have achieved many things I was skeptical about achieving.

So please don’t settle. If there is something you want but feel like you could never get it, go for it anyway, and the worst that could happen is that you don’t get it. And when that happens, you could always use some ‘sour grape‘ rationalization about why you didn’t need it anyway.


13
Feb 10

(draft archive) Users of Financial Reports vs Users of People

Here is a post I drafted in 2008 I think. Though I never finished it, I thought I might as well share it since I haven’t actually blogged in a while. Looking back on it, I can see that my writing has changed quite a bit. It’s always a good idea to keep an archive of all your works so that you can see how you have progressed.

  • Equity Investor vs Girlfriend/Wife

Equity investors are existing and potential shareholders in a company. They are considering whether or not to invest just as a woman would consider a man. Has he got the looks? Will he protect her? Will he offer her security – financial or otherwise? And if the woman is already in a relationship with a man (i.e holding shares in a company), should she stay with him? Or disinvest and find a better opportunity elsewhere?

Equity investors, are interested in the following two simple things. Let us look at how that compares to what women want.

1. Dividends (streams of income distributed to shareholders from company profits)

A girl wants attention, care, chocolates, hugs, diamonds, show of love – the equivalent of dividends.

2. Capital gains (earnings from buying shares at a low price and selling them at a higher price)

A girl may also want a capital gain. That is, they will use you to get somewhere higher. Office chick hooks up with a fat boss for a promotion. A wannabe model dates an ugly but established photographer to get her career off the ground (ugly could be the equivalent of undervalued shares?).

Another example, which is perhaps more novel, less conniving and less frowned upon, is a girl seeing a guy with lots of ambition and potential to be successful, and being attracted by it. Case examples are premiership or NBA players who are in relationships with their high school/college sweet hearts.

Some Equity Investors are interested in short term gains (go short with a one night stand) while others are interested in long term gains (go long with a meaningful relationship).

  • Loan Creditor Group vs Record Label

This group consists of lenders of money, from short to medium and long term. These are usually banks but an interesting parallel example is a record label. When an artist is signed, a record label gives them an advance (a fat cash payment for being signed). What some artists are unaware of is that in receiving this advance, they sign away some of the rights to their music. Essentially, this acts as collateral.

So before the artist receives any income from their record sales, the record label will first recover the advance payment they made to them. After getting their money back, they will split the profits with the artist and all involved. This profit is essentially their “interest” on what was in fact a loan in disguise.

If the artist does not generate enough money however, and the advance is never recouped, they are in debt to the record label. If they can’t pay this back, bankruptcy awaits them.

Loan creditors, like record labels, are usually interested in answering two questions:

1. Will they get their money back?

How much cash will the artist generate in the future? Will it be enough to recover what I invested in them, with interest?

2. What collateral can I hold on to? And what is its Net Realizable Value?

A record label will want the rights to the artist’s future music. This is an asset with cash generating capabilities. Of course if the artist flops, then these assets won’t be worth that much.


24
Jan 10

What Next?

“With all the success I’ve had……I’ve reached my future. There is nothing left now; it seems like it to me for some reason. I’m 17 years old, am successful, I got money in the bank, I can live comfortably for the rest of my life, what’s left? What am I going to do now?”

That is Gary Coleman speaking in the interview below. It made me ask myself the same questions he was asking. What happens after you achieve all that you wanted to achieve? What do you do next?


11
Jan 10

Final Fantasy Remix (Video Performance)

A beautiful, elegant, and simple piano piece taken from the Final Fantasy game. I don’t think I could ever get tired of playing this piece. It’s one of those pieces that can make you happy and sad at the same time.

DOWNLOAD REMIX

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Final Fantasy Remix by AfriqueDeluxe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at here.


30
Dec 09

Eleven Reasons Why You Will Fail In 2010!

This is more of a note to myself (partly inspired by this book), but I hope that if you can relate, it acts as a reminder in the new year for you to not go off track and fail to succeed in whatever  your endeavors are.

I am guilty of committing many of the faults below so please understand that I am no Mr. Perfect. However, by writing them out and becoming aware of them, I should be able to avoid them in 2010.

So, to fail miserably in the new year, you will need to;

    1. Stop taking risks

    Once you stop putting yourself out there, in the firing line, you will be guaranteed to fail. Whatever the goal, dream, or desire, it will not be attained without risk. So stop taking it.

    2. Be inflexible

    People change and the world is never stagnant. Therefore, your desires now may change in a few months time. If you are not willing to adjust and adapt your plans accordingly, you will fail.

    3. Isolate yourself

    Going at it alone is often ineffective. Human beings are social creatures and solitude is known to lead to some wacky results. Do everything on your own, connecting with no one else, and you will not get far.

    4. Point fingers

    Take no responsibility. Own up to no mistakes. Blame somebody else and avoid identifying where you went wrong. This way, you will never see your errors for what they are and you will not grow.

    5. Not do what is “right”

    You can usually intuitively tell when doing something is wrong. Ignore this feeling, stretch the boundaries of all ethics to a breaking point and let it snap. The ‘wrongs’ will catch up to you and you will fail.

    6. Not take time to think

    Just drive along without taking a break to think about where you are going. Don’t assess, don’t evaluate, don’t think. Just do, and hope the universe works out the rest for you, good or bad.

    7. Put all your faith in “experts”

    Delegate all your life decisions to the Oprahs, the Gurus, the Academics, the Media, the Consultants, and all sorts of Literature. Anything but yourself, and you will enjoy a nice downward path to failure.

    8. Take everything personally

    Everyone is out to get you. Be paranoid. Criticism that comes your way is a personal attack on you and not on a behaviour, performance or piece of work. This mindset will of course hinder progress.

    9. Lose focus

    Procrastinate as much as you can, because this is the root of many failures. Also, try forgetting why you are doing something in the first place. This will eliminate a lot of motivation to succeed in it.

    10. Fear tomorrow

    Worry about what tomorrow will bring and forget about the present. Focus on tomorrow’s fears instead of the opportunities of today, such that you lose focus and flop.

    11. Lose passion for life

    Work and live with no meaning and purpose. Mediocrity often stems from a lack of passion, so perhaps if you drag yourself through, you can avoid failure but guarantee being bland.


26
Dec 09

Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love (AfriqueDeluxe Remix)

I think I first heard the original while in the gym, and the melody and chord progression stuck with me for weeks since I loved it so much. Perhaps because it sounds so much like KC and Jojo’s “All My Life” which interpolated a guitar riff by Eric Johnson on his song, “Cliffs of Dover“. Anyway, originally I wanted to maintain the same chords, since they are so damn beautiful already, but as I have done with previous remixes, the temptation to steer away from this was far to great. Check out the remix, let me know what you think.


24
Dec 09

She’s So Cool!

michistudio

British born Japanese artist, Michi, making some music.


22
Dec 09

Three Things I Learn’t From Going To The Gym

Hitting the gym on a consistent basis for the past 3 months, a few things occurred to me that thought I’d share. These are:

    1. Anyone can improve.

    johnnydirt

    No matter your shape or size, if you go to the gym and exercise on a consistent basis, you will see results. Nature dictates that your body will adapt, become leaner and have more muscle mass for example. One of the great things in life is that this notion—that anyone can improve—applies to pretty much anything you would like to do.

    Knowing this, I often feel like a 10 year old kid going into a toy store where the manager tells me I can have anything without charge, as long as I turn up 3 times a week to tidy up. In life, we can become better than average at anything, as long we consistently work at it. There are some “gifted” people that will progress further, but being better than average is almost always guaranteed. You just need to pay the price which is time and effort.

    2. Results are incremental, rarely sudden.

    johnnyhair

    People who haven’t seen me in a long time think I have bulked up a bit, yet in my view, I haven’t changed much. This is because results are so incrementally obtained that often, you won’t notice the change until much later on when you look back and think, wow, I have come a long way. Kind of like my music. I never really took notice of the change in my sound until I listened to a beat I made 6 years ago! Compare that, to this.

    When training in something new, there are always long periods where it may seem like you are not making any progress, and this is where the majority of the wannabes are weeded out. Sometimes this is a good thing because maybe you were doing it for the wrong reasons and it is only right that you cant find any further motivation. However, if you are in it for the long run, the small improvements always add up to great proficiency.

    3. Discipline is not so hard.

    johnnyhappy

    The first week of going to the gym was the hardest. I found it hard to wake up extra early, my body ached, and I was quite disappointed about the small weights I was lifting. I wondered if ever, I could keep this up and go 3-4 times a week without missing a day. Despite that, I pushed through the first month and at the end of it, something interesting happened. I begun to find it hard to miss a day. I just didn’t feel right if I didn’t go. Not in the guilt sense, but as in something seemed amiss. Going to the gym had in fact become a habit.

    Discipline is often associated with consciously controlled behaviour, but if we can loosen its definition a little, then it isn’t so hard to achieve. In my case, it may appear to be that I am disciplined at going to the gym consistently, but really I have cheated. I made it into a habit, and there is never a battle of will-power in getting me to wake up and go exercise. It isn’t discipline in its magical unattainable form, it’s simply a habit. How do you make a habit of something? Simply repeat it over and over again for about 2 months (Click here to read a summary of a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology on habit formation).


21
Dec 09

50 Cent – Baby By Me ft. Neyo (AfriqueDeluxe Dance Remix)


18
Dec 09

Lady Gaga – Love Games (AfriqueDeluxe “RnB” Remix)