Consider fiction’s legendary sleepyheads. Washington Irvings hero Rip Van Winkle imbibed a charmed drink and woke up 20 years later. He spent the remainder of his days as a makeshift historian, telling willing listeners what life was like 2 decades earlier. And who can forget Sleeping Beauty, who spent 100 years in an ageless, enchanted sleep, only to be awakened by her charming prince?

But if you’ve ever felt like you just don’t get enough sleep, you’re in for some competitive (and powerful) company. While running Great Britain, former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill who slept little, once chided a younger colleague who complained of fatigue, ” I have never been tired in my life.” Margaret Thatcher, another former Prime Minister, reportedly only slept 3 to 4 hours per night. It was said that President John F Kennedy worked in the Oval Office until the wee hours of the morning and then awoke just a few hours later at 7:30 a.m.

Short sleepers in history were at no loss for creativity, either. Inventor Thomas Edison required less than 4 hours sleep per night, often napping on his couch in his workroom only when he felt fatigued. He considered 8 hours of sleep ‘excessive’ and a symptom of weakness. Edison’s competitor, Yugoslavian electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, inventor of the wireless radio, scoffed at Edison’s sleep habits: Tesla reportedly slept only 2 hours each morning.

Fellow inventor and 15th century artist Leonardo da Vinci was said to have worked almost continuously by napping 15 minutes every 4 hours (a mere 1 1/2 hours per day) and not sleeping at all at night. Painter Salvador Dali was rumoured to have napped in a chair while holding a spoon over a tin plate. When he drifted off to sleep and dropped the spoon, the clatter would wake him, and he would feel completely refreshed.

For the majority of us, however we need at least 8 hours of sleep to maintain our energy and to be productive. To sleep is perchance to dream.

Schott Hamilton would agree. Scott is the Olympian gold medal winner who earned the admiration of the world for his 1984 performance at Sarajevo. It was his talent, as well as his wholesome “boy-next-door” image, that captured our hearts; but, for Scott, it represented another kind of triumph as well.

When he was two years of age, Scott stopped growing, afflicted by a childhood disease that almost cost him his life. But Scott didn’t die, and his adopted parents encouraged his rehabilitation by teaching him skate. It was therapy for the little boy who was never quit as large as the rest of his classmates.

For Scott, his problem was not a handicap, but a challenge to be overcome, and overcome it he did. When individuals face challenges that can handicap them, they face an uphill fight, but Scott Hamilton for one did not give up.

THOMAS EDISON: another one who would have understood Scoot. From the age of twelve, Edison was afflicted with a severe hearing loss. Teachers urged his parents to take him out of classes. A “slow learner” was how educators classified him, but Edison turned his deafness into a creative tool that drowned out the distractions and allowed him to focus on what was of interest to him. Thomas Edison, the man labeled as a “slow learner” by teachers, gave our world more than a thousand inventions, including the incandescent globe and the phonograph. He did not give up.

HELEN KELLER: she went through life not only sightless, but deaf as well. In her day, individuals who bore the label “deaf and dumb” as she did, were usually shunted to institutions where they lived as animals in an existence that was sub human. Helen overcame her handicaps, though, and her indomitable spirit gave all humanity a legacy of courage. As the result of what she was able to conquer, thousands of individuals have refused to quit or crawl into the corner of despair. She, too, would have understood Scott Hamilton.

What is normal? And what is a handicap? And who sets the standard for normalcy, anyway? Is it being short or tall, thin or stout, a fast learner or a slow one? Is it I.Q.? Or your ability to change a flat tire? Or your ability to see which way the stock market is headed? Hasn’t God gifted each of us with abilities that can be explored to the depths? Aren’t the real handicaps lethargy, indifference, the inability to shut off TV set and pick up a book? The great handicaps do not belong to those who are born with challenges, but instead they limit the “normal people” who restrict their lives with mediocrity and boredom. 

With the countless negativities the world brings about, how do we keep motivated? Try on the tips I prepared from A to Z…

A – Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

B – Believe in your self, and in what you can do.

C – Consider things on every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the sun from both sides.

D – Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed once, twice, more than thrice before he came up with his invention and perfected the incandescent light bulb. Make motivation as your steering wheel.

E – Enjoy. Work as if you don’t need money. Dance as if nobody’s watching. Love as if you never cried. Learn as if you’ll live forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.

F – Family and Friends – are life’s greatest ‘F’ treasures. Don’t loose sight of them.

G – Give more than what is enough. Where does motivation and self improvement take place at work? At home? At school? When you exert extra effort in doing things. 

H – Hang on to your dreams. They may dangle in there for a moment, but these little stars will be your driving force. 

I – Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t let other people to get the best of you. Stay out of toxic people – the kind of friends who hates to hear about your success.

J – Just be yourself. The key to success is to be yourself. And the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

K – keep trying no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is motivated, eventually he sees a harsh life finally clearing out, paving the way to self improvement.

L – Learn to love your self. Now isn’t that easy?

M – Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put into work clothes.

N – Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.

O – Open your eyes. People should learn the horse attitude and horse sense. They see things in 2 ways – how they want things to be, and how they should be. 

P – Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It lets us learn repertoire and ways on how can we recover from our mistakes.

Q – Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate – are you going to be a quitter? Or a winner?

R – Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must hear the little voice within us telling us to get started before others will get on their feet and try to push us around. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.

S – Stop procrastinating.

T – Take control of your life. Discipline or self control jives synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self improvement.

U – Understand others. If you know very well how to talk, you should also learn how to listen. Yearn to understand first, and to be understood the second.

V – Visualize it. Motivation without vision is like a boat on a dry land.

W – Want it more than anything. Dreaming means believing. And to believe is something that is rooted out from the roots of motivation and self improvement.

X – X Factor is what will make you different from the others. When you are motivated, you tend to put on “extras” on your life like extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends, and so on.

Y – You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like you. Value your life and existence, because you’re just going to spend it once.

Z – Zero in on your dreams and go for it!!!

Often, we dream big dreams and have great aspirations. Unfortunately, our dreams remain just that – dreams. And our aspirations easily collect dust in our attic.

This is a sad turn of events in our life. Instead of experiencing exciting adventures in self actualization, we get caught up in the humdrum of living from day-to-day just barely existing.

But you know what? Life could be so much better, if only we learned to aim higher.

The most common problem to setting goals is the word impossible. Most people get hung up thinking I can’t do this. It’s too hard. It’s too impossible. No one can do this.

However, if everyone thought that, there would be no inventions, no innovations, and no breakthroughs in human accomplishment.

Remember that scientists were baffled when they took a look at the humble bumblebee. Theoretically, they said, it was impossible for the bumblebee to fly. Unfortunately for the bumble, bee no one has told it so. So fly it does.

On the other hand, some people suffer from dreaming totally outrageous dreams and not acting on them. The result? Broken dreams, and tattered aspirations. 

If you limit yourself with self-doubt, and self-limiting assumptions, you will never be able to break past what you deem impossible. If you reach too far out into the sky without working towards your goal, you will find yourself clinging on to the impossible dream.

Try this exercise. Take a piece of paper and write down some goals in your life. Under one header, list down things ‘you know you can do’. Under another header, write the things ‘you might be able to do.’ And under one more, list the things that that are ‘impossible for you to do.’

Now look at all the headers strive every day to accomplish the goals that are under things ‘you know you can do’. Check them when you are able to accomplish them. As you slowly are able to check all of your goals under that heading, try accomplishing the goals under the other header-the one that reads ‘you might be able to do.’

As of the items you wrote under things I could do are accomplished, you can move the goals that are under things that are ‘impossible for you to do’ to the list of things ‘you might be able to do.’

As you iterate through this process, you will find out that the goals you thought were impossible become easier to accomplish. And the impossible begin to seem possible after all.

You see, the technique here is not to limit your imagination. It is to aim high, and start working towards that goal little by little. However, it also is unwise to set a goal that is truly unrealistic. 

Those who just dream towards a goal without working hard end up disappointed and disillusioned.

On the other hand, if you told someone a hundred years ago that it was possible for man to be on the moon, they would laugh at you. If you had told them that you could send mail from here to the other side of the world in a few seconds, they would say you were out of your mind. But, through sheer desire and perseverance, these impossible dreams are now realities.

Thomas Edison once said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Nothing could be truer. For one to accomplish his or her dreams, there has to be had work and discipline. But take note that that 1% has to be a think-big dream, and not some easily accomplished one.

Ask any gym rat and he or she will tell you that there can be no gains unless you are put out of your comfort zone. Remember the saying, “No pain, no gain”? That is as true as it can be.

So dream on, friend! Don’t get caught up with your perceived limitations. Think big and work hard to attain those dreams. As you step up the ladder of progress, you will just about find out that the impossible has just become a little bit more possible.

Everyone, at some point of his or her life, has dreamed of being somebody special, somebody big. Who hasn’t fantasized about being the one who hits the game-winning homer? Who hasn’t dreamed of being the homecoming queen? And how many times have we dreamed of being rich, or successful, or happy with our relationships?

Often, we dream big dreams and have great aspirations. Unfortunately, our dreams remain just that – dreams. And our aspirations easily collect dust in our attic.

This is a sad turn of events in our life. Instead of experiencing exciting adventures in self actualization, we get caught up in the humdrum of living from day-to-day just barely existing.

But you know what? Life could be so much better, if only we learned to aim higher.

The most common problem to setting goals is the word impossible. Most people get hung up thinking I can’t do this. It’s too hard. It’s too impossible. No one can do this.

However, if everyone thought that, there would be no inventions, no innovations, and no breakthroughs in human accomplishment.

Remember that scientists were baffled when they took a look at the humble bumblebee. Theoretically, they said, it was impossible for the bumblebee to fly. Unfortunately for the bumble, bee no one has told it so. So fly it does.

On the other hand, some people suffer from dreaming totally outrageous dreams and not acting on them. The result? Broken dreams, and tattered aspirations. 

If you limit yourself with self-doubt, and self-limiting assumptions, you will never be able to break past what you deem impossible. If you reach too far out into the sky without working towards your goal, you will find yourself clinging on to the impossible dream.

Try this exercise. Take a piece of paper and write down some goals in your life. Under one header, list down things ‘you know you can do’. Under another header, write the things ‘you might be able to do.’ And under one more, list the things that that are ‘impossible for you to do.’

Now look at all the headers strive every day to accomplish the goals that are under things ‘you know you can do’. Check them when you are able to accomplish them. As you slowly are able to check all of your goals under that heading, try accomplishing the goals under the other header-the one that reads ‘you might be able to do.’

As of the items you wrote under things I could do are accomplished, you can move the goals that are under things that are ‘impossible for you to do’ to the list of things ‘you might be able to do.’

As you iterate through this process, you will find out that the goals you thought were impossible become easier to accomplish. And the impossible begin to seem possible after all.

You see, the technique here is not to limit your imagination. It is to aim high, and start working towards that goal little by little. However, it also is unwise to set a goal that is truly unrealistic. 

Those who just dream towards a goal without working hard end up disappointed and disillusioned.

On the other hand, if you told someone a hundred years ago that it was possible for man to be on the moon, they would laugh at you. If you had told them that you could send mail from here to the other side of the world in a few seconds, they would say you were out of your mind. But, through sheer desire and perseverance, these impossible dreams are now realities.

Thomas Edison once said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Nothing could be truer. For one to accomplish his or her dreams, there has to be had work and discipline. But take note that that 1% has to be a think-big dream, and not some easily accomplished one.

Ask any gym rat and he or she will tell you that there can be no gains unless you are put out of your comfort zone. Remember the saying, “No pain, no gain”? That is as true as it can be.

So dream on, friend! Don’t get caught up with your perceived limitations. Think big and work hard to attain those dreams. As you step up the ladder of progress, you will just about find out that the impossible has just become a little bit more possible.

What am I trying to say? Let’s face it. Life is like a chess. You make decisions, you move. There are situations that you end up being a winner,  that is good. But most of the times, the piece that we are going to touch and move are so opposite from winning. There are situations we wish we should have done this instead of that…say this instead of that…act like this and not like that. And the worst fact is that there is no one who can be asked to change your wrong move. I have read one article stating that as a rough guide in life, you can expect to fail 80% of the time in a life well lived… 

When Thomas Edison was seeking to invent the electric light bulb, he didn’t get it right the first time. Did he immediately throw a ‘wobbly’ and say, “I’m a big fat failure!”? Did he throw his arms up in the air and sigh, “This is just too hard. I give up!”? Did he grab a bottle of booze and become an alcoholic and live in his memories, slurring to his fellow street bums, “I *hic!* tried to invent *hic!* the electric light bulb once *hic!* …. but it didn’t work *hic!* out… life sucks.”? ( Fail Your Way to Success)

No. No. No!

You first learned to walk after falling down thousands of times. Thank God you didn’t give up trying to walk every time you fall- or you’d still be crawling now on the floor.

New year is coming. Come on, cheer up! Stop looking back and blame yourself for the things you did or the things you wish you did not do. There is no wrong. There is only priceless lesson. You’ll see, it will be just fine. 

Dated February 11, 1847, Thomas Alva Edison, the greatest inventor of all time was born. The man dubbed the Witch genius Menlo Park that holds 1,093 patents in his name. He is also the inventor of the first to apply the principles of mass production in the discovery process thus making it a powerful businessman. Among the many success stories of the founders of General Electric was tucked some interesting facts. Here we present 10 of them:

1. Hard of hearing, not deaf

Edison often called deafness. But it is not at all can not hear, but have difficulty hearing properly. The causes vary according to several sources. Some call for a fever when she was little and some times the middle ear infection is not treated. Some say that his ears struck a train conductor when its chemical laboratory in the freight cars on fire.

2. Newspaper on the first train

Penchant Edison experimented in making railway carriages have labs in the carriage of goods even though the lab was finally burned. Edison then rebuild the chemistry lab and printing in the trunk of a car. From here he published the Grand Trunk Herald, which is the first newspaper published on the train.

3. Dot and Dash

Edison has three children from his marriage to Mary Stilwell. Two of his children were given a unique nickname, Dot (Marion Estelle Edison) and Dash (Thomas Alva Edison Junior), who allegedly taken from symbols used in Morse code the dots “.” And the line “-”.

4. Apply Mina with Morse code

After Mary Stilwell died, Edison met Mina Miller who was a boy inventor Lewis Miller. He taught Mina Morse code so they can communicate in secret with a tap code in their hands. One day Mina Edison asked: .- – ..- .-.. -.. -.- – ..- – .- .-. .-. -.- -. Mina which is answered by: -.-. … Soon, they were married.

5. Rejecting the so-called failed

Edison protest a newspaper containing headline: “After 9955 times failed to find the incandescent light bulb, Edison finally managed to find the lights on”. He asked the headline was replaced. The next day, at the request of Edison, to replace the newspaper headline be: “After 9955 times managed to find a lamp that lights failed, Edison finally managed to find the lights on”.

6. The first patent failed

In 1869, at the age of 22, Edison obtained his first patent for a voice recorder telegraphic machines that he designed for the legislature. With the tool, each member of the legislature simply move a button on a machine that will record the bill of his choice. Unfortunately, the legislature rejected the device because of the way it works is slow.

7. Tattoo machine

In 1876, Edison patented the Stencil-pens, a tool that Samuel O’Reilly later modified to become the first tattoo machine. But he still was awarded for his discovery of the first tattoo machine.

8. The first industrial research laboratory

After selling the quadruplex telegraph that bought Western Union for $ 10 thousand, Edison used the money he earned to build a place that would deliberately dikhususkannya to continue to produce and develop products of technological innovation. The place is located in Menlo Park, New Jersey that eventually evolved into the first industrial research laboratory in the world.

9. Witch Menlo Park

The nickname was acquired after the successful Edison invented the phonograph in 1877 as well as raise its popularity. The achievement was unexpected by many people that seem like magic. His first successful phonograph record sound on tinfoil around a grooved cylinder. However, the resulting sound-quality is still poor and the tapes can only be played back several times.

10. Electricity for all

The concept and implementation of power generation and distribution to homes, offices, and factories are very important in the development of modern industrialized world. Edison was the first to come up with that concept. The first electric power plant built on Manhattan Island, New York in 1882.

Do you know what happened to the child after a few years later? At the time of his death, a child who is considered stupid by his teachers and educated himself by his mother’s, was awarded very large by the entire population of America. On October 18, 1931 evening at 9:55 minutes, the entire United extinguish all the electric lights to commemorate the services of a great inventor, Thomas Alva Edison, who is considered a fool, but has changed the direction of world development. Progress of modern telecommunications services are also re-boils down to. Thomas did not give up on the assessment of another person who humbles himself.

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Maybe you also doubt the ability of yourself. But you do not judge yourself too low.