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The Art In You
Sunday, 20th January 2008
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I had a great week last week! BLKMGK ICT won a major development contract, plus a few other smaller web contracts. We submitted our grant application to HP and it has apparently been well received - although nothing is certain yet! And I had some good conversations with people that I hadn’t seen in a long time. All of this is pretty routine stuff for me but even though I enjoy it very much, sometimes you just need to break your routine and get out there and do something different.
So last week I decided to go visit an art exhibition at our local Museum and Art Gallery. There’s just something about art that I find fascinating. Which is kind of ironic because I’m definitely not artistic by any means. In fact, when I draw a stick figure, people are thoroughly confused as to what it is...
The exhibition that I went to last week was called Inspire/Expire and it is basically a showcase of Australian artists and what inspired them.
With art is that there is no real right or wrong answer in how to interpret it. You read about the artist, read about the painting and basically come to your own conclusion about why the artist chose to represent the topic at hand in such a manner. Its fascinating stuff!
The other thing about museums and art galleries is the people that attend. There’s always a varied bunch of tourists, critics and guys trying to impress their girlfriends that they know art inside out! It’s quite entertaining.
My favourite painting from the whole exhibition was this one called Shambala. When you first look at the painting it seems as though the artist got drunk one night and started throwing paint around a canvas, but when you step closer to the painting you actually realise the intricacies of it. Amongst all the paint streaks there are hundreds of little Buddha images and its almost like the artist is revealing a hidden message. It’s a lovely painting and just goes to show that things are not always what they seem.
The other thing that amazed me about all the paintings were that some of them were donated from recently deceased private art collectors. I wonder what makes a person want to collect art, and if they really do enjoy sitting and looking at the paintings that they collect? Most of the time, people buy paintings for cosmetic reasons because they seem to light up a room or add the right touch of atmosphere to a house but rarely have I seen anyone buy a painting simply because they enjoy looking at it.
All in all it was a great experience and so this week I challenge you to break out of your routine and go look at something different that makes you think and discover the art in you!
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
inspire, art
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The Ugly Duckling
Sunday, 13th January 2008
Today we had a buddhist ceremony at my folks’ place and we invited the resident buddhist monk along. During the ceremony the monk told the old fairytale The Ugly Duckling but unfortunatley he got the story wrong and forgot to mention one crucial detail in the story. Without going into too much detail, he told the story by saying how one duckling was very different from all the other ducklings and they all used to pick on him because he was different; and how one day when the duckling was all grown up everyone admired him because he was quite stunning. His point was that one day people will pick on us but in time to come when we’re all grown up people will admire us.
He forgot to mention one important key aspect of the story...the duckling was never a duck, he was a swan!
How the story’s meant to be told is that the ugly duckling was picked on and outcast by the other ducks but one day he embarked upon some swans, who immediately took him under their wings and as he grew older he realised that he was never a duck but in actual fact a swan and quite a lovely one at that.
So what’s the point of the whole story??? Well thats the beautiful thing about fairy tales you can extract whatever meaning you like from them, so in this case I’m going to extract it as follows.
1. When you hang around the wrong people, obviously things aren’t going to work out for you. People may tease you for not fitting in, or ignore you or cause you all sorts of grief for whatever their reasons be.
2. But when you find your niche, and your thing, then you will blossom into something great and really start to enjoy life and live it to its fullest.
So if you find yourself stuck in a rut (perhaps with a bout of Hamster Syndrome) perhaps you should look at the groups of people that you interact with closely and see if you might have picked up some bad habbits.
Last week I mentioned Robert Kiyosaki’s book - Cashflow and in it is a very interesting exercise on helping you become a better person. It goes like this:
1. Write down the 6 people that you interact with on a daily basis. Not just your close friends and family, anyone whom you spend most of your time with frequently. Just the top 6.
2. Work out if these people have characteristics and personalities that reflect the sort of person that you want to be.
Its a very interesting exercise that really opens your eyes up. Keep in mind that it is no reflection on the people that you hang out with, but more so designed to make you think about if these people can really motivate and inspire you to become the person that you want to be in life.
For example, if you have dreams and ambitions of being debt free by the age of 30, but the top 6 people that you hang out with love to go out and spend a lot of money and don’t save at all, then chances are that it might take you a bit longer to reach your goals...or never reach them at all.
Robin Sharma is a passionate advocate of having good conversations with good people as it really expands your mind into new possibilities, or helps you to reinforce direction in your life. In this instance I think its excellent advice.
So I challenge you to list the top 6 people that you interact with on a daily basis and ask yourself “do they reflect the sort of person that I want to be?”
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
dream, inspire, exercise
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Goal Setting
Sunday, 6th January 2008
Happy New Year Guys and Girls! Hope you all had a great time in celebrating new year’s eve and are ready to Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! in 2008.
Every time the new year comes around everyone talks about what their new years resolutions are so I thought I’d spend this week’s post on goal setting and how to actually achieve your goals. Again, this is one of those topics that I could write a couple of books on but for right now here’s the gist of goal setting.
Anyone can easily say they have goals but very few people actually write them down. So this is step one. Write down all your goals and write them in present tense and be very specific what you want. For example if you have a goal of wanting to be an internationally famous movie star, then write something like “By December 31st 2008 I am an internationally famous movie star”.
The second step is to prioritise these goals and work out what is REALLY important for you to achieve right now. These become your current goals and what you will focus on, on a daily basis.
The third step is to review these goals as frequently as possible. The more you review the more current they are in your mind and all of your decision making becomes centred on achieving your goals.
Its weird how this actually works but the basic premise is when you write something down your sub conscious mind actually begins to create thoughts surrounding these ideas and eventually you recognise opportunities that will lead you to fulfilling these ideas. This is better explained by the universal law of attraction.
The final step in the goal setting process is an unusual one, but its quite important. The secret to achieving your goals, is to act like you already have achieved them. The biggest reason that people don’t achieve their goals is that they do not commit them to memory and spend time prioritising their daily activities in order to help them work towards achieving their goals, ie they don’t change the way they think in order to achieve a mindset that will actually help them achieve their goals.
I was reading Robert Kiyosaki’s book Cashflow Quadrant and in there is a snippet about goal setting. Robert talks about a goal setting seminar he once attended and the instructor provided some good examples of the importance of changing a person’s thinking in order to achieve their goals. One example was of a person who wants a perfect body. They go on a strict diet and exercise routine and they achieve their perfect body but are unable to maintain it for long periods of time because while they modified their diet and exercise routine, they did not modify their mindset and old habbits (which they’ve spent their whole lives developing) easily creep back. The whole premise of the seminar was “Be-Do-Have” which basically means BE the person whom you want to be, DO what that person does and HAVE goals that achieve this.
For example, say you want to lose those few extra kgs you put on for christmas. BE the person who has the great body, work out what they would DO to have achieved it, and maintain it and finally HAVE some goals that will help you achieve it. Its amazing what you can do by simply changing the way you think.
So good luck for 2008 and happy goal setting!
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
dream, goal setting, robert kiyosaki
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Time To Celebrate
Sunday, 30th December 2007
The end of a another year, and what a year it was! I usually spend this time of the year reflecting back on what I’ve achieved and what I want to do next year. In terms of business, to be honest I really haven’t been focusing as much as I should have on BLKMGK. Instead this year I chose to focus on building other community development innitiatives such as the ACS Mock Interviews and creating the Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead! website. By doing this, I’ve made some amazing new connections and really opened up a lot of doors for me both professionally and personally. Finally after all my efforts since I first started BLKMGK in 2005, I’m starting to be recognised within the NT ICT Industry and that for me is an amazing achievement.
So having done well this year, what’s on the cards for next year?
In terms of business, I’m going to be restructuring BLKMGK so that we focus on three new key areas of the ICT Industry. Then there’s the ICT training centre that I’m trying to establish - which is bound to be a HUGE project. Finally on a personal level I want to spend more time on my health and fitness and have more time to myself. I might even take up meditation to help me relax. I was reading about a particular type of medidation called Transcendental Meditation (TM). Apparently TM followers experience a deeper relaxation sensation than a deep sleep - now that could come in handy considering all of my plans for next year!
Okay, you’ve heard about what I did this year, and what I’m doing next year, so now its time to celebrate a great year and usher in the new year in style!
Thank you all for visiting the site this year, and I hope that I’ve provided you with a little inspiration and motivation whenever you’ve needed it. Make sure you come back next year for some more great stories, photos, and interviews to keep you fired up and passionate about turning your dreams into reality.
Until then, Dream great Dreams, Build amazing things, Inspire those around you, and Lead through motivation!!!
AJ~
Author: AJ Kulatunga
Category:
Dream, Build, Inspire, Lead
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