About me

Hi there, I’m Rod. I am currently the Coordinator of SEED Academy (Outreach Information Technology Night School supervised by Southville International School and Colleges) here in Las Piñas city Philippines. I’m a father of two bright kids, Maria Anita, a 17 year old college girl taking up BS in Psychology and Ralph Matthew, a 12 year old first year high school student. Aside from my biological kids, I currently have more than 60 adoptive kids under my care. I teach these kids, not just about information technology matters, but life as well.

2011
01/09
CATEGORY
Introduction
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Believe in Yourself

“Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most out of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.” – Marie Curie

If you don’t even trust yourself, then who else can you trust. Being courageous in facing lifes challenges is the most important value one has to consider. Without courage, life would be miserable. Every situation that comes along should never be evaded. We must face it head-on. Happiness begins by having faith in oneself. Believing that you can do all things if you just put your heart into everything that you do.

Yes, I know that each and everyone of us have different skills. However these skills, did not come as a package when we were born. Skills are learned and developed either through training or by experience. Most of the time, we don’t develop skills and talents overnight. Development usually takes time.

Believing and trusting oneself is the starting point of success.

2011
02/02
CATEGORY
Self-Confidence
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Go do the small stuff

“If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.”

-Ancient Chinese Proverb

In life, we tend to forget that we are blessed. Sometimes we feel depressed that we can not be equal or be better that someone else.

Many of us don’t appreciate today, even though we don’t even know if we’ll make it to tomorrow. We focus on the goal as the means of fulfillment: the thing, answer or solution that has the power to give us happiness.

But it isn’t necessarily the big pleasures that bring the most happiness, sometimes it’s doing the small stuff. Treat yourself with a drumstick ice cream. Have breakfast in bed. Hug your mom. Find a long lost friend. Take that class you’ve always wanted to take. Spend an hour at the book store. Plant flowers in your garden. Go and take that trip you’ve always wanted. Be adventurous. Give someone a compliment and make their day.

Happiness is not a matter of good fortune or worldly possessions. It’s a mental attitude. It comes from appreciating what we have, instead of being miserable about what we don’t have. It’s so simple, yet so hard for the human mind to comprehend.

Remember, life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.

2011
01/15
CATEGORY
Happiness
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Fear can be a good thing

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live.”
– Leo Buscaglia

We cannot escape fear. Almost all fear is fear of the unknown. Therefore, what’s the remedy? To become acquainted with the thing you fear. Fear is a signal that change is apparent or we are taking a risk and we should make sure we are physically safe. So think of fear as a companion on your exciting adventures. By taking small risks often enough, you gain confidence in preparing yourself for a bigger leap. You’ll often find that in reality, it’s never as bad as you feared.

Do the following things.

Buy a small notebook. Write down personal goals that are challenging. Goals that will help you grow as a person. Your goals should be inspiring so that you will do everything it takes to achieve success. Dream big and enjoy every single moment of life.

Count your blessings. Be thankful for what you have, for what you are and for what you can do. Take small steps towards achieving your goals. Face your challenges head-on and keep on taking persistent actions towards your goals.

Try and think of someone who made a difference in your life. Maybe someone who is already doing what you love to do. Go to them. Ask them about how they achieved success and
the difficulties they faced on their journey to success.

2011
01/14
CATEGORY
Courage
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If you make a mistake, learn from it and move on.


I kept on hearing from one of the officers of the school where I work in about a certain quotation which stated that “Do things right the first time.” Although we all wish we can get things right the first time, a mistake is just a “mis-TAKE”. Which means you can do it over. So take one, take two or take 1000 times to get things right, similar to what Thomas Edison did when he invented the light bulb. Sometimes great things come from failures.

The post-it note, which every office has in its supply cabinet, was supposed to be a new glue compound until they discovered it didn’t stick permanently. Instead, it could re-stick a number of times without any residue. The rest, as they say, is history.

From your own mistakes you can gain wisdom and accelerate self-improvement. Mistakes, because of their relationship with risk taking, are essential to success. The important thing is to view mistakes as a useful stepping stone to a higher reality and better outlook on life.

Mistakes are unavoidable in life and leaders certainly make their share of them. Any time you look to break new ground or technologies or whatever it is you are doing, you open up many new avenues for mistakes and they are inevitable with change. You can’t have one without the other and so learning to use mistakes well is an important leadership trait. The first point about mistakes is that what makes a person great is that they learns from their own mistakes. They know when they make it and will quickly look at what can be salvaged or gained from the mistake as to avoid it in the future or to streamline some action or process to improve it next time. This makes no difference if the mistake is big or small, there is always something to be learned from it and mistakes offer an immediate piece of feedback to anyone who is wise enough to learn from it.

I learned from my mistakes, so can you.

2011
01/13
CATEGORY
Learning from mistakes
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Keep going.


Have you heard about the story of a mouse which fell down in a bucket of cream? The mouse was so afraid to drown that he kept on swimming till he actually churned the cream and turned it to butter. With all that effort and the result of that effort, he was able to free himself from failure.

Thomas Edison, in his effort to actually invent the first light bulb failed more than a thousand times, before successfully creating an invention which revolutionized the world. Imagine a world of darkness, lit only by candelight, if he actually stopped thinking, planning, developing and testing his invention.

“When life knocks you down, you have two choices, stay down or get up.”

Once you know what you want and want it badly enough, you can find a way to get it. Get the support you need and keep going. “Many of life’s failures are people who didn’t realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure.

We must be persistent in our lives and our causes, desires, dreams, and be strong enough to use our persistence and our strength and intelligence to forge us through this life, having done the best we could with what we had.

2011
01/12
CATEGORY
Persistence
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Define your own success.


During my younger years, I tend to think of myself as the unluckiest child of the family. With all the achievements of my two brothers, I actually envied them. I did not excel in academics, in sports or in whatever. I always thought of myself as an underachiever, somewhere below par of what my brothers were able to do. Later on, somewhere, somehow, my mindset actually changed when I actually got married and had kids. I don’t know if somebody flicked a switch somewhere, wherein it made me change my attitude in life.

Lots of people take a look at life as being unfair sometimes and they think that life has some disappointments. Actually, I did the same thing. Having a mindset wherein, I will never be better than them.I might not be as successful as them. I created a lot of questions in my mind. Questions like “Why are many people more “lucky” than others? Why is life so unfair? How can I be happy considering I only have less? Why are others more successful than me?

Just what is success, really?

Let us take this quotation from Anthony Robbins (an American self-help author and success coach).

“It is not what we get. But who we become, what we contribute… that gives
meaning to our lives.” – Anthony Robbins

When I started working here in school, I never actually imagined that my life was about to change. I was exposed to a lot of trainings, which I really took seriously. I listened intently to everything my boss told me. I worked hard, not actually thinking about if the work pays a lot. I only thought about having a job that could actually put food on our table, not actually thinking about if I could buy some of the things which the family longs for, like a brand new color tv, a computer, etc. Little did I know, that by simply doing things and giving meaning to someone else’s life will actually make a lot for me in terms of achievements. Almost every year, I was given an award, which was equivalent to “Employee of the Year for the Administration division”. I was promoted twice within my ten years tenure in the school. Although it was not much, for me it was a distinction that made me think that success comes not only in terms of how much you have, what things you own. It may also come in different forms.

All too often, we define success by what others have, rather than what we really want. We tend to compare our personal properties with what they have, rather than focusing how we can acquire what we want. First need to know is to define what brings us joy, what makes our life complete and what goals we really want to reach. If we’re not sure where we’re going, we’ll probably end up somewhere else.

2011
01/11
CATEGORY
Success
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Rod Gabriel - SEED Life coach