And I thought Chocolate is bad !!!!

I was reading thru my weekly subscriptions and came across this surprising article which talks about Chocolate being good for keeping BP low..

source: http://www.realage.com/

Just 30 calories per day of chocolate may be enough to help reduce your blood pressure. As far as serving sizes go, that’s about a Hershey’s Kiss worth.

But you have to eat the right kind of chocolate, according to Joseph Maroon, MD, author of The Longevity Factor. He recommends nonsweetened or minimally sweetened dark chocolate that’s at least 70 percent cocoa.

Crazy for Cocoa
Dark chocolate can also help reduce atherosclerosis and blood clotting, aid blood flow, contribute to an overall reduction in heart attacks, and improve cholesterol levels, according to Maroon. And it’s all thanks to the powerful antioxidants found in the cocoa bean. Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about this heart-smart treat.

More Good Reasons to Eat Chocolate
As if you need them . . . Maroon offers three more great reasons to indulge:

1. For better blood sugar. Chocolate enhances the effect of insulin and sugar utilization. Drop your blood sugar even further with this one painless click.
2. For a finer complexion. Yep, fewer wrinkles and fine lines. Here’s how you can help your skin with chocolate.
3. For a better mood. The taste isn’t the only reason it makes us smile. This is how you get happier with chocolate.

Hope you eat the right chocolate & in right amounts.. when you feel HIGH!!!!

Celebrating entrepreneurship

Just thought of sharing this with you all there who might like to read something different..

Celebrating entrepreneurship

Review by AHMAD CENDANA

1,000 Dollars & An Idea
Author: Sam Wyly
Publisher: Newmarket Press

LONG suffering souls whose lives have been a series of failures, take heart. You are actually sitting on a treasure trove that is just waiting to be utilised!

“The best teacher of all is failure” and if you become a good student, you will know what to do to achieve success. It is reassuring to know that Sam Wyly – the person attesting to this – is someone who has gone through the grind and knows what he’s talking about.

And he has companies worth billions to prove it, if success is to be defined by personal fortune. 1,000 Dollars & An Idea - the title of Wyly’s autobiography – is a giveaway of how he had started out on his way towards the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

But this is not the typical rags-to-riches story. Despite being a celebration of the spirit of entrepreneurship, the book does not over-glorify the process of accumulating fortune, where success or failure is judged by the bottomline alone.

Although Wyly is extremely competitive – and relishes the business contests he had encountered along the way – he also emphasises the need to build up one’s character, and to adhere to honourable values.

Throughout the book, Wyly shows that one need not be a manipulative wheeler-dealer to succeed at all the levels of business although it is mandatory to have a fighter’s spirit to survive.

In a nutshell, 1,000 Dollars & An Idea is a combination of an autobiography, an entrepreneur’s handbook, a history of computer systems, a study of American society, an environmentalist’s tract, and self-help and motivational lessons. It is the blending of these elements that makes the book an engrossing read.

Education policy makers might be interested to know how Wyly had developed his competitive streak, creativity and resilience: it was through American football.

So important is it that Wyly begins the book with a chapter that recounts his footballing experiences and this conviction: “Business is a lot like football”. He mentions how influential his coach was: “He made me get up and keep running. He wasn’t being mean; he was teaching me to recognise the huge reservoir of energy, enthusiasm, and strength that we all have within us... what we perceive as our limitations are often only mental obstacles”.

That and other lessons from football were to hold him in good stead when he started his entrepreneurial life – giving up a coveted position with computer giant IBM to later compete as an underdog against his former employer and others.

Despite various obstacles and meeting with failures along the way, Wyle was to prosper. “If you let frustration take control, your precious infant idea won’t mature. When you’re knocked down, don’t give up – get up”.

Wyly may be self-made when it comes to his billionaire status, but his family did give him a headstart when it comes to character building. Wyly pays tribute to his stoic and compassionate parents for the values he had learned from their examples during his early years in Louisiana.

It is surprising that Wyle, now 75, remains in the shadows of the technology world despite his involvement and achievements since the early years of the computer industry.

He was already there during the era of huge vacuum-tube computers, and is still involved in the current fourth generation computers that come with the Internet, as we now know it.

Wyle has been involved in various industries, and accounts of the business-related events over the decades form the main content of the book. They include the starting up and development of companies, and their sales and purchases – matters that involve high finance.

These transactions are never dull, for the author provides intimate details and perspectives of how these develop, making the reader feel involved with the proceedings.

The books also comes with vivid descriptions of how things were in American society and many of the happenings involving Wyly were of international relevance. They include the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, whom Wyly saw in person passing by moments before the fatal shots.

It is quite a surprise that 1,000 Dollars & An Idea is also a heart-warming read. If you are suffering some setback, or feeling pessimistic and lacking in confidence, this book might help you see things clearer – and maybe inspiring towards daring to aim for loftier targets in life.

Entrepreneurship requires four areas of mastery

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. — Theodore Roosevelt

MOST people dream of being their own “boss” at some point in life. However, we quickly lose that dream as the harsh realities of the world kick in. Some of us may have dabbled in a venture and it failed, adding further proof that we were not meant to be entrepreneurs.

I remember my first “official” business venture when I was at university. A few of us got inspired by Michael Dell and decided to start a company assembling computers and selling them to students.

As we grew, we decided that we needed to run the business professionally and buy inventories to reduce customer waiting time. Besides, there were huge savings in buying bulk. But Murphy’s Law hit us – new technology arrived and we were stuck with huge levels of obsolete inventory.

We were crushed and gave up. Our little entrepreneurship team disbanded and we took up “real” employment. But the desire to make a difference and change the world continued to burn in my soul. And so I kept trying little ventures, failing but learning from these failures till we finally succeeded.

There is a myth that entrepreneurs have special traits that distinguish them from other people or they have some sort of secret method to success. No entrepreneur, including Richard Branson, has a secret formula. Entrepreneurship is not easy. But, it can be learned and should be taught to everyone.

Based on our research of 500 entrepreneurs, we found four areas of similarities among the majority of successful entrepreneurs: personal mastery, business mastery, entrepreneurship mastery and leadership mastery.

The key to personal mastery is self awareness. The best entrepreneurs know what their strengths are and they leverage on them. Walt Disney was so passionate about drawing cartoons, he created an enterprise that drew from his strength. In addition to knowing oneself, the best entrepreneurs learn from an early age how to create, communicate, influence, and develop their personal effectiveness.

Business mastery is the ability to think strategically, understand industries, new trends and changes and innovate in new spaces. Akio Mori, co-founder of Sony, said: “Carefully watch how people live, get an intuitive sense as to what they might want and then go build it. Don’t do market research.” Mori turned a small department store into the world’s most successful consumer electronics firm.

AirAsia, with its tagline “Now Everyone Can Fly”, identified a gap (poor people who couldn’t fly), built a business by leveraging on the new technology (Internet) and built efficient processes to enable it to execute its business model (low cost). Business mastery is about developing “a vision of extraordinary possibility.” Steve Jobs’ vision to “get a computer in the hands of everyday people” sparked the PC revolution.

Entrepreneurship mastery is the technical skills needed, including the day-to-day mechanics of running a business, producing products, delivering services, making money and managing people. At Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, its founders, are not its CEOs. Eric Schmidt, a savvy leader, was made Google CEO, as its founders did not have enough entrepreneur and management know-how to run the business.

The final key is leadership. And at the heart of leadership is decision making. Entrepreneurs must learn to make good decisions quickly. Entrepreneurs bounce back quickly and learn from bad decisions made. The main reason for most failed start-ups is leadership failure. Steve Jobs was fired from the company he started because of his ego. Likewise, many start-up leaders fail due to lack of leadership to engage, encourage and develop their employees.

To master these four areas requires learning and practice which many new entrepreneurs don’t invest in. Nearly 95% of all entrepreneurial efforts fail. If we closely study these failures, it is usually a lack of mastery in one or all of these areas.

It is disheartening to see entrepreneurs try so hard and yet fail to fulfil the passion of their heart. Li Ka-shing never stopped learning. “As I didn’t have much capital, I did everything myself,” Li recalls. From learning about accounting to how to fix the gears of his equipment, Li says he was always learning.

We recently set up a learning space for entrepreneurs called the Leaderonomics Entrepreneur Academy (LEA). We kick off next month with a special boot camp for entrepreneurs who want to keep learning. One of my dreams is to see as many entrepreneurs having access to learning and growing, and change the statistics of start-up failures.

Every great entrepreneur was once an amateur. There is an old saying that goes, “there are three kinds of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who don’t even know anything is happening.”

It’s never too late to learn and become a person who makes things happen in this world. Yes, you can dream.

● Roshan Thiran is an expert in talent management and has a passion for helping people fulfil their potential.

Note: Roshan Thiran will be the keynote teacher at the LEA Camp, a special action-learning camp inspiring people to entrepreneurship greatness.