Saturday, May 15, 2021

3 Leadership Principles Every New Leader Needs To Know

Brandy Bischoff·January 19, 2021·1137 views

Hey there, business leader!

Did you know the term “Leadership Principles” is searched online over 8,000 times each month? Leadership is a big topic, and if you’re someone who manages people I bet you’re constantly searching for ways to improve your leadership skills.

As a new organizational leader, understanding leadership principles can feel overwhelming.

• How do you do it well?

• What makes a good leader?

• What makes people want to follow you?

• How should you handle it when things go wrong?

You could endlessly research the topic of leadership and still not know where to start when it comes to leading your organization. While leadership experts disagree on some of its tenets, there are multiple researched-backed and proven leadership principles. And when you apply these principles, you can rest assured you’re on your way to reaching the highest standards within your organization.

Here we’ll take a look at 3 outstanding leadership principles you can implement today in your own work, whether you’re the owner of a startup company or a newly promoted supervisor in a longstanding business.

1. What You Do Matters

The first leadership principle you need to know is that what you do as an organizational leader makes a real, tangible difference in the performance bar of your team members – what you do matters.

I’ve been where you are as a new leader, and I’m here to tell you—wondering about your impact as a leader and role-model is part of the job.

And this is a good thing.

Reflecting on your role and how you connect with your own team members and the agency as a whole is necessary to become an excellent leader, because it allows you to analyze your leadership style and evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.

To be an effective and impactful role model, you have to analyze the role you play within your organization regularly. Holding yourself to a high standard means you actively search for areas of self-improvement— and then you do something about it. Don’t just be aware of your weaknesses; actively work to develop the best skill set you can to be the best organizational leader you can be.

Here’s the caveat—while you should regularly analyze your role, your leadership style, and areas for self-improvement, you should never question the importance of what you do.

Let me explain:

As a good leader, your words and actions make a difference and the way you work with your team members matters. As a leader and role model for those around you, you have the ability to make a real difference. You’re able to impact and empower your team members to raise the performance bar and move your agency forward to places it’s never been before.

You already have the qualities necessary to be the most successful leader your agency has ever seen, and this is something you have to know and be confident in. Before your own team members can believe this about you, you first have to believe it yourself.

Kouzes and Posner, award-winning authors on leadership, reviewed data from over one million people around the world to take a look at the real-life characteristics of successful leaders, and their work revealed something not-so-surprising:

It’s the behavior of leaders that keeps employees feeling good about their work and wanting to do their best; it’s not about who the leader is or where they come from—it’s about what you do as a leader that counts.

Your team members measure your leadership skills by the actions you take to guide them in their work and lives.

Here’s another interesting fact about this leadership principle:

It’s not the CEOs, the Presidents, or other top-dogs in an organization who have the most impact on how employees feel about the work they do. Kouzes and Posner explain:

A quote from Kouzes and Posner showing the importance of leaders in guiding their employees.

This means that for many, the most important leader in the organization is you.

You have the power to develop the best in your own team, to empower your staff to believe in their ability to meet high standards and to encourage a strong sense of commitment and dedication to your agency.

Now, you could view this leadership principle with anxiety – a thought filled with pressure. But for you, the leader who believes in your ability to positively influence others, knowing you really do have this kind of impact on others as a good leader becomes an opportunity and opens the door to great things for your organization.

So, be confident in your decision-making skills and what you do.

You’re a leader, and your words and actions have the ability to move those around you. What you do matters. Believe it about yourself, and others will too.

2. Great Leaders Are Great Learners

The second leadership principle you need to understand is that leaders are created, not born, and everyone has the ability to become a great leader.

You weren’t born knowing how to be a leader, and right now you have questions about how to be better at it. Leadership isn’t a gene, it’s not hereditary, and babies aren’t born with a leadership skill set that puts them above all other babies born in the world that day.

Anyone can learn to be an effective, impactful leader, and you have to be a believer in this. No matter how much experience you have or how good of a leader you are right now – you’ve got to believe that you have the ability to dig deeper, look further, and learn new and better ways of doing things all the time.

You have to believe there’s always continual room for improvement in your leadership style.

As a strong leader who understands the tenants of leadership principles, you feel passion for what you do, and this passion is the fuel that drives you to want to be better. You strive to always grow and improve, and you understand there’s always more to learn.

The great leader knows the importance of continuing education and prioritizes learning as part of their routine. Setting yourself up for success in learning about leadership is as simple as carving out a small amount of reading time in your daily routine.

Don’t worry—your resourcefulness as a good leader will aid you in finding time to prioritize this daily opportunity to dive deep into the world of leadership. Here are some strategies to help you in your learning journey:

Take Baby Steps

As discussed in Jeff Olson’s The Slight Edge, small increments of time every day add up to major progress—he notes reading only ten pages on leadership per day means that in one year, you’ll have read 3,650 pages or the equivalent of between 12 and 24 dozen books on the topic of leadership and leadership principles.

Taking small steps over time helps make bigger progress.

I’ve got this image posted near the computer I work on for my full-time job in leadership, and I also have it posted by the computer I use for my freelance writing. It’s a daily reminder that small actions build upon each other, and days build upon days. This mindset will have major impacts in your work and other aspects of life, too. It certainly has for me.

Can you find time to read just ten pages a day? Think of what you’ll learn and the vast amount of new ideas you’ll be exposed to as a leader who strives to be the best you can be!

For a quick read on leadership, click here to check out People Managing People’s 86 Motivational Quotes About HR for Teams and Managers.

Watch and Learn

Another way to continually learn is simply to watch.

What does this mean?

It means getting out there with your employees—take responsibility to get out on the warehouse floor, work the line, visit offices throughout the day. Observe the way your team members work together. Watch how they demonstrate self-sufficiency, resourcefulness, and take responsibility for their work to reach the high standards you’ve set forth.

Be a present leader, and your staff will see your dedication and care about your team.

When you show up as a leader, you’ll demonstrate your level of commitment—and as an extra point, be able to get a clear picture of how daily operations are running and what areas of the workforce may need your attention. Good leaders have a strong grasp of what’s going on in their agency.

When you get out into the work environment with your staff instead of staying holed-up in your office, you show them you’re available and willing to hear their concerns.

Listen

Listening is another leadership skill that will teach you a great deal about your team members and your agency. Listening is actually a skill that good leaders learn and prioritize improvement in.

The key is to actively listen; give your full attention—without phone interruptions or cutting a conversation short—really hear what those working with you have to say without judgment or emotion, and reflect what you’ve heard to make sure you got it right.

Here’s a chart comparing passive and active listening – what kind of listener are you? To be a strong and impactful leader, you need to improve your active listening skills.

It’s important for leaders to practice active listening rather than passive listening.

Whether or not you decide to make changes based on the concerns you hear from team members, they’ll know you’re present and open to hearing what they have to say. They’re also more likely to respect your business decisions when they know you’ve given them the opportunity to be heard.

Employees appreciate being heard and listened to.

If you have a positive relationship with your employees, and they don’t fear embarrassment or have anxiety when talking to you, they’ll be more likely to report small issues they see rather than waiting for these little problems to become glaring issues requiring immediate attention.

Sometimes being heard is all people need from a role model, and they’ll leave the interaction feeling listened to and empowered to demonstrate their own self-sufficiency and leadership skills.

You might be surprised what you learn when listening to your own team members; sometimes it’s the newest person on the payroll who has the freshest perspective and new ideas that could take your organization to the next level—you just have to take responsibility to be open and willing to hear it.

Check out this article by People Managing People to learn more about employee engagement and the twelve statistics you need to know as a good leader.

Ask For Help

Being open to asking others for help is another great way to dive deep and develop your leadership skills further. Don’t be afraid to call upon those who have come before you in your role or other agency leaders you’re familiar with and admire.

Sharing experiences and learning what’s worked for other great leaders-–and what hasn’t– is one of the best ways to learn more about what it takes to improve in your own leadership style and develop the best organizational culture possible.

Take Time to Reflect

Reflection is another great way for business leaders to regularly work toward self-improvement, and this effective practice can be easily scheduled into your daily, weekly, or monthly routine.

Ask yourself questions like these:

1. What went well today?

2. How did I manage my time?

3. Did I make authentic connections with my team members today?

4. Was I honest in my communications and able to say the hard things?

5. What signals did I send to employees about our work and vision?

6. Did I give and receive feedback well?

7. What step can I take to be a better leader tomorrow?

Prioritizing as little as five minutes at the end of each day to look back on how things went will give you clarity about what went well, what didn’t, and what self-improvement steps you can take to increase your value as a leader for the next day, week, or month.

Even as a great leader, things aren’t always going to go smoothly, and it’s important to reflect honestly on what went well and what changes need to be made.

This leads us to the third leadership principle you need to know as a new business leader, and it’s one you’re really going to need to get comfortable with.

Are you ready for it?

3. Leaders Fail

It’s true.

They do.

Not only do they fail, but great leaders view failure as necessary and aren’t afraid of risk-taking. Leaders recognize the benefit of taking chances and working outside of the box, and the risk that comes along with it is worth it.

Making mistakes is the absolute best way to learn and make improvements for the future.

Think back on the times you’ve learned the biggest lessons. I guarantee it wasn’t the time that things went effortlessly well – no, it’s the time that you made a mistake, fell flat, and had to pick yourself up and try again.

Risk-taking will inevitably lead to mistakes and failures at times–we can’t escape this fact. But these mistakes and failures teach us valuable lessons and provide opportunities for reflection and self-improvement.

The 7 fears leaders need to overcome. Source: gordontredgold.com

As you can see in this chart by Gordon Tredgold, there may be multiple areas of fear that you’ll need to address and overcome. The important thing is that you recognize the fears and take strides to address them.

Being open to failure can be intimidating, and it requires you to demonstrate courage as a good leader. As role models, we want to set the performance bar high for ourselves – sometimes too high, and this brings with it a dread of failing.

Remove the dread of failure from your thoughts, and feel the weight of perfection lift from your shoulders while you become more human in the eyes of your team members.

Brene Brown, award-winning author and scholar of leadership principles, encourages us to “choose courage over comfort,” and be willing to take the chance, whatever it might be, not knowing whether you’re going to be successful or not. You can read more about Brene Brown’s work here.

Sometimes your risk-taking won’t lead to success—but sometimes it will.

Here’s another thing about the failure principle—as good leaders, we ought to be able to openly talk about failure.

Have the courage to take responsibility and openly acknowledge that you made a mistake when you do. When you talk about what you learned from a failure, it opens the door for those you lead and shows your team members it’s okay to go big, to dive deep, and try for something and fail at it.

As leaders, we do our best to make the best decision we can at the time. Most times, it’s the right decision—but sometimes it won’t be.

Being open to the idea of failures and people making mistakes doesn’t mean you don’t have high standards. In fact, it means you require the highest standards when it comes to your team members feeling empowered, resourceful, and open to learning and self-improvement.

Be able to choose courage over comfort and realize that acceptance of failure is one of the great leadership principles that will make you a better organizational leader. You and your staff will be better team members because of it.

As someone working in a leadership role, I know leadership can be tough—especially when you’re first starting and trying to find your way in a brand-new role. But you can do this—all it takes is a firm understanding of these and other leadership principles that will propel you to become the great leader you were meant to be.

7 Ways to Develop an Abundance Mindset

by Mark Pettit | Dec 6, 2018

In business and life, our mindset determines our custom-designed path to success. We can look at everything from a scarcity mindset or develop an abundance mindset. We can have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

Creating an abundant mindset vs a scarcity mindset can have a huge bearing on your personal and professional success.

A scarcity mindset can lead to envy about what people have, guilt about what others have and anger about what other people are doing in the world. An abundance mindset can lead to more creativity, more joy, increased happiness and a focus on gratitude and appreciation.

In this article I’ll share 7 ways to develop an abundance mindset which will help you focus in on your unique strengths, so you can focus on the opportunities you have. These tips will help you develop an abundant mindset where your world is full of gratitude and appreciation for what you have and what is available to you in the world.

Abundance mindset

A person with an abundance mindset focuses on the limitless opportunities available in business and life. They choose to focus on the positive things in their life rather than the negative things.

People with an abundance mindset are more grateful, more creative and focused on collaboration. As a result of this abundant mindset they attract opportunities, people and creativity into their lives.

Abundant Thinking

When you make a point to think abundantly, rather than having scarcity thinking, you feel happier, more curious, more successful and experience higher levels of gratitude. Abundant thinking is about focusing on what you do have and the opportunities in front of you, rather than what you don’t have.

You appreciate more, feel more confident, develop deeper relationships and have a bigger vision of the future you want to create. You think about yourself in terms of creating an abundant, bigger future, rather than a limiting scarce future. Read more about how to develop a gratitude mindset.

How to develop an abundance mindset

If you want to create a life of abundance, creating an abundance mindset will free you up to custom design your ideal future.

With abundance thinking you will come from a place of gratitude and appreciation.

This abundant mentality will help you create more opportunity, more happiness and more fulfilment. Read more about how to develop an attitude of gratitude.

Abundance mindset vs scarcity mindset

Someone with an abundance mindset believes there is an abundance of everything in life, whether that be more time, more money, better relationships, more resources and more opportunities. In contrast, someone with a scarcity mindset lives comes from a zero sum mentality and is fearful that there is a depletion of time, money, energy and resources available.

You, therefore, have the opportunity to develop one of two mindsets competing for your attention: scarcity mentality or an abundance mindset.

A scarcity mindset is the belief that there is not enough to go round. That everything necessary to create an abundant future is scarce or running out. This scarcity mindset makes you feel envious, guilty and angry. Having a scarcity mindset can leave you feeling overwhelmed, depressed, and paralysed.

An abundant mindset makes you feel happy, excited, motivated, and ready for action. Want to be happier? Get more tips on how to be happy.

The importance of an abundance mindset

The importance of having an abundance mindset in business and life means you focus on progress and positivity.

Having a scarcity mindset means you focus on what you don’t have and what you could lose. Having an abundance mindset is about having a mindset that focuses on what is available.

Someone who has an abundance mentality is focused on creativity, innovation, opportunity and creating multipliers in their business and life. They often practice gratitude and focus on the things they have, rather than things they don’t have.

People with an abundance mentality see the world as a place with ever-increasing opportunities to create value and achieve continual personal and business growth. Read more about how to start your own gratitude practice.

Someone with a scarcity mindset believes there is a lot of unfairness in the world, they are blamers, they believe there is only so much of any resource available and believe that resource is shrinking in size.

How do you build an abundance mentality?

If you want to build an abundance mentality focus on maximising your strengths and multiplying your capabilities with other people to create something much bigger.

Creating an abundance mentality allows you to:

• Have the freedom to grow without limitations or restrictions

• See the world as full of opportunities

• Have greater clarity and focus around creating something bigger in the future

• Focus on gratitude despite the circumstances

• Create exponential growth rather than linear growth

• Feel plentiful, creative, and inspired

• Create memorable and meaningful life experiences

7 steps to develop an abundance mindset

Here are 7 steps to develop an abundance mindset that will free up your thinking to make your life happier, more fulfilling and allow you to achieve your biggest goals in business and life.

1. Focus on gratitude to create an abundant life

Grateful people practice proactive gratitude.

There is an appreciation for what they have and are not envious of what others have.

This creates an abundance mindset.

They don’t feel guilty about what they have or what others don’t have.

The key is to focus on being happy with who you are and what you have.

It is all about expanding strengths, expanding your internal gratitude and appreciating the people you have in your life.

If you go into any situation with a proactive gratitude mindset you will always focus on what it great about the situation or people, rather than what is wrong.

Embrace an abundance mindset by focusing on achievements

A simple tool to help you build up your gratitude muscle is to list 3 things you’re grateful for at the end of each day.

Another tool is, before any meeting, think about the things you appreciate about the person before you meet.

You will go into the meeting with a very positive attitude and the person will pick up on that.

Your gratitude will expand the more you express it.

Rather than thinking about what you don’t have, focus on what you do. Appreciate everything you have and abundance will flow in.

2. Surround yourself with people who have an abundance mentality

If you want your life to support your growth and success, it’s essential to build a network of like-minded people.

You need people around you who are also committed to constantly growing and who will appreciate your experiences.

Having people who will push you forward, cheer you on, hold you accountable and be happy for you and your achievements is a key choice you can make.

They can instantly upgrade your thinking, act as collaborators and provide a community that can take you to higher and higher levels.

Find people who are looking to create their own breakthroughs and simply get you.

3. Create an abundant life

Creating a vision of your future through powerful goal setting gives you clarity about what could be possible, your ideal future if you will.

This vision can fill you with enormous excitement and energy.

This vision helps you simplify everything and can remove a lot of complexity you may feel about where your business and life is heading and what action steps to take next.

Your vision will act as a guiding path. Get the ultimate guide to improve your goal setting.

Setting goals creates an abundance mentality

From your vision you can create 12 month goals and then work back and create specific, measurable 90 day goals in all areas of your business and life.

You can envision what your future business and life could look like by writing down your goals.

This helps establish the personal and professional improvements you want to make along the way.

Ensure you are always measuring backwards from where you started, to motivate yourself and ensure that you’re always making progress.

4. Focus on your unique strengths

When you spend more and more time utilising your unique strengths and adding real value to the people that matter in your life and you will feel a real sense of abundance.

You may feel anything is possible. This ensures you become more creative, more energised, and more confident.

From this abundant mindset, you look for multipliers within your own business and life and seek other abundance mindset people to collaborate with.

An abundance mindset increases happiness

This abundance mentality increases your happiness and ensures you are always progressing.

You are constantly moving forward.

This abundance mindset means you seek ways to grow further.

To innovate.

You are always looking for further breakthroughs in both your own life and those of the people that matter to you.

More and more opportunities seem to open up because you have freed yourself up and are spending more time utilising your unique strengths.

5. Do more of what you love

If you look at your business and life what things, activities and people would you like to be freed up from?

How much time are you currently spending doing the things you love and bring you the biggest return?

Conversely, how much time are you spending on low value activities and relationships that drain energy and don’t bring you a lot of joy?

If the answer is quite a lot, then you probably want more time freedom from these activities.

So how can you free yourself up to do more of the things you love? The high value, high joy activities.

Develop a confident mindset

Every 90 days look to remove 3 of the activities you don’t enjoy and drain energy.

Either drop them completely, outsource or delegate.

Look to add 3 activities you love to do and deliver the biggest value.

In 12 months you will have freed yourself up from 12 activities, people or commitments you don’t want to do and added 12 activities or relationships that you love to do and are important to you.

A real Win-Win. Get more tips on how to be more confident.

6. Build a life of abundance thinking

Those with an abundance mindset crave learning and growth. Improving their work life balance is a key focus.

They are looking for new knowledge and wisdom to consume.

There is a focus on improving thinking, and that requires a mind and body at peak performance.

Keys to this include getting a good night’s sleep, exercising regularly eating healthily and finding time to just rest and rejuvenate.

Take days out of your business and life for complete rest and rejuvenation when you can.

This means being completely cut off from all distractions.

You will come back physically and mentally stronger, and have more of an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity mindset.

7. Expand abundance and eliminate scarcity

Rather than trying to improve your perceived weaknesses or skills shortage, instead focus on expanding your existing strengths.

But, do you know what your strengths are?

Have you taken any time to review and assess what you are passionate about and do really well?

In your professional life and personal life you will face a number of challenges so it’s essential to understand:

• What’s the best use of your time?

• How will you add value?

• What things do you do well?

• Which activities can you be paid the most for?

• Who can help you get to your ideal future?

• What are your most important relationships?

If you can maximise your professional and personal strengths what would that mean to your business and life?

How much time could you free up and how much simpler would your life be? Focusing on increasing your productivity is key.

Conclusion

People with an abundance mindset are creators not reactors.

Those with a scarcity mindset wait for things to happen and then react.

People with an abundant mindset are crystal clear on their vision and bigger goals so they know exactly what path to follow and action steps to take.

Those with an abundance mentality are always winning or learning. There is no losing.

They look at what is working and what strengths and opportunities they have. Their focus is on expanding those strengths, rather than trying to improve weaknesses.

You can choose to live a life of abundance where you are always focusing on the positive and are excited about the endless opportunities in your future.

Hopefully these tips will help you expand your own abundance mindset.

Now I’d love to hear from you.

What’s one thing you’ve done that’s helped you create an abundance mindset, and what were the results?

5 Ways to Develop an Attitude of Gratitude

by Mark Pettit | Jun 27, 2020 | Personal Development | 2 comments

5 ways to cultivate an attitude of gratitude by Mark Pettit of Lucemi Consulting

Someone with an attitude of gratitude appreciates everything in life. They are grateful for their relationships, their health, their business, and their overall sense of well-being.

Having an attitude of gratitude is important because it shifts your focus from yourself onto appreciating someone else or something else.

An attitude of gratitude means making it a conscious habit to express thankfulness and appreciation for every part of your life. Having an attitude of gratitude means you operate from a place of abundance, rather than scarcity.

When you cultivate an attitude of gratitude you feel happier, more positive, more compassionate and become more focused on, and grateful for, the people and things that really matter in your life.

Developing an attitude of gratitude ensures you make it a habit to express appreciation and be grateful for the limitless opportunities available in your business and life.

In this article I’m going to share the importance of being grateful and give you five ways on how to develop an attitude of gratitude.

Read also: 7 simple ways to practice gratitude

Being grateful

Gratitude shifts your mindset. Someone who feels and expresses gratitude is thankful for what they have, and doesn’t constantly seek out more things. If you want to develop an attitude of gratitude it requires a shift to making it a daily habit to be grateful for and thankful for everything you appreciate in life.

Having gratitude is important because what you appreciate grows and increases in value. When you practice gratitude for your relationships, your work, your health and your mindset they become more important to you.

Practicing gratitude means that contentment and enjoyment of the things in your life grows. Rather than worrying about what you don’t have, you appreciate what you do have. Being grateful improves your self-confidence, self-esteem and enhances your enjoyment of the present moment.

When you feel grateful daily, you feel more positive and that positivity rubs off on others. Being actively thankful for what you have helps you become more present and more intentional.

Read also: 6 ways to develop a gratitude mindset

What is an attitude of gratitude?

An attitude of gratitude means creating a conscious mindset and habit to express thankfulness, and be grateful for, every aspect of your life, both the things that are going well and the things that aren’t.

When you have an attitude of gratitude you are focused on expanding the positives in your life, rather than dwelling on the negatives.

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.”- Marcus Tullius Cicero

Practicing gratitude means having a conscious focus on everything that is positive and then expressing that gratitude in an active way.

An attitude of gratitude is a regular habit to express appreciation and thankfulness for all parts of your life, big or small. Developing a gratitude mindset means a shift of focus from yourself to the things and people in your life that are important.

When you express gratitude you feel more confident, positive and optimistic. You feel happy and joyful about the things you have, and the people that matter most.

This mindset reduces stress, overwhelm and frustration. You become focused on the positive, not the negative things in your life.

Read also: 7 ways to develop an abundance mindset

Benefits of an attitude of gratitude

Gratitude facilitates appreciation and thankfulness. Practising gratitude is a proven method for increasing satisfaction, self-confidence and positivity. Gratitude enhances feelings of excitement and enthusiasm because you feel more optimistic about the present and future.

The simple act of gratitude on a regular basis, will change your life positively and instantly, if you are active about being grateful.

Expressing gratitude daily can transform your life if you practice intentional gratitude. Having an attitude of gratitude is about choosing to be grateful and choosing to be thankful for what you have and the people that matter.

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits talks in more detail about how gratitude can change your life.

Gratitude is a capability that can be developed if you are actively grateful. Expressing gratitude creates an abundance mindset, rather than a scarcity mindset. Benjamin Hardy goes into more detail about the importance of gratitude to change negative beliefs.

8 benefits of developing an attitude of gratitude include:

Increased self-confidence and self-esteem

Improved feelings of abundance

Better relationships

Increased happiness

Increased productivity

Less stress

Less comparison

More active rather than reactive

Amy Morin goes into more detail on the benefits of gratitude in her article for Forbes.

How to develop an attitude of gratitude

Here are 5 ways to develop an attitude of gratitude:

1. Appreciate everything

If you want to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, actively look for things to appreciate daily. Active gratitude is very different from reactive gratitude.

With reactive gratitude you wait for something to happen before you express appreciation or thanks.

With active gratitude you are consciously looking to be more grateful and express appreciation. Expressing gratitude becomes a choice.

Two things happen here. Firstly, the things and people you appreciate grow in value. Secondly, you start seeing more things to appreciate.

The result is that you experience far more gratitude in your life which increases positivity and happiness. This positivity also draws in people who want to experience similar positivity in their lives.

o Leadership is either "Build or Crush"

o Learning for the day

o Ten Commandments from the Leadership Bible.

o Learning for the day.

o Thought for today

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o Learning Lessons for today.

o Mind this always.

o SUCCESS doesn't come easily.

o Lessons I Draw From Hima Das' Success

o Thought for the day

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o The Inner Core, and the Attitude

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o Keep Upgrading

o Who Likes …

o You Are What You Feel Inside You...

o Reality Check

o Celebrate You

o Be Happy, Be Content

o You are You, Always Be You

o Journey of Transformation

o I U V X Y are interesting alphabets.

o You are You, Always Be You

o What does Efficiency… look like really?"

o Resolve

o Story of a Shark

o Value is everywhere

o Ask…Ask.. Ask..

o Beyond the Ordinary Syndrome

o Pencils, the First Known Keyboard In Life

o We know too much

o Shy of Asking for help!

o We Are Enrolled In A School Called Life

o Being “Me”

Let me begin with this thought

Never ever regret,

especially doing the right thing even to the wrong people,

because being good is more important than just being.

Not everyone will appreciate you,

but, the right people always will,

and remember you for that.

As long as you nourish desires. You are alive

As long as you chase your desires. You are young

The day you start suppressing your desires

You will start feeling old

You will start getting old

The day you free yourself from your desires

You are like dead, because

Everyone, EVERYTIME,

everywhere desires

- to achieve

- to accomplish

- to acquire

- to give

- to be free

- to be comfortable

- to this...to that...

of one or the other kind, and this keeps moving..

So why not you desire that everyone around you succeeds and is happy..

The more you give the more you get...

Happy living...

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.

“Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed.”

“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”

“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.'

Confidence

Some have it in abundance; some think they don't have it at all. For such who don't, it's not lack of ability, inability, or lack of skill. It is just barriers placed on themselves, knowingly or unknowingly. It's arrogance, or ignorance, nothing in between.

Barriers

01. Self-Defeating - assumptions thinking can't, even without attempting, so they just don't even start. If they do, it's filled with doubts.

02. Setting "big or high or distant goals" - mostly false prestige for covering inferior feeling.

03. Declaring "victory" or "loss," too soon. Assuming one were to exercise for reducing weight, just when a few kilos have been lost, they indulge in chocolates, pastries, cakes, cheese and fats, instead of waiting for the whole course. They lose the battle. Using the same experience, after working out for a good time, though not completely, and when results are seen, they give up a little too soon.

04. Do it yourself(ism) has no confidence in others, wants to do it by self, forgetting best results come working together on common goals in a team.

05. Blaming someone else - perennials of perfection, who think they can't, just can't go wrong, and when they do they think it isn't because of them.

06. Defensiveness - unwanted protectionism by others, which makes them assume they are being attacked always, even when being advised.

07. Neglecting to anticipate set-backs is an extension of perfectionism, forgetting set back is a reality. There's no point trying to be positive meaning "blind optimism."

08. Over-Confidence a false mask one wears to hide weakness. It is a sweet spot between "despair" and arrogance.

Beauty has so many forms, and the most beautiful thing is confidence and loving yourself. ...

To have Confidence

Believe in yourself!

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

Cross The Line

Everything is within a "boundary," which means it is a "line."

On the one side there's a greater chance to make good things and become "big."

(Crossing this means risk-taking and that's confidence which courageous do).

And on the other side "there's less or little or no chance."

(Weak minded, comfort zone players don't risk at all)

It's all about the choices we make, to be where we want to be.

Choosing

- to commit

- to be determined

- to work hard

- to focus

- to anticipate set backs

- to bounce back

When things go tough, increase confidence.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

Knowing these few things be at your confident best always.

Three Rules if observed, can help a great deal.

i. Sometimes the best response is not to offer one.

ii. Not all opportunities are meant to be taken, some may be a trap.

iii. Someone's eagerness and greed may be so much that they can you to partner them. It destroys them and if you fall to their temptation, you fall as well.

As a materialistic society, in which we live today, we have fixed metrics for success that is based on external indicators which aren't a true indicator of real success or happiness.

Don't be impressed by

- Money

- Degrees

- Job Title

- Connections

Things that really matter in life doesn't come with a price tag.

FOCUS ON THESE … For instance

… Be impressed by

- Kindness

- Integrity

- Humility

- Generosity

Mirroring An Experience

1. Forming and influencing opinions - In every relationship, we get into be it business or personal, we need to go with our eyes open and willing to see people for who they are, not who what others say they are or who we are or what others say we are. Forming our own opinions, can be judgmental, and most are guilty of this.

2. Not encourage commitment, but seeking compliance - Any management can achieve compliance from those they employ, which means it is merely getting people to do what they’ve been hired for. But when leaders lead their people to truly commit to their work, they get more out of them because they want to, not because they have to. When lead in this fashion naturally more will be committed to the cause, and so get engaged fully.

3. Fond of the position and the chair - At some point in their career most seek positions, get fond of the chair in their cabins and because of the power given to them, they would want others to come to them for almost everything, approvals and sanctions are just small components of the responsibility. On the contrary best leaders and managers are those who mostly MBWA (Manage By Wandering Around). In fact, in the armed forces it is said the best officer is one who is with the soldiers in the trench.

4. Not getting to know the people we are working with - There can be many reasons for this including our “ego” or assumptions about ourselves (created or cultivate), hence would be mostly self-centred. This doesn’t help the cause for any leader, because staying close to the people who are serving for a cause or work in the organization, are the one’s who we need to get to know more intimately

5. Taking decisions without knowing it’s impact or keeping people’s feelings in mind - Most failures of well-conceived plans get poorly implemented because of the arm-chair decision making process.

6. Not acknowledging others success nor celebrate - A true leader is one who may be the author of the entire content of the plan or the strategy. Gaining the right commitment and a consensus buy-in, with everyone participating in the process and feeling consulted. Projects of this nature will definitely meet success, and they need to be celebrated.

7. Feedback not asked - Most people would tend to be diplomatic naturally wanting to avoid conflict, so most won’t tell the leadership and the management what they really think, unless they are asked for an honest free feedback, and that which will not be taken on them or misconstrued.

8. Expecting people will do the right thing always - Having systems, processes, procedures in place is one thing, which majority of businesses will claim on paper, but hardly prevalent on the ground. Should everything go fine, it’ll seem great, but when things go wrong the “blame game,” starts. I’m right, you are wrong.

9. Not inspiring enough, leave aside greatness - Organizations can demand the backs and hands of employees because they have been hired, and perhaps the employees feel secure because they have a job which helps them and their family, but they will volunteer their hearts and minds only when inspired. Great leaders have the ability to tap into the latent talents and energies of people in a way that unleashes discretionary effort. In this way, organizations can move past mediocrity and towards greatness.

10. Not aligning passion with purpose - Not many of us can claim to have a job that we are passionate about. Passion in one thing and doing something for a living is another altogether. If one can align his/her passion with his/her purpose, you will find fulfilment in whatever they choose to do in life. When a job starts to feel like a ‘job’ one ought to evaluate whether or not they feel they’ve aligned with their ‘purpose’ in life. Not having alignment with our purpose affects who we are as a person and a professional.”

11. Not embracing discomfort - At some time or the other we all will have to undertake activities or encounter situations that we don’t enjoy. And because we don’t like that we tend to avoid as we’re scared or feel uncomfortable. Real growth however, is to take on those activities first, or encounter such situation with gusto. The sooner we embraced is comfort the more we will triumph and gain in confidence.”

12. Not being real - There’s a lot of make belief in our life. Very few express themselves exactly the way they are. Being authentic and to be accessible would be a phenomenal advertisement of a great leader.

13. Not be yourself - We have all been made to be natural and what we are meant to be, but most people tend to copy other people by their style, their appearance, by their mannerisms, their thoughts, their sayings, their ideology. Honestly we can’t really copy anyone else’s style effectively, no matter how much we look up to him or her, instead, we need to be trendy and make others want to follow us or be like us, though it isn’t really recommended. We need to be unique.

14. Being rigid, inflexible and not knowing when change is needed - It’s very common for people to have a mind-set, or come with an ideology that has had an impression upon them, which can go as far as their childhood. Such people may also believe, what they say or do is the right thing. They may even begin to preach their learning, without even realizing they may be wrong or they need to change. Extreme step would be, ‘sometimes the only way to change people is to change the people.’

15. Not being honest - One important aspect of a genuine leader is to be honest. If the leader has to deliver a tough message, it is best to be honest and truthful. This is understood, leaders will be highly trusted and appreciated

16. Not showing enough gratitude - Most bosses fail here. One ought to never underestimate the importance of the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. By using them good leaders demonstrate a level of respect that people desire and appreciate, and that too can help build trust.”

17. Not being sensitivity - Being honest and candid is one thing, but what is very important is to still maintaining the others’ self-esteem.

18. Not conquering enough. - Everyone around us has their experiences too. Good leaders are one’s who take others’ experiences too. They add good one’s to their experience, and learn from the other’s mistakes as to how not to repeat them or make them.

19. Not planning for future prosperity of either their or the others - The best way to turn any leadership example into action is to make it official.

A Bird In The Hand

Many years ago, in ancient China, the disciples of a wise master decided to play a trick on him. They selected one of their number to pose an unanswerable question.

The youth approached the master. “Wise master, in my hand I have a bird. Can you tell me if it is alive or dead?”

The master thought for a moment. If he replied “alive”, the youth would crush the bird and prove him wrong. If he said “dead”, then he would release the bird and let it fly away.

Clearly, the apprentices couldn’t lose and the master couldn’t win.

“Certainly,” the master replied after barely a moment’s thought. “The life of the bird is in your hands.”

Moral: When you manage others, you can always do one of two things: "grind them to death or inspire them to life."

Leadership is either "Build or Crush"

Leadership is a rich subject. Google and you’ll get countless sites opening to leadership of all sorts from concepts and techniques to the way leaders are and the way they have shaped themselves. All of it available at our fingertips.

We all tend to have fundamental ideas about leadership we learned from what we read and from others who are leaders in our lives. We often unwittingly generalize leadership fundamentals from our experiences and behavior we learned from other leaders. From these ideas we build our unique mental model of leadership.

Eventually, all leaders find situations where their mental model of leadership fails. I submit such times should invoke in us careful inspection of our leadership model. But who has time for that, and how does one do that anyway?

Unfortunately, doing so isn’t naturally intuitive so we may have to think a little deeper and be a little more persistent in the process.

You the Person

The first leadership fundamentals are about you, the person. We all can argue to any length, but, all other leadership fundamentals hinge on how well leaders master this category.

There are three of you to be concerned with:

1. The you that is within you – whom you feel you ought to be.

2. The other you is who you actually are and you are aware of. These two of you aren’t always the same.

3. The third you, which is who others see and whom you might not be aware of. The third you can differ significantly from the first two because the third you is what others interpret from your behavior and words

Getting the first two of you in sync with each other is probably your most important and ongoing objective, and it starts with being honest with yourself. This is contrary to one tendency in our nature, which is to rationalize away criticism from the most important critic, you. When we rationalize we tend to blame others and/or the situation to cast off accountability and responsibility for change.

When we look at leaders from successful businesses as well as successful societies, those who demonstrate the best leadership skills are those who bring the best out of others. They get people to realize their potential. They make others think they are great. They build the most precious resource of all: the people they lead.

Here are 3 ways of building people.

1. Building People by Sowing Good Habits

The Greek philosopher Aristotle said that excellence wasn't something you arrived at after a long period of preparation but a habit. Excellence is the result of doing things in an outstanding way repeatedly. In poorly-led organizations, excellence is rare because there is nobody to set the habit example and encourage regular acts of outstanding performance. In well-led organizations, leaders coach people through regular, unremitting, and positive attention to good habits.

2. Building People by Your Expectations of Them

A team does as well as you and the team think they will. In an experiment at a British school, teachers were given assorted ratings about a new set of intakes, ranging from "excellent prospect" to "unlikely to do well". These ratings were arbitrary and bore no relation to the pupils' true abilities. In tests at the end of the year, there was an astonishing degree of correlation between how pupils performed and the random ratings given to the teachers.

3. Building People to Create the Vision

One popular image of the successful leader is the person who, by force of willpower and personality takes over an ailing enterprise and magically turns it around, transforming failure into success, loss into profit and disaster into triumph. The reality is that there are very few examples of such leadership. And yet there are many examples of leaders who come into an enterprise, set themselves and their teams a vision of what is possible and then bit by bit, through hard times and good, build towards the vision.

The one thing that distinguishes leaders from managers is that leaders know that people cannot be measured like a raw material on the balance sheet. Great leaders know that, when called upon, people will respond to the needs of the enterprise. And they do that by building people.

Let me close this narrating a small tale to emphasize the fact that Leaders will either “crush” or “build” people around them. It all depends on how they are nurtured and grown to be what they become.

Learning for the day

Leadership - what it means, and what does it take to become one great leader.

Everyone wants to become a leader in whichever role they play, isn't it?

However to being or to become a leader isn't as easy as peeling an orange or a banana and consuming it. And to being or becoming a great leader is all the more tougher, difficult and challenging.

Whoever wants to lead, motivate or support his/her tribe, always falls short. That doesn't mean one can't ever. It just means one needs to put in some more extra effort persistently and very sincerely too.

Here below, I share some tips based on my own empherical evidences in various contexts having worked almost all my life with leaders in various capacities.

Ten Commandments from the Leadership Bible.

A. Self-Awareness

B. Having a very clear and well-articulated vision/purpose.

C. Aspiration to inspire.

D. Never give up.

E. Share appreciation and credits with others.

F. Make others win.

G. Shift from demand, command to persuasion.

H. Humility and authenticity to build healthy and lasting relationships.

I. Honesty, purity, unselfishness, love and integrity.

J. Build genuine trust and togetherness morally/ethically.

Just remember this :

Encouragement and appreciation from a leader has the potential to inspire anyone to reach their potential.

Learning for the day.

There's nothing called "good," or "bad," it's an individual’s perception and definition.

We all have strengths, which far outweigh our weaknesses.

Let's explore Strengths

- Physical strengths.

Most of us are endowed with this. Helps us keep our energy levels and keep us sustained, high because of stamina and better because of endurance.

- Economic Strength

If anyone said, "money," isn't important in life, he'd be a fool or a reckless "billionaire."

Most of us have enough to basically make a decent living - Food, Clothing, Shelter, Fun, Savings, Investments, Essential affordables. We need to make the best of all our resources by adding or reducing depending upon the situation in life.

- Mental Strength

This is vital because it helps us overcome our shortcomings and setbacks. Bruce Lee for instance was known to have one leg shorter than the other. Apart from building his martial arts ability he practiced lethal kick shots at the rate of 5000 shots a day to become a master of his game.

- Emotional Strength

It means to love and build trust. Else how can we explain how couple these days make adjustments in their careers with their schedules, travel, meetings, deadlines etc., that explains love. Why we would go to meet our doctor if we are unwell, that explains trust.

-Spiritual Strength

Anything that helps you lift your spirits. For instance never letting your Integrity, down or being Honest, in thought, word, or deed and that too consistently.

Having these strengths will serve well in life. What with several survey's saying more than 50% of the jobs that exist today will be gone, if not reduced. What one would need to do is to anticipate "changes," for survival, remembering that "changes are constant".

To facilitate growth,

we need to

- master a few skills

- master the changes

- master the content

- master the constant.

- People Skills

No one will disagree that for any organization to be profitable and to succeed people are the assets while other things are vulnerable to be liable. Most of the leading companies invest huge amounts of money not just in growing business but they also do enough to build trust, empowering them and placing accountability on their people.

Several research studies conclude that doing so builds engaged and committed people in organizations. Some studies go on to add that organizations do not suffer because of business problems, they suffer because of people problems, both inside and outside the organization.

Persuading Skills

To do anything worthwhile, be it in business or life, we have to have the ability to persuade, so we need to develop the art of influencing and the art of selling our thoughts for action.

Prioritizing Skills

In very simple, plain terms this means our ability to distinguish the difference between "URGENT," and "IMPORTANT," things.

Isn't it true that it is always RESULTS, that are awarded, not EFFORTS, which is a default expectation that best may be appreciated at best.

Interpersonal Skills

The people with whom you work reflect your own attitude.

The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the man you want to be. Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others. It is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares about who gets the credit.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again. Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.

Thought for today

There are 3C's which play a big role in our life.

They are CHOICES, CHANCES, and CHANGES.

The world we live today offers us a variety of CHOICES, that can confuse us.

Be wise and evaluate the CHOICES weighing all the pros and cons. Then take your CHANCES take risks, challenging your cocooned comfort zones, so that you can make the CHANGES that are needed, for there's no progress without a CHANGE. Remember to be flexible and open-minded, for what you CHANGE to will have to undergo a CHANGE sooner or later.

Yet another learning...

CHANGE, being an INEVITABLE CONSTANT, you will be well advised to TAILOR, your future accordingly.

See here below what TAILOR, means when expanded.

Train for new skills constantly.

Acknowledge emergence of laser sharp technologies, new thoughts,

appreciate and accept, realities, and be

Interested in learning new things outside your areas of expertise,

industry, domains and interest.

Learn, unlearn, relearn continuously and learn to apply learning putting

it to practice.

Organize your thoughts, words, deeds, action so that it enhances both

professional and personal life. Just ensure you maintain a

balance between both.

Recall, reinforce everything you learn. Respect people around you as

you can't succeed being a loner. Re-engineer your life. Acquire

as much Emotional Intelligence, as you can.

Your future revolves, around these factors.

As for progressing, in your future, be it your career or your life, develop ANALYTICAL EXCELLENCE and PEOPLE EXCELLENCE, it will serve you well in every environment you'll prevail in.

A Thought on Self-Awareness

As for me

I love where I stand today in life...

01. Old enough to learn more about

Things I can control

i. My behaviour,

ii. My goals

iii. My efforts

iv. My learning from mistakes (mine and others)

v. Taking care of myself and my emotions

vi. Choosing who my friends ougt to be

vii. Things outside my Control

viii. What others say

ix. What others think

x. What others say about themselves and others

xi. What others say about me

xii. Others being kind

xiii. My past mistakes

xiv. The weather

02. Young enough to be curious

No matter how many ever times the teeth bites the tongue, the remain together, work together, because they know the purpose of their creation. They show us a simple principle of life - the spirit of forgiveness and relationship.

03. Experienced enough to share, accept, appreciate and wanting to be the change, as all changes in life start with us.

The most precious "gift," we can offer anyone is our "attention."

When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will all blossom into flowers.

i. Be Organized

ii. Be Assertive

iii. Mix Aggression with Defence

iv. Make Good Use of Limited Opportunities

v. Don't be Nervous or too Anxious

vi. Keep Persisting

vii. Create Openings

viii. Be Excited, but let it be subdued

ix. Take things moment by moment, don't rush and end in chaos

x. Get Results

Learning Lessons for today.

These are lessons I drew watching the FIFA World Cup Semi-finals last night between France and Belgium @ St. Pietersburg, Russia.

To begin with no one gave France a chance against this strong and emerging Belgium, because of their strategy, speed and firepower in the striking positions.

France on the other hand came into this match after they demolished Uruguay with their well-organized efforts of passes, defence and attack. They had nothing to lose being labelled underdogs.

After the kick-off, if one were to sum up the game overall -

Statistics

a. Ball possession - Belgium 64% - France 36%.

b. Passes Completed - Belgium 593 - France 374.

c. Shots on Goals - Belgium 6 - France 16

d. Goals Scored - Belgium 0 - France 1

e. Final Result - France beat Belgium in the semi-finals to enter the

final for the first time after 2006.

France was a more organized team which showed character and temperament, never getting too anxious, persisted enough, never lost either confidence or patience when defending, asserted itself with fine sustained aggression, created more opportunities of fewer resources (percentage of ball possession), yet made the best use of it and got the result they wanted, a victory over Belgium to claim a berth in the finals.

It was just a one degree difference between France being the champion side as compared to Belgium.

Self-doubt can be a troubling and persuasive voice that holds you back.

It holds you back from seizing your opportunities. It makes getting started or finishing things harder than they need to be. Sure, it can sometimes be useful as it helps you to soberly see your current limitations or simply recognize a half-baked or bad idea. But mostly, it holds you back in life.

It is like this favourite analogy of mine...

At 211° water begins to boil. At 212° boiling water becomes steam which powers a locomotive. It is just that 1° that makes all the difference.

Most people in the world work hard till 211° and give up. That's when they end up being mediocre. The 212° are the champions like the many we know in every field.

Mind this always.

We must keep our eyes and ears open and be open to continuous learning.

We enter a career with a set of learning, which, if it has to be practical and applicable, one will have to unlearn and the relearn.

To be up the curve, to remain competitive, to remain relevant, this thing of - Learn - Unlearn - Relearn, should become a life-long habit and goal.

SUCCESS doesn't come easily.

See the future, and you there

Understand the challenges completely

Create a visual path

Clear your mind from self-doubt

Stay on track

Show the world you can do it.

i. AIRBNB didn't kill BLOCKBUSTER

o Ridiculous late fee did.

ii. UBER didn't kill TAXI business

o Limited access and fare control did.

iii. APPLE didn't kill the MUSIC industry

o Being forced to buy full length albums did.

iv. AMAZON didn't kill the RETAILERS

o Poor customer service and experience did.

v. AIRBNB isn't killing the HOTEL industry

o Limited availability and pricing options are.

TECHNOLOGY by itself isn't the disruptor, but, not being customers centric is the biggest threat to any business.

Mind this...

Lessons I Draw From Hima Das' Success

01. Your past doesn't matter, your background doesn't matter. Don't make it an excuse even to try, leave alone not winning.

02. Everything is possible with determination, discipline, dedication and focussed hard-work.

03. Dream things that are way beyond your reach, and make it possible keeping the "big picture," in mind always.

04. Don't run after glory or gold, just run after time.

05. Be humble and remain humble always.

Thought for the day

Let's be honest and let's agree, we as humans are vulnerable and that all of us have some FEAR or the other that grips us and holds us back from going forward.

If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. ...

Don't let fear or insecurity stop you from trying new things. ...

I've learned that fear limits you and your vision.

The FEAR most are gripped with are

- FEAR of being JUDGED

- FEAR of being RIDICULED

- FEAR of being CRITICIZED

- FEAR of being EVAULATED

- FEAR of INSECURITY (economic, mental or physical)

- FEAR of LONELINESS

- FEAR of UNDER PERFORMANCE

...the list can go on endlessly.

Running away from FEAR, is lack of confidence and belief in self. It just doesn't take us anywhere.

To get rid of FEAR is to take it head on and encounter it.

FAILURE or SUCCESS, doesn't matter.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. ...

Your taking an action to overcome your FEAR, is what gets APPRECIATED.

Sun Tzu, the author of THE ART OF WAR says, "One has won or lost a battle in the mind, much before it began."

You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.

Now that you know FEAR is with you and that too in your MIND, make up your MIND, by committing yourself completely with all the will and determination you can summon. FEAR, will melt.

Learning's from Guru's

Dedicated to all Guru's, Coaches, Mentors Teachers, Advisers and Counsellors... See a mistake, as a mistake not as yours or mine, for mine brings guilt and yours brings anger only realization brings improvement.

What's POISON?

Anything which is more than our need, could be anything power, wealth, hunger, greed, laziness, pride, anger, ambition, love or hate...!

As said by Hippocrates, “everything in excess is opposed to nature” and there is a lot of truth in his saying. Nothing in excess is good. For example, if you have money in excess then you turn into a spendthrift and never understand the struggle of a pauper.

What's FEAR?

Non-acceptance of uncertainty, which is truly, inevitable...

When we accept this reality, life becomes an adventure.

Success comes not from having certainty, but being able to live with uncertainty. Fear is caused by the uncertainty of the future.

What's ANGER?

Non-acceptance of things beyond our control. When we accept this truth, it becomes tolerance. For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. Every day we have plenty of opportunities to get angry, stressed or offended. Speak when you are angry - and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.

You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.

What's HATRED?

Non-acceptance of a person or thing, for who he/she is or it is.

When we accept people or things unconditionally, it becomes love. Our lack of forgiveness makes us hate, and our lack of compassion makes us hard-hearted. Pride in our hearts makes us resentful and keeps our memory in a constant whirlwind of passion and self-pity. We may not know what each day has in store for us. We could be gone tomorrow. Any minute could truly be our goodbye. But we do have this moment. This time. Today. Right now. It takes way more effort to shell out hate then it does to allow love to flow freely in our lives. After all, it's what we were born to do.

The Inner Core, and the Attitude

Cheers!

The world has many qualified, smart, skilful people who made it big, real big in life, so big that they head positions of CEO's of large organizations, hold positions in world organizations, governments etc., and some even go to become great business people.

There will be articles, news, books on them, and or books they've authored.

Their accomplishments, their achievements, their wealth, their stature are there for all to see. All of this will give us great lessons on how to become successful, and indeed these will be the lessons taught in "B Schools," too.

Business will award them, governments would award them, praises will be sung on them and they can easily become role-models for young to follow and perhaps emulate.

All of this is fine indeed, but, the biggest and the truest learning for us would come, if ever any one were to be asked "Which is the biggest failure you met, or encountered in life, how did you overcome it and what's the lesson you learnt, from it?"

We all know how to carry ourselves when we succeed, but, very few will have the capacity of falling from their glory, failing in what they do, and then rise, to gain everything the lost.

That is the one question that can spell out their "inner strengths," their "inner core," and their character. Just a very few people during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them.

There are deep wells of strength that are never used. A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.”

Above all these characteristics what will be revealing of that person is what their "attitude," of self and how they dealt with other, in good times and also in those troubled times. No matter what kind of challenges or difficulties or painful situations you go through in your life, we all have something deep within us that we can reach down and find the inner strength to get through them. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one. A positive attitude can really make dreams come true. Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.

Fundamental Focus

Technologies are advancing at the speed of light and to keep pace we all are hastening to learn new skills.

We can get ahead, in all aspects of life because, the belief is our fundamentals are built of universal, pragmatic, logical and timeless principles.

From

Accounting to Astrophysics,

Blooms to Bombs,

Computer Programming to Construction,

Education to Engineering,

Fishing to Fire Fighting,

Rock Climbing to Rocket Science

Raising Kids to Raising Capital,

all of this consist of fundamental principles of which each and every

fundamental counts.

Succeeding therefore is a natural consequence of consistently applying the basics - they are fundamentals.

As much as foundations anchor a house or a multi-storey to the earth, or the roots of a tree going deep down into the earth holding it up to stand tall and grow as much as holding it down to stay rooted.

A well-constructed rock solid foundation will last not just one life time but several life times, whereas a poor one is always unstable and threatening.

These firm foundation principles applies to every aspect of our lives too.

Like everything of quality is used for durability, constructed carefully, patiently, lovingly to ensure a proper end result, so it is in real life too.

There's nothing new under the sun.

Fundamentals are the same for all.

The fundamentals of investing in,

accounting,

raising kids,

science,

mathematics,

physics,

chemistry,

biology,

zoology,

sociology,

are still the same.

How we take care to build them fundamentally to make it count makes the difference.

How some get ahead of others is the amount of time spent and care given to build it.

No point comparing, best thing to do would be to see how others do it and learn.

1. Fundamentals come first

2. Fundamentals are simple

3. Fundamentals require patience

4. Fundamentals must be mastered

5. Fundamentals require patience

6. Fundamentals are universal

7. Fundamentals never change.

In times of high uncertainty, professionals should understand they must be focussed on the key fundamentals, which shape their careers and business landscapes at large.

The same applies to us individuals too, hence one must never choose fad over fundamentals.

Fundamentals are really basic, and may not seem all that important, are because of the proven fact that everything else can be built on strong foundations - Fundamentals.

I repeat, never choose fad over fundamentals.

Life become so much good when we have our fundamentals built on

CHIPS -

Character

Honesty

Integrity

Purpose, and

Sincerity.

Developing a true and solid character and finding unique traits that belong to only you is a foundational thing. Humility is the fundamental principle that builds up greatness. Arrogance on the other hand never brings anything good. When you are humble, you’ll learn to become better.

The fundamental tragedy about life is that those who possess it often are not aware of its value.

Ultimate Utilization of Resources

This is a story from Buddha.

One day a young man came to Buddha and told him "My robes have become old, I need a new one."

Buddha saw it was very old so he asked one of his disciple to give him a new one.

The young man got it, wore and went to Buddha to show it to him.

Buddha said "Good. And ok, tell me what did you do with the old one?"

Young Man : "I used it as a bed spread!"

Buddha : "Then what did you do with the old bed sheet?"

Young Man : "I used it as a window curtain!"

Buddha : "Then what did you do with the old window curtain?"

Young Man : "I used it for wiping the floor!"

Buddha : "Then what did you use the old floor wiping cloth?"

Young Man : "I used it for wiping the kitchen table top!"

Buddha : "Then what did you do with the old kitchen table wiping cloth?"

Young Man, "I used them as wigs for burning my oil lamp at night!"

Buddha was very happy hearing what the young man and said, "You've taught all of us a great lesson on how to use resources well, thank you."

This indeed is a great lesson for all of us too as to how we can use and reuse resources, especially in a world we live today where many resources are getting scarce.

It also offers a great lesson to employers too as to how they can use resources well as there's value in everything.

From The Womb To The Tomb....

...it is a long journey.

The arrival of a child is heard by the loud shrieks of cry...perhaps the only time the mother laughs with joy...after that her all her attention, love and care is to make that little being, a human.

It is the same story from Biblical times to now, and will be the same,

I guess, in the far future too. Fathers play the role of the provider, pouring his love too. Some who go with all the goodness fed by the mother for the body and the mind, grow to become humans with love, care, values and earn the respect of every one they meet up with.

There are the other some grow up and just let their life pass through, minding their own business to finally end up as just human beings.

The world has large numbers of such people.

Some more just go a stray from the beginning being rigid, not caring for anyone, falling into bad company and so their life goes, into some much dark days, that no one would want to even remember they too were a life on the planet.

What is not uncommon is circumstances in everyone one’s life that makes all human beings.

Some despite all odds become valuable, majority others become tolerable, and a minority absolutely intolerable. So, it takes a lot many people to make this world. What remains constant is the love, care and kindness of the mother, be it a queen or even a poor refugee.

Our earth is much like the mothers. She keeps giving her bountiful goodness to everyone alike, despite the mauling she is subjected to. She takes them all patiently, with the hope that her children will realize their mistakes, else someday she will show us what she is, after which none of us will live to breath even to say, "Once upon a time...this was. A..."

That's the story of this world, Womb to Tomb.

It's for us to live life in a way that our parents will feel proud. After them let our tombstones be inscribed with sparkling words about the human who lived honourably. Let it remind our children, grandchildren and the generations to come know what it means to be a good loving and caring human.

A lesson…

…I was taught very early.

Be decisive - right or wrong doesn't matter. In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

If it is right, it can be passed off and you may not be even appreciated. However, some decisions may really be hailed to the skies.

On the other hand, if your decision is wrong, you can be criticized by not just one but many. It can agitate us and can be demoralizing too. The gain will be it is a great learning, a gain in experience and also helps build the inner you with resolve. The other aspect would be you go trace back a review how you made that decision and why it went wrong. Doing this will help your analytical skills too. Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.

Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. Being decisive helps build your confidence.

Next learning do not say "Yes," always or for everything, nor say "No," to everything. Saying "Yes," you surrender your self-esteem and saying "No," you present a negative image.

Let me take this as an example.

A plastic bag is made without it's permission.

Gets sold and used and it has no decision power too.

Has to go wherever it is offered.

Gets used, gets thrown.

Lies on the road, flies when wind blows, or when a car or some vehicle passes by.

It just gets tossed, and tossed.

I have seen many "plastic bags," (in context with my narration), in both my professional and "personal" live too.

Taking this analogy back here, just sit down and ponder within yourself - Are you a plastic bag?

If you are not, then become more decisive ! Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made, nothing happens…. Decision is the courageous facing of issues, knowing that if they are not faced, problems will remain forever unanswered.

It all begins...and ends...

…with self and ends with self.

Ever wondered, why some people seem to have made it all, while some drift away?

What's the difference between such people, leaders and the rest of us, who lead mundane, routine and ordinary lives?

There's no secret.

Such people learn early in life to be curious, learn to be knowledgeable, realizing they are vulnerable, work towards working on their weaknesses, have no limiting beliefs to hold them back, adopt positive behaviour and habits that help them become productive, get promoted in their work.

Such people invest in :

Self-discipline is THE starting point of all great achievements. It has been referenced time and time again by those who have accomplished much and have achieved great success.

Self-discipline, is one of the keys to living to your full potential. If you can be disciplined with your daily actions you can achieve anything that you set your mind to.

Self-discipline; the real ‘secret’ to success. If ever there were a true magical ingredient to achieve success, self-discipline would be it.

Self-Discipline that helps them gain greater self-esteem, self-respect, and power.

Self-Discipline is the key to stronger self-confidence, that leads to higher and greater achievements in various walks of life.

Discipline is

- Clear thinking

- Daily Goal Setting

- Daily Time Management

- Excellent health habits

- Regular Savings and Investment

- Hard Work

- Continues Learning

- Continuous Improvement

- Persistence.

All this observed, one must be consistently authentic in whatever they say or do.

Friendship...

…and we are networked..

“The strong bond of friendship is not always a balanced equation; friendship is not always about giving and taking in equal shares. Instead, friendship is grounded in a feeling that you know exactly who will be there for you when you need something, no matter what or when”.
Simon Sinek.

It is ECLAIR time.

Express engaging

Collect and collate

Learn without limits

Accept and adapt

Ignite an interest

Respect each other and to relearn

Knowledge may come in small packets, but, the wisdom that gets aggregated is beyond words to explain.

So ENGAGE purposefully...

Explore

Navigate

Gravitate

Articulate

Gratify

Emerge

larger than you ever were.

It is up to each of us to become what we want.

You'll benefit from needs more than your desire.

· A desire is whatever you want at the present time. Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything. In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. The most basic human desire is to feel like you belong.

A need is something that serves your long-term being. After nourishment, shelter and companionship, The world says: "You have other needs satisfy them, too. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today.

What makes an employee stay?

If you don't know what you want, you'll never find it.

If you don't know what you deserve, you'll always settle for less. You will wander aimlessly, uncomfortably numb in your comfort zone, wondering how life has ended up here. One thing many would say is pay, benefits and perks.

Understandable. They'll feel comfortable with, given the pressures, be it at work, home or in the society.

Being an environment that "micromanages, scrutinizes or judges," giving them more or less will just not help save the environment from toxicity.

So, while money is needed and is important, it is equally important that they work in a very encouraging and congenial environment.

If it makes them feel wanted, secured, heard, cared for, made to feel comfortable, offer them enough peace of mind, then half the battle for retaining them is won.

This done to engage them fruitfully for a longer period then planning to and training them adequately enough to handle future responsibilities will do well.

With good mangers to mentor and guide them, things begin you blossom.

The employee not just grows professionally capable but also gains more confidence to accept more responsibilities as an understudy.

With a little experience their self-belief increases and so does their trust on the company, it's leadership, management style, policy, relationship with colleagues, etc., begin to make them stay to become more accountable to all stakeholders, not just for their development, but, also of others thereby adding value to the company's intellectual base.

At this stage pay, perks and benefits, are a given, but people don't get stuck nor get bogged down because of pay, benefits, perks, etc.

Company's flourish if only all these things are made to happen. It isn't a one time effort it is an on-going process. This is how companies succeed and this how people get recognized by the world outside.

A bit of advise to those who leave : Burning bridges behind you is understandable. It's the bridges before us that we burn, not realizing we may need to cross, that brings regret.

From Concept to Sale…

…Everything starts with

Don't watch the clock; do what it does.

IT -> I Think

01. Think IT

02. Dream IT

03. Ideate IT

04. Search IT

05. Create IT

06. Find IT

07. Explore IT

08. Live IT

09. Own IT

10. Love IT

11. Plan IT

12. Act IT

13. Drive IT

14. Work IT

15. Make IT

16. Apply IT

17. Realize IT

18. Adopt IT

19. Tell IT

20. Sell IT

What we dwell on is who we become. Always do your best. Beware of monotony though as it's the mother of all deadly sins. Become the person who would attract the results you seek. We humans have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another. And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives.

When you complete the process go back to the board, and start all over again.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. It isn't necessary that you have only one thing to work on. There are multiple things you can think about at the same time and can work parallelly on. The more you take up and the more you accomplish, the more you'll gain in experience and in confidence too. We learn from the mistakes of others too. The secret of getting ahead is getting started. Quality performance starts with a positive attitude. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Meditation is to be "focussed, in the "moment."

We are all aware of the Indian tradition of leaving our footwear at the door, whenever, we enter a house, as an inmate, or as a guest don't we?

It is a ritual, some still practice; some may have given this up long ago.

The point am trying to make isn't that at all.

You can always tell the level of consciousness, by the way people leave their shoes at the doorstep.

You may argue, heaven is not gained or lost, by dramatic deeds, but, by the little acts of daily living.

I can recall a Zen maxim that states, "If you can serve a cup of tea correctly, you can do anything," meaning that we can use any mundane act as a meditation to create harmony and beauty. This is just an example.

Here are some more, for instance,

- depositing the keys in a marked place,

- a pencil and paper to write down messages

- post-it's to remind us of what to buy when we are out to the store next time,

- the way we peel an orange or the banana,

- the way we eat an apple,

- the way we eat our food, and

- the many routine things we do during the course of a day, even if it is by a habit, we can make our life a work of art by being 100% present in the moment paying attention to all those little details of daily living.

You might laugh at what I am saying, and be it so, but, these small acts are for me are tiny acts of "meditation."

Let everything be a dance in which we create a poise and grace.

It is the highest game there is.

We've all heard and know that tiny drops of water make a mighty ocean. Our life is built one moment after another to make it a life story - yours, mine and everyone's. It has been the same from "old stone age," to now, there's been no change at all, it is "moments, moments, moments..."

So to make our life more meaningful and purposeful, all that we need to do is to learn to become the "master of the moment," nothing more nothing less. It is as simple as that.

To Do or Not To Do...

"To be or not to be.." is the opening phrase of a sol quay spoken by Prince Hamlet in the so called "Nunnery Scene" of William Shakespeare's Play Hamlet. He was talking about "death," and "deep sleep," being the same.

You can get the context reading the script here below, because "Shakespeare's Prince Hamlet," is not the focus of my script this morning.

To Do or Not To Do.

That's the question, or if you may choose, that's not the question.

We wake up every morning full of hope, solid ideas, and may be perfect plans or may be not so perfect plans.

And, we stall them.

Our "to-do," list gains priority.

We start giving "Excuses," "Justify," or we pamper our "Lack of Seriousness," or whatever..

- We blame time, or lack of it.

- We await readiness or motivation, or both.

- We immediately promise to do it some other time, hence

postpone, what we can.

- We rationalize about tomorrow being better.

- We make assumptions about what it takes to be good

enough.

- We accommodate doubts, uncertainty to gain control.

- We wait. As if we know what's our time on the planet.

- We forget every opportunity unrealized hinged on a thing

we decided not to do.

This takes me back to "Prince Hamlet"

- To Be or Not To Be ("dead or deep sleep). To Do or Not To Do is just the same.

If we are alive and awake.. We must commit to take action when we can, while we can, because we can.

Pause for a moment think about what you are putting off, what you are postponing, and how it can affect your future. You will get your answers. Acting or not is left to you. The result will be Joy, or Regret, all of it is in your hands.

Life and Time

Life and Time, are the best Teachers.

Life teaches us the way to Value Time, and Time, teaches us the Value of Life.

All that all of us have equally are Time, and Life, how good we get them to work together is what makes the difference, not just for us, but, even for those we are connected with.

Travel, And You Will Be In Love With People And Life. Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.

Continents, we know

AFRICA -> is for "SOUL"

ASIA -> is for "SPIRIT"

AMERICA -> is for "MIND"

EUROPE -> is for "CULTURE"

AUSTRALIA (NEW ZEALAND, OCEANIA included) ->

is for "ADVENTURE"

Let me elaborate....

01. AFRICA -> SOUL

We all believe that we have "Souls," but, we hardly ever do any Soul Searching. It is believed to be Dark but has "Light," within, and will Live, forever.

Africa, is called a "Dark Continent," (wondering really why it is called so, except that it could be a racial bias skin colour), not many go there. At least, not on their travel plan as choice No. 1.

The fact is, there's more "Life," because of nature's bountiful gifts of all sorts. That’s something, for every living being on the planet, to be proud of.

The "Soul," in whomever it resides is "Simple and Loveable."

02. ASIA -> is Spirited and Spiritual, in its own unique way, " distinctly different," but, not too "dissimilar," because of all it's "emotional people." Very competitive, to the extent that each pulls the other down. Individually capable, collectively unmanageable on all accounts.

03. AMERICA -> is all "Mind." Starts from dominance "Mind Your Own Business."

"Mind," as such of a human is so very difficult to fathom.

Different Definitions

Different Thoughts

Different Practices,

which are all "Distinctively Different from all," good or bad is anyone's guess.

04. EUROPE -> fascinates everyone with it's "Culture."

Ranges from

Traditional to Unconventional

Historical to Modern and Happening.

Geography say's it is the playground of the world, may be because it played ground for World War I and World War II.

05. AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, OCEANIA -> far away from most, freer than most, endowed with mountains, seas, forests, deserts, with hot and cold seasons, makes them an "ADEVENTEROUS" which manifests in their fondness for sports.

From "Womb to Tomb, we all HUMANS, are the same, mostly eat the same though - we have the "SOUL, SPIRIT, MIND, CULTURE," and we are "ADVENTEROUS," too.

Pity is that we have "Dehumanized," now more than ever before to the extent that Malthusian Theory may become applicable, "If man doesn't know ways of controlling the population, nature will find it's ways of balancing the resources." Global warming, typhoons, hurricanes, cyclones, flash floods, tsunami's, earthquakes, landslides etc., may all be early warning signs.

If you can travel well and good, if you can't then please at least let your mind travel all the distances towards "humanizing, humans."

When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

Tossed Up

When driving this morning, I saw a light plastic bag rolling from the left to the right across the road. Just as it was about to cross the road, another car passing by tossed it back this side, and as my car passed by the plastic bag was tossed to the other side.

It set me think..Poor plastic, is being tossed this side to that side and back and so in.

Is it the plastics fault that it is being tossed back and forth..

- Is it fault of the wind..?

- Is it the fault one who discarded...?

- Is it the fault of the one who gave it...?

- Is it the fault of the one who sold it...?

- Is it the fault of the one who made it...?

No one's fault I guess. It was made for a purpose. Once that was done it was discarded, and will be till another finds it to serve another purpose and then discard. It is a curse though that it is indestructible being a pollutant. It just has to languishes.

My thoughts get serious...

I start to think how many humans get tossed like this in their professional career and real life.

Questions that come to me are....

- Are we in control of anything happening out there?

- Can we control anyone's temper or behaviour out there?

- Are we in complete control of events and situations out there?

- Are we in control of all the inputs that need to go into all tasks out

there?

- Are we responsible for all the outputs out there?

- Are we taking the flak for someone else?

- Are we cowards that we can't stand up for ourselves?

- What are the compulsions, drawback, the pressures?

- Why are we so submissive?

- Why do we succumb?

Lot many like things these which can bother us about which we can't speak to anyone or share to lighten our feelings.

Sit down relaxed somewhere, and ponder deeply within, asking questions to yourself and search for uncompromisingly hard truths. All answers are with you.

You will find things that annoy you, people who irritate you, obstacles you might encounter blocking your process, things that you lack, things you are ducking, things that you fear..

All these are plastics and you are being tossed actually like plastic too, but, you don't think so.

You may be the boss, the assistant, or even the CEO, there's no escape.

Some get tossed by words on the face, on a call, by a video chat, by a mail, by a letter or whatever. It can cause you a worry because it punctures your ego, questions your ability...

The "truth," is there's no difference in the "tossing up."

Have A Game Plan To Succeed

To really SUCCEED, you must HAVE a GAME PLAN.

And the traits are :

H -> HUMILITY

A -> ATTITUDE

V -> VERSATILITY

E -> ENTHUSIASM

A -> AMBITION

P -> PURPOSE

L -> LEARNABILITY

A -> AUTHENTICITY

N -> NOVELTY

T -> TRAINABILITY

O -> ORGANIZATION

S -> SIMPLICITY

U -> UNIQUENESS

C -> CLARITY

C -> CURIOSITY

E -> ENERGY

S -> STRUCTURE

S -> SINCERITY

All these are a must and really speaking not difficult at all.

The Hunter Becomes The Hunted

People stay focussed, you'll reach your goals.

Stay focussed till your reach your goals.

An absolutely undisputed fact...

But...

You'll see why?

Somewhere in the deep jungles of Africa, a Lion, The King of the Forest, was chasing a Gazzle.

The Lion was running to fulfil its hunger, the Gazzle running for its life ran into a river, and the focused Lion followed.

Hiding underwater were hungry Crocodiles, they spotted a hunt and moved swiftly.

One managed the clasp the Lion's neck, the other got it's legs.

Together they dragged the mighty Lion underwater and in less than a minute, the Lion was dead.

The Hunter became the hunted, because it was focussed.

The point I am trying to drive is not in the least that you shouldn't focussed.

That you definitely must, in the organization jungle or the social jungle,

but, in the process, check, recheck, being on the job and that too 100% focussed.,

Be aware of things happening around you and your environment, you will also be aware of the focus of others focus running into your focus area.

Anticipate danger, conflict, collision!

Foresee what could be the events that unfold, so that you do not succumb and fall.

Being so "Focussed," what are the things you are missing out on.

What are the real opportunities you are missing out on?

Just think for a moment.

Just Think...

Have you ever felt betrayed?

Chances are you might ask what?

Or you might say "no."

But, I might say we do get "betrayed," very often.

Let's take that you are at a restaurant.

You are voraciously hungry.

A waiter comes over greets you and serves you water to drink, and hands the menu card.

You gulp some water, and you look into the menu card.

Attractive pictures of the food, with description of ingredients, tempt you a great deal.

Pointing at the picture you order what you want, how much you want.

You ask the waiter, "How long will it take to bring the food.

Waiter replies, "20 minutes Sir/Madam"

You respond, "Ok, please make it quick am very hungry."

Another customer comes. The waiter wishes the guess, serves water and hands the menu card.

The guest runs through it and quickly orders the food.

The waiter goes inside.

Comes with plates to lay your table and that of the other guest.

Appears after 10 minutes with the other guests order.

You look surprised as you are fuming inside you.

You are actually experiencing a betrayal.

You feel betrayed, that you came earlier than the other guest, but, that order comes ahead of yours.

You ask the waiter, "What's happened with mine, it's already so long, even more than the time you told me."

Waiter replies, "Am getting yours next Sir/Madam, sorry for the delay."

Goes into the kitchen.

The waiter arrives with your ordered dishes.

Serves you.

You have your first bite. You may find it spicy, or salty, you may find it not exactly to your taste, you grumble, with the waiter.

What's the point, the waiter brought you your order.

What can he do if your imagination betrayed you, your expectation betrayed you.

Now you see, you and I can be betrayed by even small things in life.

In real life, imagine how much you can get betrayed.

- By good impressions

- By good looks

- By manners

- By sweet talk

- By respect given

- By being assured

These are just but a few examples. There can be more serious ones too.

Feelings of those betrayals, can even break relationships, end up as court cases and what not.

All these in many so many ways, by so many people.

Some betrayals are because you are gullible.

Your weakness for something’s can lead to that.

But, some are because of your imagination, assumptions, calculations, estimation and expectation.....

There's no way you can blame anyone for that.

To live free of betrayal, a few things that are important,

- Stop expecting things to happen your way,

- Stop expecting, anything from anyone,

- Stop expecting all people are like you.

When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is

self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world. Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky. Just keep an open mind, be patient.

Take everything that comes your way as a bonus. Don't complain, grumble or carry any grudge.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. All these will hurt you more than it hurts others. Only love can do that. And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.

You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.

The Ocean and Us

The havoc in God's Own Country, prompted this script, and it is dedicated to humanity.

Oceans are mighty deep, so vast that they occupy 70% of the planet space. It is forever active, and so the ocean keeps coming, wave after wave towards the shore as if it wants to capture more ground.

This thought spills greed.

The ocean is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. Oceans are of great value to life. It keeps giving and giving many things in various forms. It has been and it will be the same, nothing will change. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away, so the sea comes to the shores, tossing, dancing, wave after wave, as if to hug. This thought oozes abundance

Coming to think about this and closer to us. It is said there's 70% water in the human body. The balance of which keeps us going. . If the ocean can calm itself, so can you. we are both salt water mixed with air. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can't.

The world is full of people who don't know about the gifts they have with the and keep wanting more and more, that's the greed, in them.

The same world also has a lot of people who are knowledgeable, wise, contented with all they have, happy to share with the others, oozes abundance.

Keeping aside the similarities, that, even if were true, the intent of sharing this was to highlight the fact about our thoughts, and actions, both of which are in our control.

We can't ever control the powerful waves, but, we can use the power it releases.

We can't control anything outside us, so the best thing is to use the power we have within us for negotiating through life.

We can be greedy, or we can choose abundance, it is in our hands.

Praying to see the world to be in peace and prosperity with abundance.

The Journey of Life

We are all travellers on the highway of like.

Each in our own vehicle can be

- a cycle,

- a two wheeler

- a three wheeler

- a four wheeler,

- and/or something even bigger.

It is not the vehicle that matters, as much as the journey to the destination.

We go at different speeds, in different lanes, each to their destination.

Some ahead of us are slow, and come in our way (causing us irritation).

Some behind us speeding and honking crazily, wanting to overtake us (causes irritation).

We change lanes, they change lanes, some go along side us, some overtake us (it's their choice, which we can't control, to become irritated or choose to be unmindful, is in our hands).

Now, let's see what we should learn.

01. You are not in competition with anyone, including yourself.

02. Come what may do not be dictated by anyone or anything, think

and rationalize.

03. You are at liberty to practice your principles. Expecting others to

follow you is not appropriate. Passing comments or delivering judgments about others, is not your business, who are you?

04. Expecting others to change is too much, why should we again, who

are we to even suggest that.

05. Lastly but not the least, the ignition, the gears, the accelerator

pedal, the brake pedal, the clutch pedal are all the aids that you can

control to regulate the speed, move or change direction, reduce or

increase power.

You have a rear-view mirror to enable you see the space you have covered, and to remind you how long you have come.

You have the windscreen that shows you, your road ahead, so just chug along.

Move at the pace you want, increase or decrease it as you want, do not come in others way,

- do not push others to give way,

- be patient,

- be judicious,

- maintain a lane,

- maintain a path,

- avoid accidents,

- reach your destination (you may not know how far, you may not know which is it too)

- just enjoy the drive.

You may have co-passengers who all have their destinations too to reach like all of us, they may be our co-passengers for some part of the journey,

- can be near and dear, can be our relatives,

- can be friends,

- can be colleagues, can be strangers too,

- just love them all and enjoy their company.

Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and

accommodations. The journey is never ending. Fear limits you and your

vision. It serves as blinders to what may be just a few steps down the road for

you. The journey is valuable, but believing in your talents, your abilities, and

your self-worth can empower you to walk down an even brighter path.

Transforming fear into freedom - how great is that? The journey of a

thousand miles begins with one step. Every day is a journey, and

the journey itself is home.

You’ll learn, as you get older, that rules are made to be broken. Be bold enough to live life on your terms, and never, ever apologize for it. Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less travelled instead of the well-beaten path. Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look. Dance as though EVERYBODY is watching. March to the beat of your own drummer. And stubbornly refuse to fit in. Dance. Smile. Giggle. Marvel. TRUST. HOPE. LOVE. WISH. BELIEVE. Most of all, enjoy every moment of the journey, and appreciate where you are at this moment instead of always focusing on how far you have to go.

Let the journey be a pleasant one about which everyone will talk about long after too with joy.

We are humans

We all have emotions with Two Sides

Debit Side

- Anger

- Anxiety

- Depression

- Disappointment

- Enmity

- Impulsiveness

- Jealousy

- Meanness

- Selfishness

- Vulnerability

Credit Side

- Affection

- Affiliation

- Companionship

- Excitement

- Friendship

- Joy

- Jubilation

- Love

- Positivism

- Togetherness

- Uniqueness

- Warmth

To maintain a good balance sheet, of these two sides,

we need to strive hard with an

- Achievement strife

- Competence

- Dedication

- Desire

- Deliberation

- Determination

- Drive

- Dutifulness

- Initiative

- Interest

And the support of all our stakeholders.

A little bit, everyday..

Communication, is our life line for relationships, be it

professionally

@ work,

or be it

personally

out of work

@ home, society, social media public, or wherever.

Silence just doesn't help anyone.

- If you are busy, say it, say so...

- If you are upset, then express it."

- If you are running late, which can happen at times, let

someone know that..

- If you are asked to do something that you don't like, say so,

be straightforward.."

- If you are unsure, ask even if others think you to be an

ignorant fool, it can be worse assuming, experimenting,

failing, and falling, making you look stupid.."

If you want to drive something, you have to have that skill in you and be able to communicate it.

If you have to, then learn and imbibe both the skill and the ability to communicate.

By doing so you'll be able to lend credibility to its merits, because you are an example for others to follow.

Break the silence and communicate, that's what I do,

"Hello! How are You?”

“How has the day been so far?”

The two words 'information' and 'communication' are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.

You can talk with someone for years, every day, and still, it won't mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, you feel like you have known the person for forever.... connections are made with the heart, not the tongue. Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

What’s Life Really?

Life, we have two, the second begins, when you realize you have just one life to live.. I counted the years, and realized, I have less than the number I have lived.

Have I said it right...lived..

Yes, but how many of us truly live...meaning,

doing what they like doing...

enjoying the moments...

with passion and purpose...

not pushing themselves to the limits of breaking down...

Sometimes when you look back you'll realize most are like children,

with packs of candy...

eating it off a hurry...

and when it is getting over, the kid starts to taste them and takes its time...

Life is somewhat like that...

all hurry and push when young...

wanting more...

getting more get more...

but,

having little or no time to enjoy everything they have...

and when they grow and want to enjoy life...they realize they have no energy left...

Second life starts here...but, sadly if you realize, it's only one life we have... rushing all over in the early years...and running in the later knowing not where to go, what to do...

This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them.

You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're going to fail at everything.

Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will?

So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about

Invisible Labels

An incident.

A car ahead, was moving slowly, at turtle pace, in the busy traffic time of office goers.

Impatient drivers, in a hurry to get to their workplace, were honking like mad, till one noticed, a small sign scripted, "Driver with disability, please have patience."

Reading that, the entire outlook changed from one of anger and animosity to peace, patience and protectionism.

That's a true story.

Let's get to real life.

We get angry, we lose cool at so many people at work, on the streets, in the society, at home.

Have we ever tried to understand them as much.

Among them might be someone who has

o Lost a job

o Has been burgled

o Has lost a close relative

o Has lost a valuable thing

o Is going through a bad relationship

o Has been abused

o Is going through emotional stress because of a separation

o Someone is in the midst of a victimized court case

o Someone has been cheated by one most trusted..

Like this you find all sorts of people on a daily basis in all walks of life, with Invisible Labels.

Would we react in anger or show animosity, if people had a label stuck on their forehead.

Think it over, and deeply too, especially when you lose your cool next time.

This is one of the biggest lessons the teacher called life gives us.

This thinking wouldn't have been possible, but, for our teachers...

How Many Times Do You Pass "HIS" Test

Prof. C. V. Raman, post retirement settling down in Bangalore, wanted to start a Research Institute, so advertised in the newspaper wanted three scientists.

Several qualified aspirants applied, with the hope that they'll at least meet the great scientist, getting the job or not is another matter.

Applications processed, filtration done, tests conducted, interviews taken, finally 5 were shortlisted for the next round.

That evening when he was packing to go home he saw a young in the veranda.

The professor could recognize the young man as one who was rejected, anyway, asked him what the matter was.

The young man said, "Sir, I have received ₹ 7/- more in my settlement than my claim, I wanted to return it, but, there's no one in the office."

The professor said, "Oh, ok, is that the issue, then give it to me, I'll send it to them tomorrow."

He took it and saying this he began to walk. After a few steps he stopped and called out the young man and said, "Please come and meet me at 10.30 AM, tomorrow."

Next morning, the young man reported sharp at the appointed time to meet the great man.

Prof. C. V. Raman met him, and said, "Young man, it's a pity you failed in physics, but, you've passed HIS test, so you are appointed."

Curious this young man asked "HIS test, who is this, or what is this Sir?"

Prof. C. V. Raman smiled and said, HONESTY INTEGRITY SINCERITY, test, which very few pass.

The young man was none other than

Prof. Chandrasekhar, who also went on to win the Noble Prize, like his Guru Prof. C. V. Raman.

Lesson : It needs vision to spot a diamond in a hard piece of coal.

Personal Branding

You must be hearing this word very often. You would have also noticed several who claim themselves to be Masters of Personal Branding.

For me Personal Branding,

comes in a CHIP ->

CREDIBILITY

HONESTY

INTEGRITY

POSITIVITY

you need to carry this everywhere and Walk Your Talk, that spells out your true PERSONALITY, that which projects your CHARACTER.

One doesn't go to sell one's Personal Band, it comes by people TRUSTING and ACEPTING, your

USP -> UNIQUE SELF PROJECTION, that can't be faked.

The SPACE, you create by your

SINCERITY,

PURPOSE,

AUTHENTICITY,

CONSISTENCY

EFFORTS

being

ACTIVE

ACCOUNTABLE

COMPETENT

TRUSTWORTHY

INVOLVED

VISIBLE

ENTHUISATIC.

Your brand is a gateway to your true work You know you are here to do something to create some true work or top help someone.in some way. The question is how?

How can you set up your life and work so as to do it. The answer lies in your brand. When you create your compelling brand you attract people who want the promise of the brand you deliver.

That's PERSONAL BRANDING, if I can simplify it.

Intent

Yes, it starts from within and is a very powerful stimulator, that leads to act as desired.

Thought inspired from a book by Alan Davidson "15 Paces," which I read in the early '70's.

A Prelude

I recall reading a book of a famous Australian All Rounder Alan Davidson, who was among the first to complete the double - more than a thousand Test Runs and more than a hundred wickets. Some more famous cricketers of the likes of Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Richard Hadlee, Imran Khan, Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, Jacques Kallis, Wasim Akram are the other famous stars in this league.

Davidson (88 years now), played 44 test matches for Australia.

Batted in 61 innings (there’s no count of the number of runs he ran in between the wickets).

Bowled in 81 innings delivering 11587 deliveries in all

(15 paces up and down those many times means about 197+ miles in all he covered to knit his illustrious career).

The opening lines of his book, is a beauty which says it all.

It's the last ball he is about to deliver in his career to draw curtains.

He reminisces, "I have trudged this path thousands of times, my legs, seem to drag, not because am tired, I'll never do this again on a stage like this."

On his way up to his run up he thinks about the dressing room the smell of leather balls and wooden bats dabbed with linseed oil for seasoning, and the massages on the table to keep him fit. Thanks everyone who were a part of those memorable moments.

In the last six strides, he begins to focus on the delivery of his last ball.

He wishes, how nice it would be if it was wicket taking and the record books entered it as.. caught Grout, bowled Davidson.

(Thanks my mate Grout, I'll miss you very much because you've helped me a great deal with a lot many wickets against my name, with the stupendous catches behind the stumps, with those big gloves). He reaches the top of his mark, visualizes and focuses as to where the ball should land, with the right pace.

He does exactly that, delivers a fast ball on a good length, drifts a shade because of the wind from behind his right shoulder, draws the batsman into a defensive shot, beats him, but takes a faint edge and sails at a comfortable waist height to Grout's right, who completes the catch. Davidson kneels down looks at the heaves in tears and says "Thank you, My Lord."

It wasn’t the batsman’s “error of judgement,” but, this “master-craftsman’s skill, that earned him the prize he wished for, hoped for

The entire team gives their hero an emotional send off and is given the honour of leading the side back into the pavilion, with the match ball as a memorabilia.

That drew curtains on a famous player.

As you would have seen this narration shows the passion and the intent of a man committed to his job. It didn't matter even if the last delivery was crap worth being clobbered, but, the intent and the desire, to never give up is the most noteworthy lesson I picked up reading the book.

It's been so many years, but, yes it's embedded deeply in my mind and heart. I recalled every word as I scripted this here.

Here are some parting thoughts on Intent.

You've got to know what you want. This is central to acting on your intentions. When you know what you want, you realize that all there is left then is time management. You'll manage your time to achieve your goals because you clearly know what you're trying to achieve in your life.

Dare to dream!

If you did not have the capability to make your wildest wishes come true, your mind would not have the capacity to conjure such ideas in the first place. There is no limitation on what you can potentially achieve, except for the limitation you choose to impose on your own imagination.

What you believe to be possible will always come to pass - to the extent that you deem it possible. It is by translating your fine sense of aspiration into actual lofty deeds that you grow toward your ideal.

Link your lofty thoughts to earnest, active effort, and good results will inevitably follow.

The great things you intend to do some time must have a beginning if they are ever to be done, so begin something worthwhile today It really is as simple as that.

Intention is one of the most powerful forces there is. What you mean when you do a thing will always determine the outcome. The law creates the world!

Intelligence and Wisdom

Are they connected?

For most in the world there are distinct differences.

Intelligence argues. Wisdom is sedate.

Intelligence is power of will. Wisdom is power over will.

Intelligence is heat, it burns. Wisdom is warmth, it comforts.

Intelligence is pursuit of Wisdom is pursuit of truth

knowledge, tires the seeker. that inspires the seeker.

Intelligence is holding on. Wisdom is letting go.

Intelligence leads you. Wisdom guides you.

Intelligence thinks it Wisdom knows there's a lot

knows a lot. still to learn.

Intelligence tries Wisdom really knows

to prove a point. there's no point.

Intelligence is eager Wisdom keeps it's counsel until all

to give ideas, options are explored completely.

even unsolicited.

Intelligence thinks it Wisdom understands

understands all that's even things unsaid.

said or being said.

Intelligence feels it Wisdom says only when there's

has to say something always. something to say.

Intelligence sees Wisdom see everything related.

everything relatively.

Intelligence tries to control Wisdom navigates with the flow

the flow.

Intelligence preaches Wisdom reaches.

That being the distinctions let's try being modest.

Keep Your Eye On The Ball

It was hard not to get swept away by the Serena Williams, of a US Open Final story. It was difficult to avoid joining the debate about how it could all have played out differently, had this been done or that had been done.

The time spent on thinking about what should have been done, meant, we spent less time working on things we could have done.

We took our eye of the ball for just a second, and that's exactly what Serena did too.

Just around the same time, in the week that went by, there was a news about how a pilots mindfulness avoided a mid-air collision.

It happened on Kenyan Airspace. A chartered Italian flight moving in from Ethiopian airspace flying at an altitude of 37,000' was on its way to South Africa, and an Ethiopian Airways Flight moving in from Tanzanian airspace cruising at the same altitude of 37,000'.

The aircrafts were about 15 miles apart, when the pilot of the Ethiopian Airways noticed this and quickly ascended a 1,000' and averted an imminent disaster. Alertness presence of mind some would say, but, I would say, the pilot had his eye on the ball.

Our progress on any front, in any arena depends on our taking the opportunities to fix things we can control, instead of the one thing we can't.

We all know these situations in which we’re simply unable to pay attention. We give our very best, but it’s simply not possible to stop the mind from wandering off. Some of us start having vivid daydreams, while others diligently think about all the things they need to do. We engage in all kinds of exciting thoughts, but we don’t do what we’re actually supposed to do: Paying attention. We cannot help but lose focus, often without even realizing it. It prevents us from ever paying attention, which makes it incredibly difficult to focus on the task at hand. No one likes to admit it, but we all lose focus more often than we actually like to. Even the most ambitious among us know how incredibly difficult it is to maintain a high level of concentration, especially when tired or bored. A lack of focus can be quite a problem The key to living a focused life is direction. When you have a clear goal, you can steer all your actions in one direction. But if you are unsure where to go, you will mindlessly wander around. At the same time, it is often not so important how long we work, but how effectively we use our working hours. If we pay the closest attention to maintaining a high level of focus, we can use the available hours of the day more effectively. However, if we allow distractions to draw away our attention, we are less likely to accomplish much in the time available..

A Nut called Self Belief

Has it ever crossed your mind as to who would have planted so many trees in the forests of the world.

Yes, some could be by humans, but, all the other has been the products of squirrels.

These creatures are forever busy. They are curious, they are always looking for something or the other and have the habit of depositing it somewhere for future use. This seems to be their every moment act day.

The nut that the squirrel saved is forgotten. It slowly gets buried into the darkness of the soil. Bears with all the pain and discomfort to finally break away and sprout into a plant. It grows with the support of all the other trees and eventually grows to become a tall oak.

In fact, every tall oak that stands high in the forests aiming for the sky is a testimony to this fact self-belief.

Man with all his greed may chop the oaks, but, mankind still will survive, thanks to the squirrel, they'll keep doing what they are known to be doing for ages - hide the nuts, and forget. Forests will flourish with this natural process.

Let's be like the squirrel, and plant some good thoughts and forget. Let it grow and flourish too, mankind certainly will benefit.

Be either a squirrel or a nut, both will do good anyway.

There has never been a time in the history of humanity when there was a greater need to understand who we are and what we are capable of experiencing. With no effort on your part you were born to be something very special and set apart. What you are going to do in appreciation of that gift is a decision only you can make. Your beliefs about yourself often translate into your convictions about yourself. It is difficult to achieve what you believe is beyond your power. If you don't intend to spend the whole life as a person "hammered into a corner," but want to perform serious deeds, to solve important tasks and to be able to achieve the real heights in life, then, first of all, you need to learn to believe in yourself. Your beliefs about yourself often translate into your convictions about yourself. It is difficult to achieve what you believe is beyond your power.

It is necessary for us to believe in ourselves in order to become the best person that we can be.

The Value of YOU

How many of us really know this?

It becomes even more significant in the VUCA World. (VUCA -> VOLATILE, UNCERTAIN, COMPLEX, AMBITIOUS).

Where were you?

Where are you NOW?

Where are you going?

As you think of these question, I encourage you to make a move to reclaim the life you dream out. It's yours if really wants it.

Then..

VUCA -> VISUALIZE, UNDERSTAND, CONSTRUCT, and ADAPT, being open to new thoughts and by being flexible. To do this you'll need more than just a burning desire. You'll need a game plan that's built on a rock-solid-foundation of core values.

Our generation has lost its way. In a fast-paced instant gratification world we live in, we've lost our direction. It is values anchoring us that provide us the direction and purpose on the journey to living a life of our dreams. Values like confidence, courage, faith, hard work, honesty, humility, integrity, sincerity, that drives our abilities, builds our curiosity, which are the keys to living life on our terms. If everyone realizes this for each of themselves, together we can collaboratively take strides to meet the end goals not of just self but as a team. It's the journey that we all take to get there, because it's the journey that defines all of us in the end.

The Value of YOU, is the journey into the core values that give light to human experience.

Values lead us to internal freedom, peace of mind, success and happiness.

There are some values that you should never compromise on to stay true to yourself; you should be brave to stand up for what you truly believe in even if you stand alone.

Modern Man is the victim of the very instruments he values most. Every gain in power, every mastery of natural forces, every scientific addition to knowledge, has proved potentially dangerous, because it has not been accompanied by equal gains in self-understanding and self-discipline.

Values are the way of life. Start your journey, today...now...

Do You Sell?

"Are you a salesman?"

If you aren't one, you'll say, "No!," and probably add "I hate selling!"

People have made their life and career in selling, but, your answer is fair enough.

But, all of us forget one thing, because we don't know about it, we don't think about it. That is, whether we like it or not, knows it or not, we are all into selling...

In an interview, you are there selling your profile through your degree and experience...

In a job you are selling your skills, your ideas for acceptance...

You sell your services freelancing...

You sell expertize advising...

You selling learning through facilitation...

You write to express and gain attention of your readers...

You speak to inspire thoughts for action...

You sell your attention to listen...

As Willy Loman said, (Quoting from Aurther Miller's, "Death of a Salesman), " The funny thing is that you are and do not know about that."

So now that we know we sell, let's take care not to sell our integrity, dignity, self-respect, honesty and sincerity at any cost to anyone. Love yourself, respect yourself.

It is so easy to settle for the sheep life, enslaved to a life of another individuals making, many people sell themselves short on what they can truly accomplish, most people do not even try that hard, but they think within their mind that where they are is all that they can do and be. So many people just settle for a garbage low-level life, struggling to live because they have not self-educated themselves on how to live a better quality of life. If you want better, you must do better. Learn about success so that you may become successful. You get what you settle for, if you settle for mediocrity you will get misery.

Are you doing your best?

Are you focused?

Are you really giving it your all?

Do you have a whatever it takes mentality?

Are you really about success?

Do not just settle for making a living, design a life that you are proud to live, the choice is yours to get started on new path, the path of something greater, the path of personal development, the path of fearlessness, ambition, drive, determination, adventure, focus, hunger, grit, action, and greatness.

If you don’t shape your world the way you want it to be it will just unfold into a life of mediocrity most probably, if you don’t make a plan for your life, no one else will, don’t expect others to make success a priority for you, that is up to you. Life will end up being not much. Look around, that is how most people are living, trapped in someone else’s life, resigned to a life of someone else’s dream, unaware that they have betrayed themselves and they just float by making excuses about why they do not take action, excuses are used to justify laziness and fear.

Strive for what you want, you can do and be whatever you want to be, the choice is yours, you can shape your life in whatever way you want it to be, we all have the choice to create our world, but most people seem to remain asleep to this fact and settle for the conformists life. It is easy being like everyone else, it takes nothing to join the crowd, it takes courage to stand alone and be who you truly want to be.

It is in the grind that you will discover your strength, your fearlessness, and your true greatness that resides within you. Go confidently in the direction you truly want to go, get on the road of success and keep on pushing forward, keep on building, and keep on keeping on.

Do not ever give up on yourself, do not be idle with your days, daily consistent action on the right tasks will elevate your life to a whole new level. Put in the work now and the results will show, hard work does pay off, you shall reap what you sow, so do not expect to be living at a higher level if you do not take action. Let your actions be a reflection of your hunger for a better life. Action is what makes all the difference between successful people and the rest who just sit around assuming disaster. Action is what helps you to conquer your fears, action is what reveals the truth about who you can be, action is what helps you make progress, action is the key, the key to getting anywhere is to take some action, if it does not work out, take some more action, and the more you do the more you succeed or learn. It is so common for people to just drift on the current of mediocrity to their demise, sitting back on the boat of conformity. Be action orientated rather than talk orientated

Never sell yourself short. Believe in yourself regardless of what other people think. You can accomplish anything, absolutely anything, if you set your mind to it.

No matter who you are, what you do, be a Great One!

It is all about Potential

Am sure you've heard Jack Ma saying he suffered rejections including even a waiters job at KFC, and goes on to become the trail blazer e-Commerce giant with Alibaba.

Then Late Sri. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam rejected by the Airforce going on to becoming the Missile King of India and also the President.

Amitabh Bachan was turned dome by AIR for an announcer going on to become the undisputed star of the century.

WhatsApp founder Brian Aston was rejected by FB and Twitter and one day FB buys WhatsApp as it appeared threatening the existence of FB in business.

Lambhorgini cars were a result of an insult by the owner of a tractor company and Ferrari's founder.

What's the inference?

In the case of Jack Ma, APJAK, and Amitabh, they worked seriously to explore and expand their potential to reach the levels they did.

In the case of Brian Aston and the creator of Lambhorgini, it was a clear case of under estimating, their talent and their potential.

What's the lesson?

Never underestimate

-> Yourself

-> Your Competitors

-> Your Colleagues

-> Your Employers

-> Newcomers in your domain...

In short never underestimate anyone, because every human has immense potential within.

Those who work hard, exercise patience, consciously exploring, expanding their potential, and channelizing it in the right direction for the right purpose go on to become great achievers and create "break through," that are impactful. Else like most the others know about it, sit on it, do nothing a go through life in routines being in their comfort zones living life as "been through."

Be Yourself, Be You

We stay in a world that's busy, yet, has all the time in the world to mind others' business too...despite all the chaos that prevails..

People will judge you. Have opinions about you.

Call you names. Criticize your actions.

Call your ideas silly. Label you as a failure.

Question your decisions. Laugh at you.

Insult you. Ridicule you. Not appreciate your strengths.

Want you to change, to be someone else you are not..

All this happens at various times in life.. to everyone.

There's surprisingly, one solution to overcome all this in one go, never the less..

Be fearless, keep saying "SO WHAT...?" and just be yourself.

We all have 4 systems programs that are running in our mind..

VIRUS Program : When this runs it will lead to self destruction. System will hang, we will need reformatting.

ANTIVIRUS Program : This inoculates the system helps move forward keeping viruses away.. this should be running even when system isn't in use.

FIREWALL Program This offers general protection against threats and helps us avoid treading further.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Program : Senses the surroundings and keeps the system abreast so as to become better and better each day.

Keep at it...

Evolve...

Grow...

Persist...

Be fearless, just be you.

In the walk of your life, if you keep getting disturbed by stray dogs barking all the time, and you keep throwing stones at it, you'll be standing just there and not walking.

Money is Sweeter, than Honey.

Whoever said this isn't known to me.

Am not going to delve into the merits or demerits of that statement.

Anyway the truth is man is very busy making money, while bees are very busy making honey.

For a moment my thoughts go to the bees, who only know one thing and that is to make honey.

Millions and millions, every moment of their limited life span, keep doing what they are best at, and doing the only thing they know and that is making honey.

They do it methodically following a process that can put our modern corporations to shame, as there's no stoppage either of work or in the production of honey for the world's health and prosperity.

Man steals it because bees do not deliver it at our doorstep.

Bees are unmoved, they still go about their job, producing more and more. Hardworking and selfless these bees are, but, when we think of bees, we hardly think honey, we only think of their sting. Mind you they don't come searching for you to sting, you come in their path and so they do.

Coming back to where we started, money is important for our living, our survival, our future and for many other things.

We ought not to be slaved by money, on the contrary we should learn to control it and put it to productive purposes. No matter how right or how beautiful your path is, never try to impose your path on others! Remember that flowers by no means pull bees by force to their world! Your path is your poem; if people like your poem, they will fondly join you in your path!

Think of the bee, it does only things for the others, so if the money you put to use serves that purpose, do it unhesitatingly.

You'll feel good you did.

To be successful, one has to be one of three bees - the queen bee, the hardest working bee, or the bee that does not fit in..

Be the Bee, and be the best at what you can be the best at.

The Paradox of Choices

We are all where we are today, is because of the choices we made in the past. Some we made, some we were told, this is what you have to do.

From a time we didn't have choices, we are now living in times with multiple choices.

With that comes the paradox.

With more choices we have, we fantasize about a better option out there, that despite thinking we regret we didn't choose.

This is primarily because we begin with something in mind, look at many, get influenced we choose. After closing in and deciding we see some other thing better and get upset.

With innumerable choices we have, with enough time we have to make our choices, we rush as if we do not have the time to make the right choice and make our choice with the time we think we do not have the time in today's times.

Flirt around, look around, take your time, don't push yourself, as if it is now or never.

The emotional cost of a bad choice leave us with a regret that lingers in us for a long time.

When we want to buy something we justify a need even if it is artificial. We make our choice and pay for it, then realize it doesn't offer the "value for money," causing regret and disgust.

Then comes the paralysis in decision making because no one wants to make a bad choice.

We keep playing around with our thought and make choices this and that, that and this. It goes on back and forth, causing a confusion, till a point you don't take a decision and remain where you are.

Remain status quo, and regret, I should have...

What choices are you toying with.

Take a call..

What the gain making a choice?

Then choose

Alternatively ask "What's the pain, if I don't make the choice?

Then choose.

Just Because You Can

Was wondering if you knew how challenging the role of a hotel concierge can be?

To begin with the concierge has to earn the trust of the guest in the shortest possible time, think on his/her feet, solve problems on the fly and must have solutions to earn the tag of being credible.

A gifted and a good concierge knows the answers to the questions that are likely to come by. They will have answers even for questions that guests haven't thought to ask. He/she will empathize, anticipate, and delight the customer going out of his/her way to be creative and do the work he/she is proud of, just because he/she can. These transform a good experience to great ones.

It is possible in every job for us to learn the lines, stick to the script, be on time, put in the required number of hours, make little or no mistakes, to show competence and offer solutions on the fly. No one will ever question your competence, but, the work that's most appreciated and valued now isn't simply being compliant or competent, it is the creative work you do, not because it is required, but, it is just because you can.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Everyone has a purpose in life and a unique talent to give to others.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.

When your dreams include service to others - accomplishing something that contributes to others - it also accelerates the accomplishment of that goal. People want to be part of something that contributes and makes a difference.

P is positive emotion

R is relationships

E is engagement,

M is meaning and

A is accomplishment.

Those are the five elements of what free people chose to do. Pretty much everything else is in service of one of or more of these goals. That's the human dashboard.

Who Is Happy?

There was a crow, which was quite disgusted with its colour, appearance and life overall. It met an elegant, beautiful white swan, paddling in the pond, and said, "How I wish I were a swan?"

The swan replied, "You don't know how much I have to paddle below to keep a float, and when I am a float, am not sure who'll hunt me for my beauty, who for my meat. I felt the parrot had a better life than me."

The crow me the parrot and told him, "How I wish I were like you?"

The parrot said, "Am just a pale green colour bird with a red beak. Am not a multi-coloured package like the peacock, nor am I like the eagle which can flying high and fly distances. I'd have loved being a peacock."

The crow went to the peacock and was about to say, "How..."

The peacock stopped the crow and said, "I know what you are going to say. Am a helpless caged captive, held for beauty for the visitors delight. You are a free bird, no one ever thinks of caging you. How I wish I were like you?"

Who is happy?

Actually it is the crow, and poor thing doesn't know. The others with whom the crow was comparing were feeling far more miserable.

It happens in real life. People are constantly comparing themselves with others, looking at their life and style, their living and feeling sorry they didn't have a life like that, when actually someone else has to show them what all they have and how they can be happy.

Stop comparing. Enhance your self-esteem, for if you don't like the way you look at yourself, how will you expect others to like you.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

A SOLDIER’S SUPRISE

by Gail Litrenti-Benedetto, Park Ridge, Illinois

It is spring of 1943 during World War II. Standing among hundreds of new soldiers at Camp Grant, in Illinois, my father, Sam, just 18 years old, waits as a truck slowly drives by. A full field pack is randomly tossed to each soldier. “How strange,” my father thinks, as he sees his last name, Litrenti, marked on each item in his pack. “How did they know it was me when they tossed the pack?” He was impressed! Beating all odds, my father was tossed a field pack from World War I—his own father’s.

Master Chef

Am not assuming you are or aren't, but, let's imagine this for a moment...

We all are given the same ingredients including time to make dishes out of our choice.

We begin.

Some may quickly use what they see, and what they know. They look here and there, set off wanting to be ahead of the others in the fray.

Some may look at everything, plan which all to use when, how, and how much. They take their own time, use their own time, for what they have in mind is a very special dish, that tastes good. They take care, doing everything measured, observing everything like the temperature, use of vital ingredients that go to give the dish the right look, the right colour, the right flavour and the right taste and give the right final touches of dressing what they have made, that gets appreciated by one and all wanting more and more of it. The dish that you dole out is remembered for a long long time.

Are you this kind of a Master Chef

who knows about the ingredients you possess, you know the way to use them,

you know the process, you use your skills,

you are patient,

you are passionate,

you have in mind those who you serve and do all things deligently without pushing yourself despite the others around you who are going through the motions in a hurry?

Pause and think this over. Always cook love and serve delight.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

SMOKE SIGNALS

by Dan Rolince, Golden, Colorado

On a cool night lit only by the orange glow of fire, we rushed to my grandfather’s home as his decades-old barn burned to the ground. The firemen let us stand nearby as they pumped water from the creek a quarter mile away. We watched the barn go up in flames, which stirred memories of jumping off foot-wide wooden beams into the hay below. The real sadness came as my elderly grandfather, who did not get out of bed, quietly asked if his cows were safe. He hadn’t had dairy cows in a dozen years.

What Comes Out is What's Inside...

A motivational speaker to begin a talk used an orange as a prop.

Holding it the speaker looked at a bright kid in the front row and asked,

"What will you get, when this is squeezed?"

"Juice," said the boy.

"Will we get apple juice?"

"No," the boy said laughingly.

"Will we get grape juice?"

"No, no...," the boy said getting a little annoyed.

"Will we get pineapple juice?"

"Are you crazy? What comes out is what's inside! Squeeze an orange, it'll get be orange juice. What else?" the boy said angrily losing all the patience he had.

The speaker, then turned to the audience and said, "Let's imagine ourselves to be the orange. When someone squeezes us, when someone applies pressure on us! Can be anyone mother, father, brother, sister, spouse, children, colleagues, boss, whoever. Like the young boy said, what comes out is what's inside. Applying the same logic here, what comes out is what's inside us - anger, desperation, hate, disappointment etc."

There are things outside us about which we have no control of, but, there are things within our control such as moods, thoughts, words, temper, love, patience, empathy, kindness etc.

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

You were designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness

The seeds we sow and nurture are what become plants and trees that give us flowers and fruits.

Nurturing good thoughts is the key.

Sit back, think it over and see what are those seeds you are sowing?

Who Gets The Credit

A fruit appears on the tree, and you eat it.

Who gets the credit - the farmer who is the owner of the tree, or the tree that bears the fruit from flower to bud to fruit, or the earth that holds the tree firmly to it's roots or the seed that hung its ground to become the tree that bears the fruit.

This came to mind because, most times at work we are so bothered about who gets the credit. Some do all the work and some others take away the due credit.

Don't we know it is the horse that does the pulling of the coach, but, at the end of the journey the coachman gets tipped.

How nice it would be if we enjoy just the fruit and just never worried about anything else.

Just think it over.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

A MOTHER’S WISDOM

by Lori Armstrong, Kelseyville, California

I have always worn my children’s birthstones around my neck. One morning, when I was late for work, my infant son Larry’s topaz birthstone fell from my gold chain. I frantically searched for it, whispering to myself, “I lost my Larry, but I will get him back.”

That day, Larry’s cardiologist called with test results from one of his first check-ups. He would need emergency heart surgery. Happily, the operation was a success, and I whispered in Larry’s ear, “I thought I lost you, but I knew I’d get you back.”

Accomplish

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life." - Muhammad Ali

“You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.” - Abraham Lincoln

“Here I am... wanting to accomplish something and completely forgetting it must all end—that there is such a thing as death.” - Leo Tolstoy

Give...Give...

More than you take.

Let's admit we are humans, we all have a tendency to take, more than we give.

Let's understand this more...

G -> Gratitude and Generosity.

Let's be grateful for all the gifts given to us. Let's be grateful to all those who helped us realize these gifts, and let's be generous, in showing gratitude.

I -> Intensity and Interest

Let's have the intensity to do some good to the others. This happens only when we show we are interested, in the welfare of others as well.

V -> Versatile and Vibrant

It is said that it isn't good to be a jack of all trades, but, master of none. This is true, so let's master something's that we can build them in a way that we become versatile and by being enthusiastic we can help others with our vibrancy.

E -> Energy and Excitement

All of us are endowed with abundant energy, which only some exhibit a lot more than others. It is not any big rocket science to show up the energy we have. All it needs is that we need to be excited, about the life we have been given, and share the same feeling with others liberally.

So that's it. Give...Give...Give...

I have given what I have for today.

Sit back and think it over, when is the last time you have given something, and recall what you felt.

Now, see what you can over the next few hours to give before you dash off for the first weekend of October.

Keep it going. You'll enjoy an unbelievable bliss by giving. You truly will.

Being Seen, Heard and Remembered.

Isn't it the endeavour of every marketing effort to be seen, heard and remembered, so that it converts to creating a favourable customer.

All this to be done through a commercial in 5 seconds flat. The irony though. is no one sees the hard 5 years of work that preceded this moment of decision.

Let's take our case.

For every tens of things we do over a day, we might do one thing or two to be worthy of being remembered.

The irony is of course what we want to do deep down is to do work that's remembered - not just noticed.

We can achieve that goal by addressing the imbalance - forsaking the desire for attention today, and to do something worthwhile, so that it still matters tomorrow.

Our goal ought not to be seen and heard, but to do work that matters, that is seen, is heard, and is remembered.

While you relax over the weekend, think about the work you do.

Is it something that mattered yesterday, seen and heard today, but will be remembered tomorrow and the day after.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

THE GOOD DOCTOR

by Danica Helfin, Tifton, Georgia

Toto was a white dog with a small red tongue, and his stuffing was red as well. When his seams began to come apart beneath his knitted collar, it looked to my six-year-old eyes as though he were bleeding. That night, my father left for his shift in the emergency room with Toto wrapped in a blanket. The next day, Dad showed me the X-rays and Polaroid photographs of the surgery. Beneath the bandage on Toto’s neck was a clean row of stitches. I still have the injury report! I love you, Dad.

What's Your Failure Strategy?

Now what is this you may wonder.

(Excuse me for it is a bit long, but, am sure it'll hold your interest).

Read on.

Everything runs like clockwork precision when all staff members show up and all other resources aligned.

A little deviation, the whole plan gets upset.

Let's take a typical scenario of a very popular "breakfast joint."

It is a Sunday morning. Customers arrive in loads with family. They are greeted at the door. Some have to wait for a table and have to wait. They are served a complimentary drink, while they wait for the table.

A staff member calls in reports sick.

The whole system begins to creak, if not crumble. Staff doubles up as greeters and coffee runners.

People forget priorities, service is compromised and customers are disgruntled.

Every business has a success strategy. Targets are set and plans for execution created meticulously, to achieve them. We imagine how we will perform on our best days, when everything goes according to plan, with everyone serving, in.

We unfortunately, do not devote the same time, energy and resources to imagine our next move for those times when we have to take a diversion from our original plan.

We are found woefully unprepared for failure because we do not always think about what could go wrong and what will we do when it does.

For instance :

Server might crash...

Package may be lost...

Email might offend...

Sales person could have a bad day...

Plan laid out for a project may not go as hoped...

What then?

The difference between an exceptional performer and a mediocre is that the exceptional ones prepare for off-colour days too.

It turns out that we do our best work when we plan for both success and failure, in equal measure.

So you'll do good if you can charter out What will be your Failure Strategy, along with your Success Strategy.

The Power of Self

A TV interviewer asked Martina Navratilova, "How is it that you are able to focus so well on the ball, even at this age of 43."

Her suave response was, "The ball doesn't know how old I am," and smiled.

In his excellent book, Still power, sports psychologist Garret Kramer says the key factor to perform in sports (and on life), is your ability to control both, the quality and the quantity of your internal dialogue, the constant chatter that happens in all of us all the time.

Performance = Potential - Internal Interference.

In other words, you need to stop yourself from stopping yourself. You need to shun your limiting beliefs.

Business, Sports, Careers, Fitness and indeed Life, all plays out in the 9" space between your two ears called Mind-Space.

If you know how to mind that space, you are the master, of yourself.

When you can't control what's happening, challenge the way in which you respond to what's happening around you.

That is the Power of Self.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

MY MASTERPIECE
by Angela Bradley-Autrey, Deer Park, Washington

I was four, playing outside in the humid Kentucky air. I saw my grandfather’s truck and thought, Granddad shouldn’t have to drive such an ugly truck. Then I spied a gallon of paint. Idea! I got a brush and painted white polka dots all over the truck. I was on the roof finishing the job when he walked up, looking as if he were in a trance.
“Angela, that’s the prettiest truck I’ve ever seen!” Sometimes I think adults don’t stop to see things through a child’s eyes. He could have crushed me. Instead, he lifted my little soul.

Action

"Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” - Thomas Jefferson

“The path to success is to take massive, determined actions.”
- Tony Robbins

Missed Opportunities

A young man wanted to marry the beautiful daughter of a rich farmer, and sought her hand.

The farmer agreed but on the condition that he would catch a bull by its tail.

On a fixed day, the young man was there for the challenge of his life.

The farmer released a large bull. It came running fast towards the young man. Feeling threatened, he let it go by, wanting to take a chance on the second one.

The second which was released was much more powerfully built and more menacing than the first. The young man was broken between risking and taking yet another chance. In the meanwhile, the speeding bull passed by thereby the young missed the second chance too. While he was praying he should succeed in the next one chance which was his last, also hoping it would be a weak one, the third was released. Much to the delight of the young man it was a puny skinny one. It came towards him slowly. The young man steadied himself and tried to grab it's tail. To his shock this bull had no tail at all.

Taking the story into our life, am wondering as to how many opportunities we let go for various reasons of comfort, laziness, procrastination, assuming more better ones will come...and so many other reasons.

Pause for a while, take stock and rework to develop new strategies to grab opportunities coming.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

A SMALL FORTUNE
by Ron Fleming, Fort Drum, New York

While walking across an open, grassy field, I became excited as my hand swooped toward the ground like an eagle attacking its prey. I picked up half of a $5 bill. I continued to walk around looking for the other half but thought to myself it would be impossible to find it on such a windy day. As I lifted my head, I spotted the other half of the bill tangled in crabgrass. Somehow, finding two halves of a ripped $5 bill felt better than working for a twenty.

Ambition

"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."
- Bill Bradley

“Ambition is enthusiasm with a purpose.” - Frank Tyger

“A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.” - Marcus Aurelius

Comparisons don't take you forward.

Output and Results, do.

Let me begin with a story

The emperor's personal stylist, despite all his efforts of making the emperor look smart, he was upset that he neither enjoyed the influence, status nor got the price equal to the emperor's personal secretary.

He gathered courage and one day poured his woes to the emperor, who listened to him patiently. He said, "Ok, we will test it out. There's something very special happening in our capital today. Tell me about it?"

The personal stylist was baffled, didn't have the answer, but, asked for a little time and dashed off into the streets.

He asked everyone what's special that's happening in our capital today.

After meeting many, he found a big new ship had berthed in the harbour.

Feeling elated about the finding he rushed to the emperor and told him, "Your majesty, a big new ship has arrived to our port today."

The emperor said, "Good. Where is it from?"

The stylist didn't know the answer and dashed off again this time to the port, and found it has come from Hong Kong. Delighted he rushed to tell the emperor about his finding.

The emperor was happy, and said "Good, what did it bring?"

The stylist had no answer he rushed back to the port, found out and came to report.

The emperor acknowledged and kept asking more and more information that the stylist had to make almost twenty trips back and forth to the port and got tired.

The emperor calmed him down with sweet words and said relax.

The emperor sent for his personal secretary, who came in almost in a flash. "Your highness you wanted me." The emperor said, "Yes. Can you tell me what's happening in our capital today?"

The personal secretary said "Your highness there's a buzz today because a big ship built in 1949 of teak from Burma, owned by a Chinese Business tycoon, with a capacity of carrying 250 elephants, has come from Hong Kong carrying silk, spices, herbs, scents, rice and tea, captained by Ching Lee, with 65 other sailors has been berthed here. It is believed that after a week of selling some of its wares and refilling essential stocks it leaves for its long journey to Jamaica."

The emperor was mighty impressed, and glanced at his stylist, who gracefully bowed both to the emperor and his personal secretary and said, "Pardon me your highness for my stupidity and for being such a loud mouth. I understand where I belong. Thank you, your highness for exposing my ignorance, naivety and for opening eyes to reality."

Just sit down and think about yourself and see how your are performing. Are you like the personal stylist or the personal secretary. Chalk out what are things you can do to personally shape yourself for meaningful roles in your career.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

THE LONG LIFE OF ROOM 1108
by Laurie Olson, Dayton, Nevada

A long flight of weathered steps led to a hollow wooden door with rusty numbers beckoning us into room 1108. Inside, we barely noticed the lumpy bed, faded wood paneling, and thin, tacky carpet.
We could see the seashore from our perch and easily wander down to feel the sand between our toes. We returned again and again until the burgeoning resort tore down our orange-shingled eyesore. Forty years later, my husband periodically sends me short e-mails that declare the time: 11:08. “I love you, too,” I write back.

Clarity

"Clarity precedes success." - Robin Sharma

“A lack of clarity could put the brakes on any journey to success.” - Steve Maraboli

“Clarity affords focus.” - Thomas Leonard

Nothing Grows by itself.

Biologists often talk about the "ecology" of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn. It grew to become the tallest because no other tree blocked it's due sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no squirrel dug out the acorn, nor did any rabbit chew through its bark as a sapling, no lumberjack cut it down before it matured.

Let's get to real life now..

What is the question we always ask about successful people?

We want to know them, we want them to know us,

we want to know what they are like,

what kind of personality they have,

how intelligent they are or

what kind of life styles they have,

what special talents they may have or

be born with,

in short, we want to become what they are, because we assume that it is those personal qualities that explain how they reached the top.

We believe they certainly from hardy seeds, but, we do not know the sunlight that warmed them, they soil in which they were able to put down their roots, and the rabbits and lumberjacks they were lucky to avoid?

Believe me no one will ever tell you the entire truth, but, what is certain is that they had the right people in the right places at the right time for the right purpose, providing the in-puts, clearing the path, urging them, eeking the, nurturing them, tutoring them, mentoring them, coaching them. There's another truth to this, all this either happened or the individual made it happen. All the same, there was a process a method and the individuals hardwork too. Indeed, there are no short-cuts to any progress in your career.

Seek the right people even if on teams at a price, because you are sure to derive value out of it.

Commitment

"Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there." - Haile Gebrselassie

“Commitment is an act, not a word.”- Jean-Paul Sartre

“Commitment is what transforms a promise into a reality.”
- Abraham Lincoln

Make SMART MOVES.

Three Important Questions to ask yourself..

Yes, be it in business, career, sports or life, there are three important questions to ask yourself for all your money's worth.

01. Why do you want to achieve and become, what you want?

If you know the answer for your "why" your "what" becomes easily visible, and your "how," will invariably find a way to get it.

02. "What" do you stand to believe - your principles, your values, your ethics, your priorities?

You achieve what you believe about your abilities and your skills. You beliefs, your values and principles help provide the energy and discipline that drive you towards your goals. Beliefs and values are what roots are to trees, because trees will get uprooted if the roots aren't deep and widespread. Just like strong winds test the strength of trees to withstand force

Even we, can be tested on values and beliefs as performance can take a beating in the face of competition and pressure.

03. What is your action plan?

How will you prepare, organize yourself to execute actions to reach places you want to get to.

Your answers to these three questions could be the platform on which you build your performance.

You increase your chances of doing well when you plan properly, prepare carefully, when you execute your tasks well, and when you respond sensibly and positively to results.

Good preparation requires clarity, simplicity, attention to details and superior execution calls based on solid decision making, which comes from mastery of basics, mastery of self, pure clear thinking, good concentration and calmness, both of mind and body.

Debriefing of performance in the end is a powerful weapon that is often neglected. It allows you to monitor standards, correct mistakes, make better plans and do better next time.

Zeal

"Zeal will do more than knowledge." - William Hazlitt

"Zeal without knowledge is fire without light." - Thomas Fuller

"Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow." - Khalil Gibran

MANAGEMENT vs LEADERSHIP

There's a difference between management and leadership.

Management is about doing stuff - the daily operations for the tactical things to get done.

Leadership, on the other hand, is about people. Itis less about what you are doing and more about you're being. It is how you show up for your people. It is about being available to handle the human side of things.

When we are constantly at tactical things like

- what milestones to hit,

- what metrics to reach,

- what products to ship,

- what project deadlines to meet... what have wry little time to care for the people who make these critical tactical things happen.

On the other hand leaders aren't responsible for results as much as they are responsible for those people who get the results. And without the support of our people, it is us leaders who have to feel and take more responsibilities for even those tactical things because we know ultimately it is our butt that's on the line.

What if we focused more of our energy on leading and building relationships with our people so that we can trust them, and they can trust us?

Then we can empower them to take accountability for the tactical, which would open us up to do what we do best as leaders - look to plan for long term future.

If you are in a leadership position in your organisation, consider asking yourself this question, "What percentage of my time do I spend MANAGING vs LEADING?" If leading percentage is smaller imagine what would be possible if the numbers were reversed.

Mindfulness

"With mindfulness, you can establish yourself in the present in order to touch the wonders of life that are available in that moment." - Nhat Hanh

"Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes."
- Nhat Hanh

"Mindfulness is about love and loving life. When you cultivate this love, it gives you clarity and compassion for life, and your actions happen in accordance with that." - Jon Kabat-Zinn

Get Your Priorities Right

We live in an age of information overload and excessive pressure, which often plays tricks with our minds and our perceptions.

They destroy our sense of priorities and make the line between what is really important and what is not, blurry.

We often give trivial things importance they do not deserve and make make mountains of mole hills.

Concentrating on the important priorities first is the key to good performance.

The story below about big and small apples illustrates effects of high and low priorities on concentration and performance.

An apple farmer once asked his two sons to sort out the stack of apples into piles of big apples and small apples weeding out bad apples.

His sons worked hard all day long and when they finished the job they called their father to show him their work.

The impressed father congratulated them and asked them to mix the the two piles - the big and the small ones again.

The boys were furious because they thought their time was wasted. Anyway, they did as he said.

The father then asked about the other small apples piled up near by. They said, those were bad and rotten apples which they discarded.

"Very good," said the father and added, "If I told you to remove the bad and rotten apples from the entire pile, you'd have missed some of them, but, now because you looked at each apple carefully you were able to check if was big or small apple, and in the process you didn'tiss out on the bad ones and we're able weed out the unwanted.

Prioritise first, performance will improve by itself with the clarity that prompts action.

The point is High Priority items are the ones that determine action, and Low Priority items, however, shouldn't be ignored, they must be taken into account too.

Enjoy the festival. May the Almighty Bless all of You and Everyone Yours -ABUNDANTLY, GENEROUSLY, and INFINITELY.

Pressure and the Mind

Pressure can either be a friend or a foe. In the right proportion it can lift performance to great heights, but, if it gets out of hands it can mess up everything including health and a career.

The ability to cope up with pressure usually separately great professionals from the others. It is also true that even great professionals sometime succumb and fall victims to chronic pressure.

In life, we constantly play two different, but, interrelated games - a public one (outer game) and a private one (inner game).

The outer game is played in a way everyone can see. It needn't be only against opponents.

The inner game is played in our minds, it is against us. An unseen game in which there is constant interaction between our thoughts and feelings, our goals and fears, our confidence and our doubts, our strengths and our weakness. Many of us fail to either recognise or acknowledge our vulnerabilities. We play this game all the time without being too aware of it.

Formal instructions, mentoring, training, or education usually do not address the inner game as such, hence playing the outter game becomes difficult.

Coaching helps get a "mastery," of our inner game.

Champion professionals, play both these games well, therefore they are Champions.

This is not to say it is difficult, it calls for a high amount of Discipline, Dedication, Hard work, Integrity, Practice and Zeal.

It is Within You

We are ruled by our limiting beliefs

Too often we believe we are not good enough; something is not working for us and it needs to be fixed; something is missing; and something special needs to be added to make it worthwhile. These limiting beliefs often hide the wealth within.

This story will explain...

A young man inherited a statue of clay, which was in the possession of his family for ages. He was feeling ashamed to show it up proudly to anyone. Wished it was of gold, so when he did earn some wealth, he had the statue gold plated, as it was made to look the way he wanted.

Over a period of time flakes of gold started peeling off from the statue. He began to spend more and more time and money on maintaining it. Was growing very frustrated.

One day his grandfather him, the young man showed him the statue, feeling rather embarrassed and ashamed because of it dishevelled appearance, of clay somewhere flakes of gold somewhere.

The grandfather who knew the statue well, recognised the statue and started to rub it with aoist cloth. After roving the clay, he said, "Many many years ago, this statue must have fallen in mud and clay, to cover it up completely and they must have forgotten to wipe or wash it, and so it must have become covered. You wouldn't know."

Saying this he began to rub the statue even more vigorously and as he did so he began to remove the stuck clay and the bright yellow metal started to appear.

"The grandfather then told the grandson, "Underneath the clay statue has been one of solid gold from the beginning. You didn't have to put more gold on it. From now on all you have to do to show up gold is to remove any clay or dust that settles on it."

Like the clay on the gold statue, poor vision, limiting beliefs, negative thoughts, self doubts, poor excuses and habits hide the wealth within which undermines our desire and ability to perform well, to succeed. These obstacles are like the anchor at the bottom of the sea, holding up everyove we make. Removing them sets our inner resources free.

Performance is better more often by understanding ourselves well from within, and from constantly - learning, unlearning, relearning, being curious, creative, innovative, being interested and by being present 100% every moment.

What are you waiting for them, start unearthing the gold lying hidden inside each of you.

Opportunity

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." - Henry Ford

"Success is where preparation and opportunity meet." - Bobby Unser

"If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door." - Milton Berle

Change Your Beliefs and Perceptions and you will change your Performance

Good morning folks. It's a relaxing Sunday morning, a cool gentle breeze brushes my face, while

I sit to script this message after enjoying my cuppa steaming aromatic coffee, a little while ago.

Henry Ford said "If you believe you can or if you believe you can't, your right."

I was on a call last night with a friend, who has tonnes of self belief and loves taking on odds, especially things that others say she can't do. She thrives in proving them wrong. She has on her own steam come a fair distance in life battling several odds, overcoming several obstacles. She is really a "powerhouse of energy," carries a lot joy and is adventurous by nature. She is in terms of sport a very "talented" and a "gifted athelete," in the race of life she runs wanting to better her own timing, as she isn't in competition with anyone. This script of today is dedicated to that friend Very Special friend VS...

She reminded me of

Roger Bannister, the English Athelete who created history by breaking four-minute barrier for the mile. Until then no one believed that it was possible to run a mile in less than four minutes. Once Bannister smashed the limiting belief, the task became easier because everyone knew it could be done. Within a year, the race was run under four minutes by forty atheletes and with ten years 296 times.

What's the lesson here?

If you want to achieve something really worthy, change the limiting beliefs that are holding you back and the negative self-talk that is sabotaging your performance, your career, your life.

Beliefs, perceptions, thoughts and self-talk control our emotions and behaviour.

If you change your belief, you'll change your perception,

if you change your perception, you'll change your thinking and your self-talk,

and

if you change your thinking and self-talk, you will change your feelings, action and performance.

If a plant grows in a bottle it will take on the shape of the bottle and will be confined to it even though it has the potential to become a large and beautiful tree. This is exactly what happened to my friend who was bottled up.

To get that plant to grow one would have to break the bottle to set it free. The plant will grow mature, bear fruits and propagate.

Like the bottle, limiting beliefs inhibits growth. Unmindful of all these she has earned enough laurels and has set her mind on much bigger things with which she wants to impact several young life’s by empowering them and enable them reach the potential as quickly as possible.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

A Date With Fate
by Emily Page Hatch, Wilmington, North Carolina

In a kitschy bar in Cambridge, he asked to sit at my table, though later he would insist that I made the first move. I was intrigued by his tattoos. He thought I went to Harvard. All we had in common was that we’d both almost stayed home. Friends had dragged us out on a frigid February evening. We still never agree on anything, except that it’s a darn good thing we sucked it up that snowy night. Our wild blue-eyed son always stops us in our tracks, reminding us that fate is just as fragile as our memory.

Believe

"Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to solution." - David Joseph Schwartz

“Be brave to stand for what you believe in even if you stand alone.”
- Roy T. Bennett

"Believing in yourself is not for you; it's for every person who has touched your life in a significant way and for every person your life will touch the same way five minutes from now, or five centuries from now." - Jaye Miller

Envision

"The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100%."
- Arnold Schwartzenegger

“Envisioning the end is enough to put the means in motion.”

- Dorthea Brande

"I am an artist, and I have the ability and the free will to choose the way the world will envision me." - Lady Gaga

Stop - Start

In any mechanical vehicle - motorized or mechanical. One uses the brake to stop and the accelerator pedal to start.

You thought it was only for vehicles, but, no you too have to use the start and stop to make progress.

Let's see how :

Stop worrying about how to get attention.

Start paying attention.

Stop obsessing about creating awareness.

Start becoming more aware.

Stop making people want things.

Start making things people want.

Stop analysing data

Start seeing people it represents.

Stop trying to be more interesting.

Start becoming more interested.

Stop keeping score

Start forgetting the past incidents.

Stop hoarding.

Start sharing.

Stop competing.

Start collaborating.

Stop comparing.

Start noticing.

Stop doubting.

Start doing.

Stop striving.

Start caring.

Stop wondering about what's next, start from here and right now.

If you have this, you will go places.

In a fast paced world that we preside over now, we can't be blamed for looking at instant gratification, speedy growth, quick buck, fast food, and lightning quick answers to whatever we want to know or solutions for whatever we seek, because there's Google to our rescue which provides us all answers, muchore that we want or have bargained for.

We want to become information rich because we wanted to show off that we are intelligent, and our IQ is high.

There's one driving force which fuels all of this that makes us explore for new things, new thoughts and new ideas.

You may be wondering what's all this.

Yes!

You guessed it right, it is just one thing that drives all of us from "the cradle to the grave," and that is CURIOISITY. The impulse to seek new information, the craving for new experiences and to explore new possibilities is a basic human trait, and that is called CURIOUSITY.

CURIOUSITY drives us to view critical aspects more creatively. History is a witness to all of this and bears a testimony to it for most breakthrough discoveries and remarkable inventions of mankind - from flint stone for fire to wheels, right down to the much talked about and awaited driverless cars.

This when it comes to an organisation, it seems so paradoxical as both leaders and employees receive an implicit, message that asking questions is an unwanted challenge to the authority.

People are trained to focus on process and process alone, for guaranteed performance results that lead to the milestones, goals and vision of the organization.

On the other hand it is the same management of organization's that urges it's people to maintain a

sense of wonder, which is crucial to creativity and innovation.

The most effective organizations of the world and their leaders look for ways to nurture their employees' CURIOUSITY to fuel leaning and discovery.

See where you are and see where is your CURIUOSITY, leading you to in every step you take.

IQ - EQ - DQ - RQ

Brian Herbert said,

"The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice.

People are definitely the greatest asset of any organization. It is only as good as the people who make it. It is not going to make a difference whether the company makes cars, cosmetics, capsules, writes codes or makes rockets.

That which makes these things happen is

IQ (INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT) -> Building Knowledge.

The ultimate source of happiness, is our mental attitude, which comes from wisdom, and that is built on knowledge.

EQ (EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT) -> Having Emotions

Once in a lifetime, you meet someone, who changes everything in your life.

Emotional Intelligence will say, "No matter what age you are or what your circumstances might be, you are special, and you have setting unique to offer. It's your life, because of who you are, and that to me has meaning.

Trust and long lasting relationships are built by Emotional Intelligence.

DQ (DECENCY QUOTIENT)-> Having Decency Greeting and treatinng people following etiquettes.

RQ (RELEVANCE QUOTIENT) -> Being Relevant.

While you are waiting someone else is already doing it.

It all comes down to employee engagement.

It all comes down to recognition.

It all comes down to leadership, which leads to everyone feeling ownership and accountability for the results.

You can ask a team to achieve targets or even accomplish a mission, but you never can order excellence.

People do not buy the product, they buy the experience. It can be Apple, Mercedes, IKEA etc., - it's thoughts and products you have bought for sheer experience.

Majority vs Minority

If you were to cook 3 glasses of rice, would you be adding 3 glasses of salt to it?

Certainly not!

So in every rice thing you cook, the quantity of rice always outnumbers the salt, but, a little salt added, enhances the taste of the rice.

Look at the ceiling of room that you are right now in. You'll see the bulb is 1:5000 of the room, but, when it gets dark after sunset, one flip of the switch turns on the bulb which makes darkness flee.

If you and I are the "salt" of the earth that adds taste and the bulb the light of the world, then that "little you and I," has the ability to make things happen.

Sometimes we feel overawed, outnumbered, and overwhelmed by sheer magnitude of evil or wrong doers, so we choose powerlessness and decide to go with the flow instead of standing up for what is right and opposing the vast majority.

Little doesn't mean "insignificant." Our presence should make a difference because youou and I are certainly significant. Let's stop being on the side of the majority, for it is a trivial majority, whereas we are an impactful minority.

They could be the rice, we are the salt, they could be the room, we could be the bulb, let's make our influence felt.

Remember, this always.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

PERFECT DAY
by Marybob Straub, Smyrna, Georgia

We went looking for a wedding dress on Sunday. Laughing, we made for the door of a bridal shop. This would surely be the first of many stores before we found the perfect gown. Having witnessed other brides and their mothers, we vowed to be happy in these moments. Unexpectedly, my mind went back to the day we brought her home some 27 years ago. I said a silent thank-you to the young mother who, by letting her go, allowed her to be mine at this precious time. Two hours later, there she stood, in the dress of her dreams. My beautiful girl.

The Inspiring Storytelling of Jim Thorpe...

Jim Thorpe, an American Indian from Oklahoma, was chosen to represent US in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, in the track and field event.

On the morning of the final competition, his shoes were stolen.

Fortunate that he was he found two shoes in the garbage bin, which were different from each other in every aspect of colour, size, spikes etc.

He decided he will try them anyway.

He had one major problem that the shoe of the left leg was bigger. He chose to wear extra socks to fill that gap, and two extra filled it to fit his legs.

Wearing them that day, he went on to win two gold medals.

That feat of Jim is a perfect reminder to all of us that we do not have to resign ourselves to the excuses that keep us holding back.

So what, if life hasn't been fair, or so we might believe.

Whatever feelings, thoughts or happenings, it was that we woke up in the morning with - stolen shoes, ill-health, headache, disappointing news, slip and fall or a broken relationship, let that not stop us from running our race for the day.

Let's remind ourselves when the sun is up and out, let's get on to our feet and go for our hunt.

We can experience more in life, if we can get over the excuses we give and get on with life.

Determination

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." - Og Mandino

“A vow is fixed and unalterable determination to do a thing when such a determination is related to something noble which can only uplift the man who makes the resolve.” - Mahatma Gandhi

“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence—that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”
- Mario Andretti

Asking Questions

In the words of Rudyard Kipling, "I kept six honest serving men near always, and it is they who taught me all I got to know, their names are : Why? What? Where? When? Who? and How?

To keep a healthy curiosity, we need to ask questions so that we understand things and people around us be they relatives, friends, peers colleagues, team mates, stakeholders, customers or whoever else.

It's not the quantity but, the quality and the value of the questions that is important.

Asking the right questions, at the right time, in the right place, to the right people, gets you the right answers to go places.

Good questions are a worthy investment always.

Do you believe in this?

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

ALWAYS GROWING
by Julie Liska, Seward, Nebraksa

Dad auctioned off his faithful red tractor, rented out the land, and retired from farming in 1982. He and Mom moved to town. But they reserved a small plot of land for a garden and returned each week of summer to tend it. Winter brought new challenges. Dad had his hips replaced, bypass and cataract surgeries, and a stroke. Yet each spring the garden was planted, watered, lovingly tended—the bounty shared with all. Now Dad is 93; his pale blue eyes dodge the sun as he gingerly plucks red tomatoes from the vine. “What will you remember about me?”

Dare

"Failures are made only by those who fail to dare, not by those who dare to fail." - Lester B. Pearson

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

"Dare to dream, but even more importantly, dare to put action behind your dreams." - Josh Hinds

It is time to wake up..

I walked into a mall early morning wanting to buy a pair of socks.

As I walked in I saw a sweater with a price of $3000 a pair of jeans $6000 and $8000 for a pair of socks.

It fused the daylight out of me as this seemed outrageous.

I went searching for a Salesman, and found one at last in the jewelry section. She was selling someone a Rolex for $7 and looking through the glass case I saw a 24 carat diamond with a price tag of $4. And this was a shock.

I asked her how could it be that something as expensive as the 24 carat diamond is so cheaply priced and that for a socks so ridiculously high.

She said, someone snugged into the store last night and changed the price tags of everything. It's making all of us are confused, like having lost our senses and is driving us mental. They are all willing to pay enormous prices for utility and very little for those things that have great value. It's like they don't know what is the real value of valuable things and what's not.

I hope we will get the price tags back and right soon because it's going to be painful to see people pay far too little for expensive things and too much for things of little value.

(This is a story I read in the internet, and liked it).

Whoever wrote this was a super realist for imagining something like this.

May be life is a dream. May be life is showing us through scripts like this as to how lopsided things are now.

I was thinking about this and was hoping, how nice if someone snugged into us and changed the price tags in everything and show us the true value of things.

May be people have a marked up value of status, position, money, possessions, power, fame, popularity etc., and have put a huge discount on real values - truth, honesty, integrity, love, care, kindness, family and friends.

May be we are all in deep sleep and are dreaming.

I hope we wake up.

Hope

"Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness."
- Desmond Tutu

"We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life."
- Emil Brunner

The Best Shine from Within

There's an old Aesop's Fable of The Man, The Wind and The Sun.

On a certain day, the wind and the sun were in a friendly conversation talking a whole lot of things and landed on the topic strengths, which became hot, and in that heat the wind challenged the sun saying let's see who among us is strong. The sun laughed, but the wind looking down saw a man walking with an overcoat on said, "Let's see who among us can get the man to remove the coat.

The sun said, "Go ahead," so the wind began to blow and blow fiercely too. The more it blew the tighter the man hugged to his coat."

It was now the turn of the sun. It shone, shone brightly and it started becoming warmer and warmer. The man began unbuttoning his overcoat and in a little while more he took off his coat and went under a tree, to rest."

The wind furious by now, asked the sun, "How did you make the man remove his coat without any force whatsoever?"

The sun replied, "I did it through brightness and gently."

It may on the surface seem this being just another fable, but, this fable has a lot to do with good people - they may be professionals, leaders or just ordinary ones.

Such people operate like the Sun.

- They shine when they help others weather the storm.

-They shine when they respect the others, whatever their status.

- They shine best when they encourage.

-They shine when they show they care.

-They shine when they listen intently to show their interest for the others.

-They shine when they acknowledge others.

When the sun is shining warmly on us we feel we can accomplish almost anything - no mountain is too high, no ocean is too deep, no wind is too strong, no obstacle is difficult to surmount.

The best people have the same effect - they shine from within, they're gentle, kind, warm and accessible always.

Fulfilment

"Only those who have learned the power of sincere and selfless contribution experience life's deepest joy: true fulfilment." - Tony Robbins

“If you devote yourself entirely to a noble pursuit, there is no way you cannot find beauty and fulfilment.” - Daniel Gillies

“True happiness is a state of fulfilment.”- Ashish Sophat

Humility

A trait everyone has, but, just that only a few display it continuously.

Humility is the hallmark of wise people, great people and inspirational leaders.

It takes a great deal for anyone not to get blinded by their position and accomplishments and to walk into the dark alleys of arrogance.

Being "humble" being "firm," are not contradictory, as much as being "humble," and being "confident" aren't contradictory."

However, being "humble," and being "respected," are not complimentary.'

Being "humble," doesn't mean

- Being Weak

- Being less Assertive

- Being less Ambitious

- Being less Passionate

Humble people

- bring out the best out of those who work for them.

- make it easy for having difficult conversations with them, at ease, by empowering them to share their feelings, thoughts, ideas, without any reservations, without interrupting and without being judgemental.

- they minimise whatever gaps that might exist.

Keys To Remain Humble.

Respect others by Admiring Diversity.

Being at ease with Self by not competing with anyone, but self

Focussing in Excelling through self awareness, self exploration, and confronting insecurities addressing vulnerabilities, of self.

Reflect, learn, unlearn, relearn continuously and evolving every moment.

Let's all be as humble, as we can and make our lives together better and better.

Gratitude

“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.” - Henri Frederic Amiel

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”- Gilbert K. Chesterton

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” - Zig Ziglar

Strive - be the best

There's hardly anyone

I know who doesn't want to be the best.

Those who want to, try their very best always.

Even if one tried hard it's sometimes not always possible to be on the top, but, surely would be close to it.

On the other hand, if one thinks that he/she can't do it, that he/she doesn't have the capabilities, then he/she will never accomplish anything.

Of course whatever one does is important, but, it is not as important as how one goes about it.

Ones attitude should be one of becoming the best on whatever one is doing.

Whether one was to be a businessman or business woman, an artist, scholar, sports person or an engineer, doctor, lawyer, management professional or whatever one has to strive hard to be on the top and to be the best.

Try and try your best continuously and you'll be rewarded.

Just sit down for a while to list out what you are good at and go out to do everything that's possible to become the best, of course with a time line.

When you get there the others will acknowledge you, that's when you know you are the best.

Wishing you all the best to become the very best.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

EXCESS BAGGAGE
by Eileen Dougharty, Chicago, Illinois

“Ticket is $287. But all of that is a problem.” She’s referring to my luggage cart, stacked with suitcases, boxes, and a bag full of shoes. “One bag is free. Everything else is $100 each.” I tell her I packed my Volkswagen after discovering my boyfriend was cheating. Fried the engine. Hitchhiked to the airport in flip‑flops. She left her cheating husband recently, hardest decision she ever made. She checks it all, charges me nothing. As I leave, I don’t feel the crush of having no plan, only the weightlessness of being free.

The Way You Ask, Changes Perspective.

Yes, I mean it, the way you ask the question changes the perspective completely.

Let's see how :

- Why isn't it working for me?

This question shifts focus on to searching for a solution.

- Facing challenges in your workplace, your start-up or new venture?

Don't ask, "What will it not work for me? (Problem Centric).

Ask, "Why isn't it working for me?"

(Solution Centric).

- Started as a free lancer, not getting clients?"

Don't ask, "Why am I not getting clients?" (Problem Centric)

Ask, "Why isn't it working fore?"

(Solution Centric).

- Not able to change a bad habit?"

Don't ask, "Why am I not able to break the bad habit?"

(Problem Centric).

Ask, "Why isn't it working for me?"

(Solution Centric).

- Not growing in the career, having a difficulty learning new skills?"

Don't as "Why am I not growing?"

(Problem Centric).

Instead ask, "Why isn't it working for me?"

Problem Centric,

- You imagine, you are very good or not so very good. Hence your focus is on you.

Solution Centric

The focus is on the challenge, and what is the obstacle you wish to overcome the issue.

It is just one question always, Why isn't it working?"

Ask the right question, in a solution seeking mould.

Subtraction Too Adds Value

You may be wondering what am I saying.

Yes, you heard it right, subtraction, too can add value.

When we are innovating a product or iterating a service, we look to add value by introducing features and benefits.

Sometimes improvement and progress can be made by removing things that people wouldn't miss.

- It could be an age old process..

- It could be a reporting pattern..

- It could be a structure..

It could be anything.

Just sit down and think it over. See what could you subtraction or stop doing to improve your product, service or anything..

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

SHATTERED
by Pat Guthrie, Pulaski, Virginia

My elderly sister decided for the first time to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve in New York City to watch the ball drop. The next morning, she reported that she was disappointed. When I asked her why, she said that on the news the day before, the reporters had talked about the crystals inside the ball and what a piece would be worth if someone got a hold of one. But then the ball descended very slowly. She’d expected it to crash and that people would scramble for the pieces. She’d wanted to see that!

Outstanding

"Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission." - Zig Ziglar

"Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts." - Paul Johnson

"The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results." - Tony Robbins

More Listening

Have you ever considered how bad it is to talk over someone?

We do it.

We all do it at some time or the other.

May be it is our habit!

May be it is our excitement, we feel we know something more about something being discussed.

Ever cut off someone mid-sentence with...

"I don't mean to interrupt, but..."

"Sorry to interrupt..."

"Wait..."

Ever skip the lead-in and finish someone's sentence with your own "paragraph?"

May be it is because of poor listening, may be it is because you are trying to show off, or may be because of your ego too (Let me show you what I know, instead of learning from what you don't know!), or may be it is plain outright rudeness, too.

Here's a way to set that right...

Commit yourself to dropping a small gap of silence between what someone says...

and your response...

just an extra heart beat or two.

You'll be amazed at what else you learn and also the number of more interesting connections you add to your network.

If/When you catch yourself forgetting not to interrupt...stop and apologize...

"I'm sorry. I cut you off. What were you saying?" See and enjoy how it reinforces your future self-awareness.

MORE LISTENING. A LEADING SIMPLY HABIT, WORTH ACQUIRING.

Listen

"We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak." - Epictetus

"Listen with the intent to understand, not the intent to reply."

- Stephen Covey

"There is only one role for being a good talker—learn to listen."

- Christopher Morley

2 Cases 2 Lessons

Case 1 - BLACKBERRY

About a decade ago, the apple of the corporate eyes as the safest securely mobile device.

Why did it fall so precipitously?

- Sense of invincibility (Like the fable Hare & The Tortoise)

- Inability to move forward

- Inward group-think (sycophancy) and arrogance

- Failing to anticipate changing preferences for look and feel of iPhones and Androids

- Taking customer for granted

Result :

Chasing the market with sub-par versions of competitors models.

The fall of KODAK, NOKIA etc., are similar.

Lesson 1

Making change as much as a part of your life as breathing, starting zero each day, carrying everyone with you.

Case 2 - JW Marriott

It is said Bill Marriott feet didn't touch the ground.

He never was at his desk. He was busy visiting properties, listening to guests, managers, chefs, waiters... learning what was or wasn't working, and changing all the time.

His was a culture of change, owned, run and driven forward by trusted, empowered employees.

Result :

JWM continuing to be the world's premier luxury hotel chain in 35 years.

The case of several traditional companies like Tata, Birla, Amalgamations Group, Murgugappa Group, TVS, Kasturi & Sons etc., are similar..

Lesson 2

Being on the spot, feeling the pulse of the market (with a peripheral vision), and the people working for the organization, being next to them, seeing the future and riding on it all the way to the top.

This was inspired by a friend Soumya Kanti Roy and improvised. Trust it was a nice read.

Success Is An Iceberg

When we succeed, what people see is success and the result of it.

What nobody gets to see, or what no one will know or bother to find out is what goes into succeeding.

The strong will of dedication.

Several hours of hard work burring the mid-night oil and the amount of sweat.

The strict discipline of following a process continuously.

The amount of disappointments one has to face and deal with.

The selfless sacrifices one makes in the journey - discomfort, distance from family, friends, time for self, money, food sleep. What not?

The number of failures and the persistence, to keep going on despite the set back by rising again after a fall.

People are used to analysing failures only. Best advise would be analyse successes too and examine what more can be done to improve the process to ensure we succeed again and again, until some other new challenge makes us re-examine our process. This is what the best champion sportsmen and women do.

Be assured, you are no less than a champ yourself.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

DARK WATERS
by Daryl Eigen, Portland, Oregon

Night wreck diving in Micronesia is scary. One hundred feet down, the water is the blackest. Two of us dived toward a sunken ship that soon loomed large in the dark water. We felt the ghosts of the Japanese sailors who had died with this WWII freighter. Swimming deeper into the ship’s bowels, my buddy suddenly hit a layer of reflective silt, blinding us. Together we groped through the ship, breaking through the uninterrupted, silent blackness of the sea. Watching our bubbles, we rose to the surface, where I ripped off my mask to breathe the tropical air.

Focus

Chess Masters don't evaluate all the possible moves.

They know how to discard 98% of the moves they can possibly make, but, then they FOCUS, on the potential 2% of the remaining.

That's exactly the way experience and excellent expertise, works in every other area, professionally and personally too.

2% suggests

Expect less ... Prepare more...

- Avoid disappointments.

Judge less...

Respect more...

- Build relationships, connections and network

Accept less...

Reject more...

- Maintain quality standards.

Criticize less...

Appreciate more...

Earn more friends.

Complain less...

Thank more...

Be grateful.

Regret less...

Cheer more...

Be happy..

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

MONSTER PATROL
Aaron Hampton, Seattle, Washington

As a child, I had awful night terrors—at one point, I stopped sleeping. Then my dad’s younger brother lost his job and had to move in with us. Uncle Dave slept in the room next to mine. From then on, he was there to comfort me, sometimes even sleeping on the floor beside my bed “to keep the monsters away.”  After he landed a job, he could have moved into a nice apartment, but I begged him not to go. When my parents asked why he was staying, he smiled and replied, “Monsters.”

Let's Look Around

From our birth, through school and higher education we keep thinking of ourselves only as our attention is only to be ahead of the rest. In short we become great "I" specialists.

We get to work and we are there with a lot of "I" specialists, and the institution, organization or company wants us to work together because the want the "I's" become "We's."

This can be possible if we stop looking at just

our progress

our excellence

our win etc.

And

other's mistakes

other's errors etc.,

We are guilty of such acts consciously and unconsciously, instead of looking at the many things around that are amazing and beautiful.

This day and all the other days that follow, let's make it a habit and make a conscious efforts every morning that we will only look for amazing things.

An object

An observation

A service taken

A friendly chat

Someone's performance

Alone time

Observations @ work

Good things in work

A kind gesture

The list can go on endlessly...

Let's

- Observe it

- Acknowledge it

- Recognise it

- Appreciate it

- Express gratitude

And feel a amazing.

Patience

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."- Leo Tolstoy

"Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy."- Saadi

The Power of Because..

Over centuries our culture and traditions have taught us that everything we do is about finding an angle and our communication being creative with truth as the underlying necessity - the "master of spin."

It doesn't have to be this way, at least when marketing or selling our services or while doing business.

We can choose to do things we are proud of.

What instead of trying to come up with an angle, we mastered truth telling instead.

We rediscover truth about our value proposition revisiting the reasons we originally showed up for people at this time.

...Our company exists, because...

...We make this, we do this because...

... People need this, because...

...We want to appeal to the customer, because...

...The right thing to do, because...

Truth is the most powerful personal and professional strategy of all. We become better people, by being honest with ourselves, first and foremost.

It is reasonable to consider yourself as an evolving person, if you haven't changed.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

PRAYER QUILT
Jennifer Thornburg, San Tan Valley, Arizona

I started quilting so I could spend time with my aunt. I didn’t accomplish much until my little sister was put into the hospital. She lived 13 hours away, which meant I couldn’t be at her side, but I could pray, and I could make her a blanket. Every stitch was sewn with prayer and tears, memories woven in between layers of cotton and polyester. Doctors said she was going to die at least three times. I sewed faster. By God’s good grace, I delivered that blanket two years ago, and my sister still sleeps under it today.

Anticipating the next move

Every successful business strategy is dependent upon making good decisions about the next move.

In a commercial world, we spend a lot of time planning to create growth. Often those plans rely on getting the customer to do what we want them to do - so we make our next move.

The businesses that not only survive but thrive are the ones that anticipate and obsess about the customer's next move.

They intentionally create products and services that take the customer where he/she wants to go. The brands like Netflix, Airbnb, Amazon and so on are masters of planning for our next move.

When our future is dependent on our customers, it's their likely next move that should prompt our next strategy.

Being in HR and your customers (internal) redefining business what is your strategy - planning seeing their next move, or devising their moves that you want them to take.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

EMERGENCY CONTACT
by James Gates, Watertown, South Dakota

We’d divorced three years earlier and hadn’t seen each other since, but for whatever reason, I never took her off my emergency contact list at the nearest hospital. After my accident, I was put in a medically induced coma, and when I woke, she was the only person in the room. She sat in a hospital recliner, watching The View, looking unshowered. She turned her head casually as I slowly came to. “It’s just like you to have something like this happen,” she said. “I’m here, so I figure I’ll get us something to eat. What do you want?”

Nurture

· "Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes." - Benjamin Disraeli

· "The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul."
- Alfred Austin

· "If you nurture your mind, body, and spirit, your time will expand. You will gain a new perspective that will allow you to accomplish much more."
- Brian Koslow

Seeing and Hearing

Being Seen and Being Heard.

We learnt as children what motivates people around us, is the shortcut to gain attention.

As we grew we seem to have unlearnt this art, this ability to be emphatic communicators when being seen and being heard becomes our main driver.

We have a better chance of being heard when we understand what the people we're speaking to are open to hearing.

We do that by asking ourselves better questions.

Four Important Messaging Questions

01. Who is this information for?

02. What do we want them to know?

03. Why do they need to know this?

04. What do we want to know next?

Communication is not only about finding the right words but also the right reasons to say them.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

THE YELLOW HOUSE
by Rose McMills, Woodridge, Illinois

I’ve lived in my condo 15 years now—long enough that I don’t even see it anymore. I started dreaming about moving into a house, where I was bound to be happier. I fixated on little yellow houses somewhere in the suburbs of Chicago and watched for them from the train on my commute. “Oh, look—there’s one!” I’d say as it slid by. Then one day, sitting in the sun on my patio, I looked up and realized the outside of my condo was done in yellow siding. I already had a yellow house. And I was home!

Soft Skills Are Really The Hard Skills.

How have a few mastered them.

When we think about what gets in the way of great results, great relationships and more enjoyable days, it really boils down to soft skills. Our attitude towards work and the people around us. Imagine how much better things would be if everyone on your team could be described as someone and someone who is...

- Approachable

- Attentive

- Encouraging

- Humble

- Kind

- Resilient

- Resourceful

- Objective

When you are ready to push things and go beyond the common level of meeting expectations, inspire better attitudes and better action from everyone (not just yourself) with SMOVE - SMILE & MOVE as a reminder to happily serve.

SMILE would mean

- Wake Up

- Be Thankful

- Be Approachable

- Complain Less

- Smile more

MOVE would mean

- Start early and go along

- Go beyond expectations

- Have a sense of urgency

- Be resourceful and resilient.

SMOVE on through everyday.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

SS SERENDIPITY
by Vernon Magnesen, Elmhurst, Illinois

In July 1915, Henry and his eight-year-old daughter, Pearl, were excited for the company outing the next day. That evening, Henry had a violent argument with his landlord, ending with the landlord spitting on a painting of the Virgin Mary. Henry was so upset, he fell ill and canceled their trip. He and Pearl missed the cruise on the SS Eastland, which sank with over 800 people on board—but not my future grandfather and mother. Thanks to that miracle argument 100 years ago, 22 descendants are alive today.

Switch Off.. Switch On..

Imagine this. You are in a terrific mood this day because of a great piece of news, you received. You're excited about it and tell it to your friend with joy. However, he/she listens to you disinterested as you gush away. And, before you know it, your happy feeling evaporates, to make you feel discouraged and dumped.

It happens, often for some, there's no surprise.

May be you, I AND everyone without exception, has faced a situation like this somewhere, sometime.

Here's an insightful story, I heard very long ago. I love it. Am never ever tired reading it, or listening to it.

Buddha, was well known for his ability to respond to evil with good.

There was a man who knew about this reputation and travelled several thousand miles to test Buddha.

When he arrived, he stood before Buddha abused him verbally, heaped unbearable insults and challenged him to the extent of getting physical. He did everything possible to offend Buddha, but, Buddha being Buddha, was absolutely unmoved.

He simply turned to the man and said, "May I ask you a question?"

The man replied, "Well what?

Buddha said, "If someone gives you gifts and you refuse to accept them, then to whom does the gifts belong?"

The man replied, "Naturally to the one who offered it."

Buddha smiled, "That's correct! So when I decline to accept your abuse and insults, do they not belong to you?"

The man apologized and walked away silently.

All of have an MCB (Main Circuit Board) embedded in our system, we ought to know when to Switch Off, and when to Switch On.

Prioritize

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities." - Stephen Covey

"Pursuit of perfection is futile. Instead, I prioritize and often realize goals or tasks I've been aiming for just aren't that important." - Aisha Tyler

"The best we can do is prioritize our needs and make choices accordingly."
- Janet Evanovich

Busy-Ness

We are all in a state of Busy-Ness isn't it?

Meet anyone anywhere, anytime these days and when you ask, "How are you?"

Reply would be, "Good, but I don't have any time, I'm very busy with work, client calls, etc., etc.,"

Oh ok, I can understand, but, let's make a deal, and a real one too.

Just imagine, someone (not me...surely), came up to you and said I'll give you a Million $ will you do what you'd like, (not what I would like ok), yeah you heard it right, what you'd like to do!!!

I bet you'll first go numb, then become flooded with joy, and when you start thinking back several fantasies and shelved ideas begging to flower in your mind.

Your perspective will change.

Suddenly you'll begin to find time for yourself, your near and dear, your ideas etc.

You'll stop flipping your mobile for WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, FB and other Social Media, then watching Amazon/Netflix, and you may even stop going to parties.

These are all things that rob away your time during a waking day. In fact, it's not the actual work that keeps us busy, it's these gadgets and connections.

You begin to realize how your valuable time gets chewed away by these rodent distractions.

The point is it is not about time, (all of us have the same 24 hours a day, not a minute extra, and in the same space several greats have made life), it is about priorities.

Chalk up your priorities and attend to them the way you sequence them. Observe, to see how your Busy-Ness, melts and you begin to have a lotore time for better things in life.

Getting There

In our growing years, being with our parents, "getting there," meant completing education, getting a job, settling down, then alliances are entertained, suitable match found, settled down, having a home if our own and raising a family which we can afford to feed and look after.

Now, "there" is a now the exclusive place where accomplishments are built ever higher, boxes are ticked and accolades rain down.

A transient state of worthiness, we achieve when we have proof that we've already done enough, achieved enough, been enough, have enough.

There is a metric that quickly loses its shining allure once it is met.

A journey we are encouraged we should be on and a destination which many of us feel we've never quite arrived.

The "truth," is we are "there," in the moment every moment when we live without comparison, or without competition, spending our time wisely. When we give off ourselves generously, we create ourselves intentionally. It is not some distant or better horizon, but, a grounded state we can give ourselves permission to inhabit.

You're already "there," only if you choose to be.

Are you there?"

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS
by Stephanie Adair, Metairie, Louisiana

Every day, upon picking up my 11-year-old son from school, I would ask, “How was your day?”

For years, I got the same response—“Fine, fine”—with no eye contact.

His autism, it seemed, was going to deprive me of the normal chitchat parents unconsciously relish.

One early spring afternoon, I asked the question, expecting the same answer. “How was your day?”

My son replied, “Good, good.”

Then he looked at me and said, “How was your day, Mom?”

With tears streaming down my face, I said, “It’s really good—the best day ever.”

Change and Choices

Am sure no one will argue that change is a constant, and is as inevitable as death is.

We have choices though, that we can make.

How can we make choices?

Let's appreciate the fact that when choosing actions there are some things within and some outside our control.

Of those we can't control we can keep resisting and keep fighting, at the cost of time, money, energy and mental strength, or accept things as they are and work out means of going around them.

That leaves us with things we can change - those in our control - we can either change them determinedly by leveraging our capabilities or give up to them.

Then there are alternatives that come our way at a time and stage we aren't looking for, or those that don't fit into the scheme of things - the options left for us then is either reject or keep 'em open.

The wisdom while making choices, lies in:

- Knowing what we can or cannot change and then taking action.

- Knowing it can make a difference, make the choice, when you know that acted upon, it'll make an impact.

- Being open to alternative choices too, though they may not have been on our originally chalked list of wants to change, but may prove to be better when executed.

Finally, once the choice/s are made, we need to stretch ourselves to the max and toil hard in executing them with rigour with smarts and with smartness.

Happy Changes to all with a variety of Choices.

Self-Control

· "By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character." - Grenville Kleiser

· "Emotional self-control is the result of hard work, not an inherent skill."
- Travis Bradberry

· "Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence." - Franz Kafka

Content isn't enough,

Confidence is essential too.

A teacher called one of her students to stand up and recite a poem in front of the class.

The boy started. No sooner he did she shouted "NO."

Boy became nervous. Looked at the teacher sheepishly, but, gathering a little courage he began his recitation again. This time too she yelled "NO.

The boy was confused. He gave up recitation and sat down.

The teacher asked another boy to recite.

He began and this time too she shouted "NO." This boy just went on to finish his recitation despite all the shouts of "NO, from the teacher.

When he finished, the reached appreciated it and praised him to the skies while everyone applauded.

At the same time the boy who started reciting first got miffed and asked the teacher why was he stopped when he was reciting the poem in the same manner.

The teacher responded son, "It's not enough if you have a content, you must wear confidence, too.

There are people out there in the world who will invent a thousand way of interfering, intervening or interrupting you while doing a particular thing. If you buckle under them, you'll never be able to complete anything you start. When the do that, you must have the confidence to translate the interrupting "NO's" with "YES." Those who test you, tease you, rag you, bully you or pull you down must become your supporters, your cheerleaders."

Just think it over. How many of us face things like this in our daily life, be it at work, family or society.

Our perception has to be to respond with stronger confidence with an aim which should enable us complete and showcase, the results.

"YES!!!"

"JUST DO IT."

IT SHOULD BE YES I CAN, ALWAYS.

A Flawless Story

A fisherman netted a beautiful pearl with his day's catch.

He looked at it and though there was a tiny flaw in it, he was proud of his possession.

That very moment his thoughts transformed to what it might turn his life into if he could eliminate the tiny flaw, because of the price it could command being big and rare.

He began to scrape it and peeled one layer. The flaw remained. He went on vigorously scraping and peeling layer after layer, till the flaw was gone and so was the pearl gone too.

I'm real life too, everyone we know or meet has some flaw or the other. No one is perfect. And if we go scraping or peeling them to correct the flaw, we will end up losing every one of them completely.

Let's therefore learn to change our mental make up and accept people with flaws irrespective of the size, mass, colour, creed, background etc., and be happy to see everything and everyone around you as beautiful only.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

TINY TREE
Monte Unger, Colorado Springs, Colorado

A neighbourhood kid with branches and leaves sticking out of his pockets and a headband came into our front yard.

He looked like a little soldier in camouflage.

“I’m acting like a tree so butterflies will come,” he said.

As he waited on the grass, I brought out a huge blue preserved butterfly I’d purchased in Malaysia and hid it behind my back. I walked over, kneeled, pulled out the butterfly, and said, “A butterfly has come to see you.” He gasped, and his eyes widened.

His wishes won’t always come true, but one did that day.

Confidence vs Overconfidence

I'll call Confidence C" and Over Confidence "OC."

READ ON...

C: "I can do it."

OC "Only I can do it."

C "I know this subject well."

OC "I know this subject better than everyone else."

C "I'll strive to give my best shot."

OC "I'll always beat everyone every time."

C "My hard work will help me reach my goals."

OC "I'll reach my goals regardless of my efforts."

These are not things people will speak out loudly, there may be some instances, though. These can be made out by the body language people display.

A fine line divides the two. While confidence is associated with success, on the other hand over-confident, is associated can cause or lead to a downfall

Understanding the difference is like a ship sailing and another sinking.

Things that can help :

01. Self-Awareness

-> Emotional Self Awareness.

02. Emotional Self-Management

-> Emotional Self Control

-> Attitude

-> Adaptability

-> Achievement Orientation

-> Humility

03. Social Awareness

-> Empathy

-> Environment Awareness - meaning organization, societal, home etc.

We seriously have no idea of what people are going through in their personal lives and what all are the challenges they've got to deal with. The least we can do is to be simple, kind, nice and helpful.

04. Relationship Management

-> Influence

-> Conflict Management

When it hurts, just ask them to observe and remember to tell them life is trying to impart them a lesson. But before you do that remember this lesson is for you too.

C's of C

Credibility - Context - Content are very important aspects of any Communication.

Whenever we communicate to convince people to either support us, who we service or outside them to buy a product or any idea, we often provide information with context and conviction. While we do this we assume that people would need a lot of information to help take a decision that they will need willing to act on.

We don't realize how false can this assumption be?

Facts and figures alone aren't enough to pursuade us to take action.

Gifted communicators are powerful storytellers know that people need more than just be convincing arguments, endless details of facts and figures in order to help them decide.

Three things your audience would want to know.

01. Can I trust the message and the messenger. (CREDIBILITY)

02. Does the message make sense? (CONTEXT)

03. Does the message and the values of the messenger align with values.

(CONTENT)

Persuasion is both an "art," and a "science."

A compelling argument, communicated with emotion by a source we can trust and believe in.

Always remember

COMMUNICATION

should be CREDIBLE,

and has to be in CONTEXT,

with the right CONTENT

that has to have CLARITY,

be CARESSED

with the right words

that is delivered with CONFIDENCE and CONVICTION

to CONVINCE people to take action.

Among all the alphabet’s of the English Language the alphabet E is the most Eminent of them all.

With E - everything is possible, everywhere, every time with anyone and everyone.

E comes from our emergence in this world and presided over many aspects of whatever the life we live till we exit.

We have choices to escape and rue or to experience and grow.

E has emotions in all men and women, not in plants and animals though. We have it in brothers, sisters, father, mother, uncle, friends and foes too.

E is there in peace, not in wars. E gives us life and love.

E is in homes, houses, clothes, bread, butter, life, spouse and colleagues.

E is in our senses - eyes, nose, tongue, taste. E is in our important organs - heart, liver, kidney.

E is energy.

E is in organizations - estimation, evaluation, creation, design, testing, interviewing, hiring, engaging, exciting, developing, compensating, remuneration, appreciating, rewarding, retention, retirement, enjoyment. It is sadly there in retrenchment, and exiting too. If we run into trouble we can escalate issue to seniors, supervisors up to the Directors or CEO's.

E in our times now in all exchanges are by

E-mails, E-money,

E-transfer, E-recharge,

E-ticket, E-governance not to forget Emoji's.

So you see how much eminent the alphabet E is in our life.

It fits in positively well in most places where we go, except in the negative call Ego. Let of off the E and go on with life, erasing hate and memories of the past, embrace everything in the present, and look forward to the future with hope and excitement.

Learn To...Mathematics

The best mathematics you can ever learn is to calculate is the cost of your current decisions.

Language

The best language you can ever learn to speak, read and to write, is the one that can aggregate how your thoughts and feelings, pan out when it leaves you.

Science

The best science you can ever learn is the one that keeps your curiosity, alive to invent things in places far beyond your expectations.

History,

The best history, you can ever learn, is to recall things that you went through without filters and convert them to learning experiences not just for today in this moment and the future. Remember, to erase, the past stories, and create new history.

Geography

The best geography, you can ever learn, is the world that resides inside you without boundaries, and remove all the limiting beliefs, that are cramping you from achieving you true potential.

Practice

"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." - Vince Lombardi

"Everything is practice." - Pele

"An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching."

- Mahatma Gandhi

Question

"A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer." - Bruce Lee

"Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing." - Euripides

"By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth." - Peter Abelard

Skill

"It is possible to fly without motors, but not without knowledge and skill."
- Wilbur Wright

"When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece." - John Ruskin

"Learning how to learn is life's most important skill." - Tony Buzan

Change Your Thinking

Business is changing rapidly, more with disruptions with technology which is going to shape the future.

Being what it is, it is time to rethink the traditional pyramid too, with all working from the base and trying to get to the top.

Invert the pyramid, put the point at the bottom where you are now (imagine you are starting a new career, which is because of disruptions), conceive the future for an expending opportunity horizon where you can move laterally across the spectrum in search of an ever-widening set of career opportunities. Reinvent yourself regularly. See the world as an ever-increasing set of realities.

Henry Ford said it rightly, "Whether you think you can or cannot, you are right."

Scripted especially for the members of this group in R3 - Raman's Random Ramblings

Raman

22/12/2018, 00:58 - Practice the Pause.

It just takes a moment to change

your thought,

your perception,

your feeling,

your belief,

your intent and

your action,

which can change not just that moment, but, the day or an entire life

which in turn can change the world, if only you can practice the pause.

Pause! Pause! Pause!

Pause

before accusing

before judging

before sparking

before assuming

before criticizing.

Pause whenever you are about to react harshly, then you'll avoid doing and saying things you'll regret later. You'll never have to feel guilty ever.

Beyond the walls of belief, there lies a whole different world.

Pause, and Explore.

Extraordinary is..

Really speaking there’s nothing to be extraordinary.

Being extraordinary is hardly ever the extravagant gesture, it is the ordinary thing remembered and done well, like..

Being human

Being present

Care taken

Handcrafted

Eye-contact

Face-to-face

Heart-to-heart

The intangibles

Genuine interest

A timely response

The feeling of belonging

Thinking of someone in person

Executing on the small details

A handwritten note of appreciation

Choosing the best ingredients even if they are expensive

Treating people the way you would want to be treated

These are some that crossed my mind.

You may add yours to the list to become extraordinary.

Succeed

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough."
- Og Mandino

"In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can." - Nikos Kazantzakis

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at." - Stephen Hawking

Think

"Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness." - Oprah Winfrey

"When you think positive, good things happen." - Matt Kemp

"Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night."
- William Blake

Fear less

Strange but true our life is governed by fear. It is instilled in us from the time we are children..

Eat you food, otherwise...

It's sleep time now, sleep, otherwise..

Study well, otherwise..

This factor called fear manifests in us so much that we begin to generate our own fears...

Fear of ridicule

Fear of failure

Fear of non-performance

Fear of being cheated

Fear of being alone

Fear of being judged

Fear of being hurt

The list of fear can go on endlessly and we labour hard to get rid of those fears, all of which are imaginary.

What we forgot is the lessons and the values that our parents gave us, and what we gained as knowledge that we got from school, higher education, our teachers, our friends etc., which actually equips us to take on life challenges and overcome every obstacle that comes in the path of our goals.

However, there are things that most miss out on :

01. Fix realistic goals

02. Have the determination to chase them down.

03. Maintain focus on the goals, without being distracted.

04. Think, Think, Think..

05. Fear nothing (the worst is the fear of dying, yes, so what that will happen anyway and for all without exception, so why fear anything at all).

Self-Control

"By constant self-discipline and self-control you can develop greatness of character." - Grenville Kleiser

"Emotional self-control is the result of hard work, not an inherent skill."
- Travis Bradberry

"Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence." - Franz Kafka

Perseverance

"Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." - Newt Gingrich

"Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th." - Julie Andrews

"No one succeeds without effort... Those who succeed owe their success to perseverance." - Ramana Maharshi

Purpose

It's a relaxing winter morning, the sun warm enough to give you some comfort of warming up. Newspaper reading done, breakfast over, it may just be some idle time. Thought this would the apt time to script my message. Here it goes.

You have to have a purpose in life is what everyone will say.

Yes, it is true. We all need it. How then do we know our purpose.

Am attempting to simplify it.

PURPOSE

The First Pillar :

Doing that which you love.

To enable this you need a

PASSION for doing that which you like and that should become your MISSION, only then you'll enjoy.

The Second Pillar

Doing that which the world wants from you.

To do this your MISSION will support you immensely and all that you'll need is to bring your VOCATION, trained skills upon which you have enough command.

The Third Pillar

Doing that which you can be paid for.

It is natural that you get employed for the skills for which there's someone willing to engage you. So your VOCATION, helps you gets into a PROFESSION.

The Fourth Pillar

Doing that which you are good at.

You gain experience being in a PROFESSION, and little by little you begin to carve a nice. To get even better, you'll need to fall back on your PASSION, which says Doing that which you love.

So PURPOSE =

doing..

That which you love + That which the world needs + That which you can be paid for + That which you are good at.

The Power of Actionable Feedback.

How many times do you politely leave a restaurant after a bad experience, vowing never to return back, without letting the manager know what you think?

How often have you stopped buying from a brand you once trusted?

How valuable would your feedback be, if only companies were in the habit of asking for it?

It is hard to ask questions that elicit useful feedback.

Fear about the responses we might get hold us back because suggestions invariably and inevitably, make more work for us.

Feedback is a deliberately cultivated art through observation, learning, practicing, making mistakes subsequently Learning applying them right, review result and improvise if necessary, else standardise.

The trick to making feedback actionable is to ask specific questions of the right people at the right time.

Final thought.

We do not need everyone's opinion about everything to improve ourselves, or our products, or our business or our services, but, it is important to ask the people who matter questions about things you are willing to change.

Kindness

"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
- Mark Twain

"One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession." - Sophocles

"There’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end." - Scott Adams

Improve

"What you do today can improve all your tomorrows." - Ralph Marston

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Ernest Hemmingway

“Become addicted to constant and never-ending self-improvement.”
- Anthony J. D'Angelo

Succeed You Must.

One must admit that everyone wants to succeed in whatever they do. But, just thinking will not help as most live with regrets:

- Worrying too much

- Hide feelings without expressing themselves even to the ones who care.

- Caring too much about what others might think.

- Living in the past, forgetting the present ignoring the future.

- Not daring to risk

...this list can go on endlessly...

When we focus on problems we can be sure we will have a lot of them.

When we focus on possibilities we begin to find several opportunities.

When we focus on solutions, we do not just get many, but, we could even innovate.

Succeed You Must, and How?

The arrow is pulled back to the best of the archer's strength and released to hit the target. That's the only way, it can be, as per rules of physics.

Similarly, we need to pull ourselves back, leaving us with no other choice, but, succeed. We need to let the chances of failure become so dire, so unthinkable that we will have no other choice but to do whatever it takes to succeed.

Someone who lives after he/she was about to drown, will tell, how he/she beat every odd to reach the shore safely. He/she will vouch what it means to have no other choice but to save his/her life and live.

So that's it, do everything you can because Succeed You Must.

Knowledge

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest." - Benjamin Franklin

"Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family." - Kofi Annan

"True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance." - Henry David Thoreau

Experiments and Experiences

There are no wrong decisions.

The decisions are always right.

If everything goes right we gain good experience.

If everything goes wrong we will get a good story.

~ Simon Senek

A Fact and a Story

The forests were shrinking thick and fast, yet the trees were surrendering themselves to the axe unconditionally, because it's handle was made of wood, and the trees thought it was one of them, and didn't suspect anything would go wrong.

Moral:

Make sure you don't start seeing yourself through the eyes of those who don't value you. Know your worth if others don't.

How sad we get betrayed by our own thoughts.

Making mistakes is our nature.

Accepting our mistakes reflects our culture.

Correcting our mistakes defines our stature.

Outstanding

"Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission."v - Zig Ziglar

"Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts." - Paul Johnson

"The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body. The more efficient your body, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results." - Tony Robbins

Understand

"One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

"Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand." - Neil Armstrong

"If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
- Albert Einstein

Keep Upgrading

Iron left unused for a while rusts. Wood left unattended gets eaten by white ants. Edibles if not consumed a gets decayed. Even if it is a brand new one it'll spoil and decay.

Don't you think the same applies to our life as well.

Unused God given talent and natural abilities remaining unutilized, new things unexplored, available resources unexploited. In addition we ignore the need for skills that we need for tomorrow that is never learned. All that we have withers away and decays.

We forget that each of us are a masterpiece creation which should unfold for the world to see. It is time for us to rewrite the chapters of our story book of life. We need to upgrade our software regularly and share stories - both of success and those learning’s which resulted by not succeeding.

This doesn't need to be done for ego sake, popularity sake or for encashment of any kind.

We need to understand we are a part of a big

jig-saw puzzle of the world that makes humanity great.

Every morning remind yourself that you are still in the game and play your part to perfection, by being on the move, both mentally and physically. Gain intellect, become wise. Don't ask how.

Just do it.

Ten years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash. Today is the time to start again. Don't ever have to say, "We have no jobs, no hope no cash."

Succeed

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough." - Og Mandino

"In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can." - Nikos Kazantzakis

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at." - Stephen Hawking

Smile

"Share your smile with the world. It's a symbol of friendship and peace."
- Christie Brinkley

"Beauty is power; a smile is its sword." - John Ray

"Nothing you wear is more important than your smile."
- Connie Stevens

Who Likes …

Who Likes You Work?

Who loves what you do?

Who tells others proudly about what you do?

Who wants to meet you, to share thoughts with you and to be with you?

Who buys your thoughts and what you say, discussing things threadbare, agrees to disagree, to get the best of you?

Who makes you care?

Who is the reason for your being?

Who has the problem you can solve?

When you get the right answers to all these questions, be assured, you'll be a step closer to being your best and you'll also realize you a a lot closer to reaching your highest potential being human.

Trust

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
- William Shakespeare

"Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do."
- Benjamin Spock

"Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity."
- Khalil Gibran

Winner

"You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win."
- Zig Ziglar

"Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble."
- John Madden

"A winner never stops trying."
- Tom Landry

You Are What You Feel Inside You...

A TV anchor once asked Martina Navratilova, "How do you manage to keep your focus and how do you keep yourself fit and manage to play at the age of 43 years to be still at the peak of your game?"

Her suave response was, "The ball doesn't know how old I am?"

In his book, "Still power" Sports Psychologist Garret Kramer says that, "The key factor to perform and excel, either in sports or life, is the quality and the quantity of you internal dialogue."

Performance = Potential - Interference (external and internal).

In other words what this equation suggests is that you need to stop things that stop you from getting things you want.

Sports, Fitness, Business, Life are all games we play on the 6" ground between your two ears.

Reality Check

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." ~ Anon.

In life we do so many things. Some things we wish we had never done, some we wish to replay a million to.es in our mind. It's all these that makes us what we are today and where we stand. And today we think to shape our thoughts and details to put us where we want to be tomorrow and the day after that. We are constantly thinking and evolving, so is the belief. If we were to reverse any of them in the past, there's no guarantee we will be the person we are now.

"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, others judge us by what we have done."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

So, just live making moves making mistakes, learning from them, garner experience, carve memories, but, never second guess, even for a second, who you are, where are you and more importantly where it is going. It will go where it should with you driving it.

The mind gets heated, continue your marching ahead. Things that actually counts is not what we can do but what we actually do. Men move mountains beginning to move stones.

"If you can fly, run. If you can't run walk. If you can't walk crawl, but, whatever you do keep moving." - Dr. Martin Luther King.

Celebrate You

It's this time of the year that everyone reviews what happened in the last few months. Am not going to ask you to do anything more than

"CELEBRATE YOU"

C - Connect with your accomplishments, achievements and successes. List out all of it.

E - Everything! List all things that made you proud (big or all), from all areas of life - Professional, Personal, Social.

L - Learn from experiences, (remember that there are mistakes, it's all learning’s), so include them in your achievements list.

E - Enjoy your achievements, accomplishments and successes. Review the list. to recall, relive, enjoy, absorb and appreciate, how far you've come.

B - Boost your celebration. It's fun to be with others. Who all can you include in your celebration?

R - Reward yourself. Buy yourself a useful or a beautiful gift to symbolise your achievements, accomplishments and successes.

A - Activities can also be rewards. What activity could be most rewarding to you? What could put a smile on your face?

T - The 4 W's. Plan your celebration! Decide - What, When, Where and Who you'll celebrate with? And just go ahead!

E - Express gratitude. Spread the celebration! Tell people who helped you along the way, that, you appreciate them and why?

Y - You are awesome! Round yourself about this knowing it is your inner strength, hard work, focus and energy that made all these things happen for you.

O - Observe who you are. Review your achievements, accomplishments, successes list to

see what are the common themes?

U - Upcoming opportunities and challenges. Know that you are capable of both achieving opportunities and overcoming challenges in the future too.

CELEBRATE YOU and have fun.

Be Happy, Be Content

A Story:

An elderly sage was walking through a city and found a lot of joyous people and felt happy. And as he was walking he saw a small gold coin on the path. He picked it up, looked at it and kept it in his hand, thinking he would give it to the next needy one he finds. He went street after street, covering the entire city, but found none that he could give the golden coin.

In the evening on the outskirts of the city, as he was about to lie down on the slab in front of the granary, he heard the nose of horse hoofs and some men. He got up to see and saw it was the King's troop. The King too saw the elderly sage and asked him to Bless him and his troops as they were marching to wage a war and conquer the neighbouring country.

The sage looked at the sky, closed his eyes as if in prayers and immediately handed over the gold coin to the King.

The King took it in his hand and was surprised and angry. Surprised because of the offering and angry as to how dare the sage give him a small piece of gold coin.

He asked the sage, "What do you mean by giving me this gold coin, when you know I am the king and I am already so wealthy."

The sage aplogized and narrated the story of how he found the small piece of gold coin and his intent of giving it to a needy person.

"Your highness, throughout the day walking through all the streets of your kingdom I didn't meet a single needy. Every one was happy joyous and looked contented with what they had in your beautiful kingdom. Despite everything you have with you and going for a war to conquer your neighbour to annexe more wealth, I felt you to be the most needy, hence I gave you the gold coin."

The wise King got the message and felt ashamed. He immediately called a halt to his troops and asked his men to return to the palace, saying, "We have enough!"

Moral : When we have enough we need to be content with what we have. Looking for more may get us what we want, but, that might be at the cost of someone else too by making them miserable.

You are You, Always Be You

It's natural that

the Eagle soars so high,

the spirit of the Butterfly is to flit

the Bee has a buzz about it

and the Rock stays put, solid at all times.

We are like the Eagle, the Butterfly, the Bee or the Rock and many other natural things of the world, at some time or the other.

We are the pace-setter at times and the peace-sitter at times. Life may just amble in routines, in chaotic times we live in, given the speed at which the earth rotates. This norm isn't for You.

Try not to take things that others say about you personally, because what they say is a reflection of them, and not YOU.

It's time to get rid of the dogmas and work

to create our own norms, too create our own path, that make the rest of our life, by changing our outlook, thinking and mentality.

Take appropriate steps to realize the YOU in YOU and become the real YOU know YOU are and want to be.

Journey of Transformation

In a world of transactions this might sound like Latin or Greek.

Transformation journey is often lost between two sets of assumedly intelligent, voices within.

(I don't want to sound harsh calling them fools.

One keeps asserting that "this is old and therefore it is good! The other keeps reiterating, "this is new, therefore better.

Transformation journey's succeed when someone wise is on hand to guide.

Trying to enlighten assumedly intelligent is like trying to soften bamboo by pouring milk over it. Pour as much as you like to your hearts content, the bamboo will never soften, never bend either.

The journey is lost between an old thought and the new thought.

The old wanting to retain everything merely because it is old.

The other wanting to usher in things merely because it is new.

The disruptions and chaos that we prevail in is because of the old vs new.

I leave you with an intriguing thought though....

Imagine the plight of a poor new born baby in a bath-tub.

Doesn't know whether it will remain or be thrown out?

I U V X Y are interesting alphabets.

Let's explore.

A ... of course is the start

B ... there and C

C ... seeing they say is believing,

and our

D ... dee...ds are always counted.

Let's move on.. and go to

I the most self centred alphabet and word, that is filled with ego and pride.

To know what we really are we need to have Self-Awareness.

Next comes

U and this is YOU. I assume U are self-aware, but, if I need to know U then I be Emotionally Intelligent to know you through your (I's)eyes the way you (C) yourself.

I need to surrender to U and with that the bond becomes V (We).

We become a TEAM.

S (YES) now we straight away (T) tee off to

X which is every mathematician’s delight

but

(Y) do we need to worry about all these.

If we can remove the I and it's blood brothers Me and Mine meaning shunning our ego then all U's and V's become pure Humans.

This wasn't meant to be a tongue twister.

The soul is about

Self Awareness, Understanding, Emotional Intelligence, Togetherness, by removing Ego totally from the equation.

Love and care for the others as much as you do yourself. That's joy and happiness assured for all seasons - more so in the Festive Season.

You are You, Always Be You

It's natural that

the Eagle soars so high,

the spirit of the Butterfly is to flit

the Bee has a buzz about it

and the Rock stays put, solid at all times.

We are like the Eagle, the Butterfly, the Bee or the Rock and many other natural things of the world, at some time or the other.

We are the pace-setter at times and the peace-sitter at times. Life may just amble in routines, in chaotic times we live in, given the speed at which the earth rotates. This norm isn't for You.

Try not to take things that others say about you personally, because what they say is a reflection of them, and not YOU.

It's time to get rid of the dogmas and work

to create our own norms, too create our own path, that make the rest of our life, by changing our outlook, thinking and mentality.

Take appropriate steps to realize the YOU in YOU and become the real YOU know YOU are and want to be.

Journey of Transformation

In a world of transactions this might sound like Latin or Greek.

Transformation journey is often lost between two sets of assumedly intelligent, voices within.(I don't want to sound harsh calling them fools).

One keeps asserting that "this is old and therefore it is good! The other keeps reiterating, "this is new, therefore better.

Transformation journey's succeed when someone wise is on hand to guide.

Trying to enlighten assumedly intelligent is like trying to soften bamboo by pouring milk over it. Pour as much as you like to your hearts content, the bamboo will never soften, never bend either.

The journey is lost between an old thought and the new thought.

The old wanting to retain everything merely because it is old.

The other wanting to usher in things merely because it is new.

The disruptions and chaos that we prevail in is because of the old vs new.

Imagine the plight of a poor new born baby in a bath-tub.

Doesn't know whether it will remain or be thrown out?

What does Efficiency, Improvement, Change, look like really?"

Till not so long ago say from the 90's till recently, if you wanted a passport, you'd have to go near the passport office, and meet one of the agents who would do all the documentation submit it in the passport office.

They brought changes computerising process and eliminated agents, yet, the system never came to settle down.

Later then it was announced by the MoEA (Ministry of External Affairs),

announced new measures to cut waiting time. This was great news for all including me, for one because I had to always rejig and juggle around with so many other activities to make this one. The need came for renewing my passport, I arrived for my appointment and handed over my appointment reference to the helpdesk. The assistant acknowledged my arrival on time and asked me to take a seat, among scores of others who were waiting too.

Unbelievably the office was not working just on time, but, ahead of a schedule too. Someone took me inside asked for my application, old passport, passport size photographs, address proof etc., which I handed over. Again someone else came and too me to another hall and asked to wait saying the Passport Officer is due to arrive. By the time we met the passport officer it took us another 3 hours.

On the outside it looked things changed, but, honestly, no much had changed.

I began to say to myself :

01. It is easy to design a system that looks efficient on paper.

02. It is easy go reply to an email with a generic reply without even responding to the issue.

03. It is easy to show up at a meeting without being present while you're there.

04. It is easy to treat symptoms than it is to get to the heart of the problem.

Getting to the heart of the problem and caring enough to fix is way harder. But, ticking boxes or peering over the cracks doesn't meet our customers desire to feel seen and heard. And it doesn't fulfil our need to do meaningful work either.

That's why the energy we devote to getting better at the hard part is worth it.

How do we define and measure, "Efficiency, Improvement and Changes" will shape the world.

Really speaking this doesn't need any policy or process, it just calls for an "attitude," an "intent," and a "desire," to do it and all of us have that power, except that it may be in a "coma."

Resolve

As we are nearing the end of another year being signed off into history, I just want you to resolve some issues which hangs on almost all of us.

A. 99% isn't good enough.

If you can imagine what 1% would mean. On any given day Indian Railways runs about 12,620 trains daily. And assume it runs on a 99% accident free record daily, then there would be at least 126 accidents reported every day.

This means, be relentlessly dissatisfied. This surely doesn't mean being unhappy.

Compete against yourself challenging your own status quo.

Celebrate successes and gains, do not be complacent.

B. Be Strategic

Let's take "Time Management," for an example.

We need to learn to utilize our time and effort strategically and balance many a thing to extract the maximum out of every second we have for ourselves each day. Remember time is the most precious thing in life, which we can't buy back however rich we are.

The art to develop and practice is how can we multiply it.

C. Sacrifice

"Oh yea - what's new?" You may ask.

True nothing is new really - but it is also true you need to give something to get something.

Getting to the "top" will take a he'll of a lot out of you. Be sure you learn to make sacrifices of something you were used to. You need to do this consciously and most importantly never repent.

D. Be Ready To Be Ridiculed.

The might sound like the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard, but, you would encounter many of those who would ridicule your uncanny nature that separates you from them, they will leave no stone unturned to pull you down. These could be friends, relatives, peers or whoever else, but, what's important for you is to achieve what you've set for yourself.

Do not let their cacophony overpower your will power. Such people are not worth your time to be spent on.

It is not the best and the smartest who always get to the top. It is just that they are masters of what has been listed above.

I dare say, you too can, but, you need to work for that.

Do not just dream, act too.

Story of a Shark

During a research experiment a marine biologist placed a shark into a large holding tank and then released several small bait fish into the tank.

As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller fish.

The marine biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear fiberglass into the tank, creating two separate partitions.

She then put the shark on one side of the fiberglass and a new set of bait fish on the other. Again, the shark quickly attacked.

This time, however, the shark slammed into the fiberglass divider and bounced off.

Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behaviour every few minutes to no avail.

Meanwhile, the bait fish swam around unharmed in the second partition.

Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up.

This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the next few weeks.

Each time, the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack the bait fish, until eventually the shark got tired of hitting the fiberglass divider and simply stopped attacking altogether.

The marine biologist then removed the fiberglass divider, but the shark didn’t attack.

The shark was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm. ~~~

The moral: Many of us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop trying. Like the shark in the story, we believe that because we were unsuccessful in the past, we will always be unsuccessful. In other words, we continue to see a barrier in our heads, even when no ‘real’ barrier exists between where we are and where we want to go.

Value is everywhere

When we learn how to look for it, we can find value almost anywhere, in just about any situation.

There are situations all around we that contain potential value. All we have to do is learn to recognize this value, and then determine how to extract it and convert it into wealth. It is similar to crude oil beneath the ground. We know it’s down there somewhere -- the trick is to find it, get it out, and make something useful (like gasoline) out of it.

Where do we look for hidden value?

We can begin with ourselves. Think of all the skills and knowledge we possess. Sit down and make a list of all the things we do well. Now, let’s look at our list and ask ourselves this question: “Who could benefit from the skills and the knowledge that we possess?”

Open our mind and consider the possibilities. Then figure out a way to sell our skills and our knowledge to those people. It could be in the form of a “how to” report. Perhaps we’ve figured out a unique way that saves costs in business, in a service. People will pay we for that technique.

We can also find hidden value in other people and other businesses.

The trick is to look at every situation and try to find value in it. When we start doing this, unlimited possibilities open up, not only for material gain but for personal development as well. Take a look around we. What hidden values can we detect?

We’re worth more than we think

We probably have some idea of our current net worth. Do we?

Chances are, we know approximately what our house is worth, how much money we have in the bank, the value of our investments, and how much debt to subtract from all that.

However, those tangible assets are trivial compared to the hidden, intangible assets that we possess. No matter what we’ve managed to accumulate to date in material wealth, it cannot compare to the wealth that lies hidden within us.

One of the most powerful things we can do is to become aware of this wealth, and start using it to our best advantage. Once we understand all the treasures that we already possess, unlimited possibilities open up for us.

Ask....Ask....Ask...

A way to Make It EASIER For Others To DO, What We Want-Than NOT To!

Until we learn and use the methods of ASKING, as learnt from the early stages of life, we will find it difficult to realize how easy it is to get what we want just by properly ASKING for it!

The proper method is for us to make it easier for others to do what we reasonably ASK-than not to do it.

Here's how:

Why People Will Do What We WANT.

All of us have been taught, trained, and "attitude-conditioned" to do what we are ASKED. This "doing what is ASKED" is a form of "learned response" which is begun in early childhood, and continues throughout life. Without it, civilization could not have functioned smoothly and the result would be chaos, total conflict and the ultimate destruction of organized society. Not only must we ASK but we need be reasonable, it must sound reasonable. The more reasonable our request is and the more readily it will be granted.

We ought to ASK persuasively.

The method of ASKING depends upon using the Personal Influence which is the Psychology of influence-by-persuasion. Never DEMAND! Never even sound demanding.

We ought to ASK pleasantly-without pressure.

We ought not to let our voice or manner imply pressure. Pressure creates resistance-and resistance is the exact opposite of what you want. What we want is agreement, cooperation and friendly compliance.

We ought to ASK positively.

We need to let our voice and manner, in every way, imply that, of course, the other person will be agreeable and cooperative by gladly doing what we ASK for.

We ought to ASK firmly.

This is the most difficult (and probably the most important) technique of ASKING successfully-because we must give the firm impression that what we ASK for is so reasonable, logical and just - that we should pleasantly persist until we get it!

The needed skill is to ASK firmly - with the implication of continuing persistence - BUT we need to do it courteously, reasonably, persuasively, pleasantly, without any offensive pressure and without threatening argument. We need to develop the skill of implying persistence-without pressure. When we master this skill, we will make it easier for others to do what you want-than not to do it! And our success is thereby assured! This applies to our dealings with everybody - individuals, groups, businesses.

Let's use businesses as an example:

The most successful businesses have learned that it simply requires too much valuable time to argue with a customer or a prospect. At today's high wage-rates, executive and employee time probably will cost much more than whatever could be gained or saved by arguing.

The most expensive element in business is time! Time is too costly to waste in arguing.

The usual business policy now is: If what a customer or prospect ASKS is reasonable and if the cost of doing it does not greatly exceed the cost of arguing about why the business may not do it-then best is to do it pleasantly, agreeably, and promptly - without wasting any time arguing!

This policy began many years ago, when the more intelligent businesses started using the now famous slogan: "The customer is always right!"

Their sales skyrocketed - and so did their profits!

Now almost all businesses have adopted this policy, even though they may no longer visibly display the slogan: "The customer is always right!" Arguing costs too much. Arguing with customers and prospects not only wastes costly employee and company time, but it loses sales and it incurs ill will. Every cost-conscious, customer relations-minded business acts on the proven principle that it is less costly, as well as good business, to agree with its customers and prospects, and promptly comply with their reasonable requests.

Businesses have learned the high cost of not doing what people reasonably ASK! So we can be sure that most businesses will respond favorably to what we ASK. In fact, almost all people will do what we reasonably ASK - for the very practical reason that it probably will be easier to do what we ASK, than to risk the time-consuming explanations, discussions and possible argument ~ which might result from refusing your reasonable, logical, courteous request. Also, agreeably doing what we ASK will win our goodwill which is preferable to incurring our ill will by refusing to do what we pleasantly and expectantly ASK.

ASKING ~ positively persuasively, firmly, pleasantly-without pressure or demand, will get us things we want.

Always Soliciting Kindly, is the way to go.

Beyond the Ordinary Syndrome

People who try their best at whatever they are doing will not waste time, and they do not manifest any of the symptoms of this suitability syndrome.

“Good enough”, just isn’t good enough for people who try. No matter what we do. We should like to do it thoroughly. That is the key to success. And we have to instill this principle of doing things thoroughly, in all those people who are associated with us. That is a principle that people should apply to everything, not just products. Doing your very best until the very end is not only important it is also essential. So it's a hope today’ young will immerse themselves in creative, distinctive activities rather than just studying “enough” and following the crowd. Picking what is right for us and depending on our capabilities, and ensuring that we give our everything, is the way to go.

Only then will the sweat of our effort yesterday for today carry on to tomorrow. Whether one is studying or making a living, “good enough”, should not be good enough for any of us. The crux is look beyond the ordinary.

Just some little hints as to how you would want to do it..

There are many good ways to demonstrate value to our employers, but there are also some things we need to avoid:

IF WE WOULD WANT TO GET AHEAD - WE SHOULD NEVER SAY……

We should NEVER SAY, "They didn't get back to me” or “they are getting back to me.” Leaving the ball in someone else’s court, for all intents and purposes, stops the action. Take the initiative.

We should NEVER SAY, "I thought someone else was taking care of that." An excuse like that is a roadblock to action. Instead, we need to look into what is going on in order to keep things moving.

We should NEVER SAY, "No one told me." When we let our manager hear us talk this way, we make a very clear statement about how we work. In other words, we are oblivious to what is going on around us.

We should NEVER SAY, "I just assumed….” Making assumptions is the best way to make ourselves obsolete.

We should NEVER SAY, "I left him/her a message." This doesn’t absolve us of your responsibilities and in real terms it means we have really accomplished anything.

We should NEVER SAY, "I didn't know you wanted me to do that." Teflon is passé in today’s business world. Statements such as this suggest that we are capable of doing only what we are told and not much more.

We should NEVER SAY, "I didn't have time,” or "I was too busy." If we find ourselves saying those things, we need be aware that we are probably writing our employment obituary and that our job tombstone will read, "Here lies Jack... , Jill... , XYZ..., who couldn't handle the job."

We should NEVER SAY, "But it wasn't due until….". Last minute performance is out. Managers know that what's done at the last minute doesn't leave enough time for proper evaluation, revision, and refinement. Second-rate performance just isn’t good enough.

We should NEVER SAY, "It's scheduled for….." The schedule is only important if completion will be on time. Schedules must be actively verified as many times as necessary.

We should NEVER SAY, "As I understand it….” We should stop playing games at work, which is near to "politics," or at least the way it is said, we're hedging and that spells trouble for us. Using words like this indicates that we're a spectator, not an active participant. Spectators don't play the game and they don't get to share in the rewards.

We should NEVER SAY, "I'll do it as soon as I get it from….” This is not good enough. If we think we’re just a cog in the process, we’ll soon be out of a job. Even though it may not be our fault that it’s late, we need to make it our goal, nay, our purpose to deliver on time, every time.

We should NEVER SAY, "I'm going to get on that right away." Sure we will, but only after someone had to remind us about it! Doing this we're sending the message that we are disorganized and that we deal with things only when someone else brings them to our attention. If that’s the case, let's be assured our days are numbered.

We should NEVER SAY, "I've been trying to get everyone together, but…” This just doesn't wash these days. Such a statement makes it appear that we can't handle responsibility, or that our associates and colleagues don't even respond to our requests. Either way, we’re in trouble.

We should NEVER SAY, "I haven't been able to get through to him/her…” Surely, despite mobiles getting people is still a mighty big issue these days, it ranges from being switched off, to any number of reasons including they would not want to speak to us. The communication barriers are higher than ever before. Getting creative, and doing what it takes to get the response we were looking for, is the key. Sitting back and making excuses is only a sign that we can't cut the mustard!

The message in business today is very clear. The only measure for success is performance - our performance, company performance, industry performance... and the chain moves on. Whatever roadblocks we may face, its our job to remove them. Otherwise, we'll be perceived as just another one of the barriers and something to be eliminated.

Let's go beyond the "ordinary syndrome," and become one who accomplishes, not one who is "perfectionist," who struggles to accomplish many things.

Pencils, the First Known Keyboard In Life

It's been the same then and now, the first alphabets we learn to write are with a pencil, and later move on to other writing devices like the pen to such a thing like I am doing write now penning this to you all through the laptop's keyboard. And when we go back in time, every learned person, every scientist, every inventor used the same device to write, the "pencil." It plays an enormous role in our life, yet very humble, very modest, very unassuming, to such an extent that it goes virtually unnoticed. Very hard to imagine what our life would have been without the "pencil."

There's also a small anecdote as to how the "pencil" was found useful when man was exploring space. We need just to Google to get the entire list of cosmonauts, but one thing that is common to all but that which has never been mentioned at all is the "pencil."

There was a massive problem about objects moving when the space craft is out of the earth's gravity. Everything inside would be floating. And a writing device like a pen had a few more problems, ink wouldn't flow down the barrel to the pen's nib, or ball point pens would freeze. Therefore taking down any note became an issue. Several learned heads, engineers, technologists put their heads together, spent hours, and millions of dollars, without any concrete result, till one find day, someone felt and asked, "What do the Russians do?" They went back to them posed the problem and asked them, as to what do they do. Their reply was simple, "What happened to the pencil?" That sounded a brilliant idea which was flashed back to NASA, and it is said, it was from that time that they too began using the "pencil." So you can now see that the "pencil" has made several trips to outer space too.

Sometimes you and I are also like the "pencil," and in many ways.

You can get to understand a lot more, please read this ....

"THE PARABLE OF THE PENCIL"

The Pencil Maker took the pencil aside, just before putting him into the box.

“There are 5 things you need to know,” he told the pencil, “Before I send you out into the world.

Always remember them and never forget, and you will become the best pencil you can be.”

One: “You will be able to do many great things, but only if you allow yourself to be held in someone’s hand.”

Two: “You will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, but you’ll need it to become a better pencil.”

Three: “You will be able to correct any mistakes you might make.”
Four: “The most important part of you will always be what's inside. What is in the you is greater than what is around it. The core in you are greater than the environment surrounding you. Your potentials will change your environment.”

And Five: “On every surface you are used on, you must leave your mark. No matter what the condition, you must continue to write.”

The pencil understood and promised to remember, and went into the box with purpose in its heart.

Now replacing the place of the pencil with us - you and me. Let's always remember them and never forget, and we can become the best person we can be.

One: “We will be able to do many great things, but only if we allow yourself to be held by our hand in our early years. And allow other human beings to access us for the many gifts we possess.”

Two: “We will experience a painful sharpening from time to time, by going through various problems in life, but we’ll need it to become stronger persons.”

Three: “We will be able to correct any mistakes we might make. We just need an eraser for accompaniment”

Four: “The most important part of we will always be what’s on the inside.”

And Five: “On every surface we walk through, we must leave your mark. No matter what the situation, we must continue to do our duties.”

Let's allow this parable on the pencil to encourage us to know that we are a special person and only each of us can fulfill the purpose for which we were born to accomplish. Let's realize our "purpose." Let's never allow ourselves to get discouraged to even imagine that our life is insignificant and cannot make a difference.

So many people spend years (and money) studying to become doctors, lawyers, actors, dancers, business executives and scientists - any of us, you, me any one can can be any of these things, and we will not need a degree or certificate for our imagine with an open mind, a dream to realized, which we can, and so let's keep a "pencil" to keep our company, so we would want to "pencil" our thoughts, when mind-jogging,

We know too much… feel too little

Let me begin with a story:

“A telephone operator, in a small town would receive a call from a man who would ask the exact time. Finally curiosity getting the better of him one day, he asked the caller why he did every day.

“Because,” he said, “I’m the one responsible for blowing the whistle at noon each day.”

“Well that’s strange,” the operator replied, “everyday exactly at noon I set my clock, hearing your whistle.”

It’s unknown inter-dependence. Individuals can’t be compartmentalized. Through our actions, direct/indirect, we impact each other more that we can imagine or realize. It follows that we have all been created to preside over a certain period on this planet by inter-dependence and intra-dependence, so it is vital that we understand one another better.

One way to learn about emotions, a key to understand human behavior and relationships. Pity that some people live under the illusion that they are independent.

Expressing ‘emotions,’ is a part of life, unlike words, which we can use to express ourselves. Emotions are rarely put in words. Individuals may or may not choose to express disappointments or failures, but their tone or voice, becomes critical, which is not what is said, but how it is.

Our emotions can either energize or sap our physical body. What lies between ‘ease’ and ‘disease,’ is the invisible world of ‘emotion.’ Grief, anger, fear and negative emotions tend to stay with us more longer, much after the provocation dies down. Sad feelings last indefinitely and that is why we constantly remember the beloved one’s lost. Happy feeling on the contrary, come in a hurry and go in a hurry. This fleeting style of happiness is hardly ever remembered too long in life.

Being anxious about the ‘future’ or regretful about the ‘past’ we let the fullness of the ‘present,’ slip into nothing. Confronting this vast reservoir of unprocessed ‘emotion,’ is most challenging.

Reflection provides direction. Expression is the bridge to the emotional world, but emotional well-being lies beyond mere expressions. We need to care for emotions and develop professional practices to integrate our physical and emotional well-being, not unconsciously, incidentally by fumbling, or accidentally by stumbling, but by a determined, deliberate and a conscious effort, otherwise, even the best of intent, we will end up being caught in old habits, which it is said dies hard.

I sign off with this story of blending and bondage, we are all so used to:

"The tea leaves fall into boiling water knowing very well that it will be thrown away as waste after use. Sugar jumps into the hot tea decoction fully aware that it will dissolve and lose its identity. Milk willingly unites with the black tea with the full knowledge that it will lose its fair complexion and become brown. The outcome of the sacrifice on the part of the tea leaves, sugar and milk is that a delicious cup of tea is born !"

You’ll find the idea fanciful, yet, quite thought provoking. How many sacrifices, compromises, adjustments, letting go of egoistic attitudes etc., is required in order to achieve something wonderful in life, be it family, community, society, nation or the world!

However, there's a catch here : The ingredients have to be in the right proportion, but doesn’t that 'right' proportion vary from person to person?

Each to his/her cup of tea, his/her lot in life!

Shy of Asking for help!

Asking for help is universally dreaded--but it's a skill that we can learn.

The first question I have to ask is do we resist asking for help--until it's our last resort?

If the answer is yes, then you’ve already joined the crowd.

The fierce independence we all enjoy these days is creating a culture of live disconnected and connect only if you want to is giving rise to unprecedented isolation. Attendance @ social meetings is down, involvement in community activities has dropped, and to simply having friends over to the house has decreased too. Meanwhile, one in three people say they have no one to confide in -- and most everyone reports overwhelming levels of stress at home and on the job.

The good news?

We can learn to ask for help.

But first, we've got to figure why you don't, why we should, and how we can.

Why we don't ask for help

Asking for help is so frightening that, even when faced with death, some of us will still not ask for that helping hand. To overcome this dread, you've got to debunk some common cultural myths--and face your fears:

Myth : Asking for help makes us look weak or needy.

Reality : There's no shame in turning to others in times of need. In fact, it's a sign of strength.

Myth : Asking for help signals incompetence--especially at work.

Reality : Seeking help at work shows others that you want to do the job right-

-and to develop and learn.

Myth : Asking for help can harm relationships.

Reality : Healthy relationships are about give-and-take--not just give.

Myth : Asking for help puts others in an awkward position.

Reality : It's human nature to offer help when you see someone in need--and

it's no different when others see us in need.

Myth : Asking for help might lead to rejection.

Reality : Even a "no" response offers the opportunity to learn more about

yourself--and your relationships.

Myth : Asking for help means the job might not get done right.

Reality : Refusing to ask for fear of losing control maintains the status quo.

Let go and give our helpmate a chance to shine.

Myth : Asking for help means we'll have to return the favor.

Reality : Help freely given comes with no strings attached--other than a

simple and sincere thank-you.

Myth: Asking for help just isn't our way of living.

Reality : Independence and self-sufficiency are admirable qualities that lead

to success. Still, all great enterprises--including our nation--were

built on mutual support and teamwork.

Why we should ask for help

Mastering this art can ease and enhance our life and career in a variety of ways.

Asking for help:

- Deepens connections : When someone answers our call for help, it strengthens the bond between us--or creates the potential for a new relationship.

- Reduces stress and restores energy : Getting help can save you time and energy, simplify our life, and improve our work-life balance.

- Reminds us that you're not alone : Everyone needs help at times. If you're the type who endures hardships with grim determination, you'll discover you don't have to go it alone.

- Gives happiness to others : Don't we feel good when we help someone else? Letting others help us gives them that same opportunity.

- Leads to personal growth : Taking risks, learning to trust, and finding out that others have got our back are just a few of the lessons we'll learn.

- Allows the pleasure of surrender : Being out of control can actually feel great. Once asking for help gets a little easier, we'll relish the experience of letting go.

- Reminds you that we're worthy of support : We deserve a hand as much as anyone else. When someone comes to our aid, it reinforces that message.

- Lets others shine : Seeking help gives others the opportunity to reach out, contribute, and try something new.

- Clarifies relationships : Mayday calls reveal the strengths and limitations of relationships--and provide important "aha" moments.

- Solves problems : Don't overlook the original reason for the Mayday call: We're in trouble and need help--help that could potentially change, or even save, your life.

How we can ask for help

Too many of us would rather go it alone when help is right there--just for the asking.

Here are ways to reach out with comfort and confidence:

- Practice : Like building our muscles requires regular exercise.

Challenge ourselves to ask for help three times a day--every day.

- Go easy on ourselves : Self-care is the new self-help. Be compassionate

with our self--and remember that we, too, are deserving of help.

- Cast a wider net : Expand our list of helpmates. Look beyond the obvious—

family and friends, and colleagues -- and add some new names to the list,

starting with someone who's been in our shoes.

- Plan the time--and place : Talk to our potential helpmate as soon as

possible. Pick a convenient time for him or her, and do it in person--and in

private.

- Be specific : Articulate our needs. Clarify what we're looking for--from

terms to timelines--though be careful not to micromanage.

- Listen differently : Be attentive to the subtle cues behind a general "yes" or

"no" response. Is your potential helpmate willing--or reluctant?

- Use the "three thanks" rule : Don't flub the thanks. Express our gratitude

three times--when the agreement is struck, when the need has been met,

and when we next see your helpmate.

Ask early, ask often - No one is immune from needing help, even in today's go-it-alone culture. So, take a risk and "make the ask"--early and often. It just may change our life!

I need help.

I really need it, as

I want to know each of you all even more than I know you now.

I want to enhance my stature as a human being, so I want to get even closer to you all.

I want cheer to prevail on me, and I can do it only when I can see we all

cheerful.

Am not being selfish, but I have asked for these three helps for this day, please offer it to me.

Inspiring true story Originally Published in the Readers Digest.

BACKUP BAND-AID
Babette Lazarus, New York, New York

I was riding the subway and happened to be seated between two young guys. The one on the right eyed the slightly grungy Band‑Aid on my thumb and said, “You should really change that, you know. You have to keep it clean.” Then the one on my left said, “Here, I have one,” and pulled a fresh Band‑Aid out of his knapsack. “I keep them on me because I’m always hurting myself.” Incredulous, I thanked him, changed my bandage, and got off at my stop feeling pretty good about people, life, and New York City.

Mission

"To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal." - A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

"Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission." - Zig Ziglar

"My measure of success is whether I'm fulfilling my mission."
- Robert Kiyosaki

We Are Enrolled In A School Called Life

Name of the school - LIFE.
Class of Standard - 40
Average age of students - 40

Class Strength - 62

Scene early in the morning

Teacher taking attendance calls out the names of students

01. Affection - Absent sir                              02. Anger - Present sir
03. Anxiety - Present sir                               04. Animosity - Present sir
05. Arrogance - Present sir                          06. Aggression - Present sir
07. Boredom - Present sir                            08. Callousness - Present sir
9. Complacency - Present sir                                   10. Contentment - Absent sir
11. Curiosity - Absent sir                               12. Deceit - Present sir
13. Desires - Present sir                                14. Disappointments - Present sir
15. Excitement - Present sir                         16. EMI - Present sir
17. Falsehood - Present sir                           18. Frustration - Present sir
19. Greed - Present sir                                              20. Gratitude - Absent sir
21. Happiness (No sound) -

Happiness (No sound again)

      Happiness - Absent sir                                    22. Hi-handedness - Present sir
23. Hot-headedness - Present Sir                24. Insomnia - Present sir
25. Intelligence - Present sir                                    26. Inquisitiveness - Present sir
27. Jealousy - Present sir                              28. Kindness - Absent sir
29. Knowledge - Absent sir                          30. Keen-ness - Absent sir
31. Laziness - Present sir                              32. Love - Absent sir
33. Lust - Present sir                                                 34. Madness - Present sir
35. Methodical - Absent sir                          36. Nuisance - Present sir
37. Obedience - Absent sir                          38. Obesity - Present sir
39. Orderliness - Absent sir                                     40. Organization - Absent sir
41. Pain - Present sir                                     42. Peace of mind - Absent sir
43. Pleasure - Present sir                              44. Pressure - Present sir
45. Pride - Present sir                                               46. Quirky - Present sir
47. Relationship - Absent sir                                   48. Respect - Absent sir
49. Regards - Absent sir                                           50. Sadness - Present sir
51. Sickness - Present sir                              52. Stupidity - Present sir
53. Tension - Present sir                              54. Uncertainties - Present sir
55. Uneasiness - Present sir                         56. Usefulness - Absent sir
57. Values - Absent sir                                              58. Vulnerability - Present sir
59. Weakness - Present sir                           60. Weekends - Absent sir
61. Worries - Present sir                   62. Zeal - Present sir

Class Teacher - "It's sad that simple people are absent today.
School LIFE IS SIMPLE, it has no syllabus, but just subjects to learn, and knowledge to gain. There are no exams, marks or grades, only experiences to gain. Let's begin today's class, MAKE LIFE SIMPLE."

Being “Me”

You hear this almost every second, “Times Are Changing.” And it is true, because everything is changing at a hectic pace all around us. It’s good to be trendy and fashionable, but it is also good to be comfortable with what we wear in line with our age. What matters most is we should look and feel comfortable with what we wear and not that we wear outfits according to set pattern or parameters set by others. This is also true of the “attitude” we choose to wear. Somewhere within us we need to hear this in us.

Competition has become the order of the day, and so it has become an integral part of today’s life, be it launching our career or changing it mid-way. In fact, competition sets into our lives much earlier than it ever was. Let’s not be surprised, there is a competition of the yet-to-be-born’s while in the womb itself, that’s the biological truth too, and every adult understands this thoroughly.

Get a job, be in it till retirement is like a story from the “epics.” Young people will not subscribe to this thought at all. They may not even believe it(remember reading Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Stories).

Changing jobs is the ‘thing,’ for growth by way of experience in different domains, along with hefty compensation packages and by status beyond ordinary. Perhaps it is the version of the generation which is mid-way now defining the new way of life. The generation following this thinks it’s got to be faster than it is now. Absolutely nothing wrong in this sort of thinking.

“Times Are Changing.” With more education and with more and more parents educated too, parents refuse to make high percentages the be-it-all-end-all if their children. There’s more time being spent by parent’s on the development of the child, now than even before. The types of talents we come across these days on TV reality shows testify this trend more than ever before.

The huge participation in the myriad of the TV reality shows be it music, dance, quiz or comedy etc’, is about celebrating talent in people like us. The feeling that we could have been there, by speaking within us in words that might sound like “had it been for…..,” “but for….,” is what keeps us in the game and hooked to watching these shows. We believe in this, as we tell ourselves and the others “I can do that too.” The difference is between the thought and the reality.

Truly being ourselves and celebrating life for what it is, has got to be the “attitude.” For a long time now we’ve been used to letting others telling us what’s good, what’s bad, as we have surrendered the powers within us and letting everyone else decide what’s good or bad for us.

Let’s make the whole of this year about regaining the inherent power within us to decide about our standard for life.

We are already sharing many things, like never before, with so many others, seen/unseen, known/unknown, thanks to, ‘the internet, the technology and the social media including a professional one like LinkedIn.’ We become not only informed, we do come across like minded people strung across the globe. We are certainly moving away from being ‘dominated,’ by a set of notions and thoughts, all the time, and once we unconsciously are respecting ourselves and our originality.

It’s about honouring and cherishing our life. It’s got to be, it’s of and about “BEING ME.” Getting in touch with our emotions is a way of life that we will see more of “BEING ME,” which is also finding relationships that reflect our ‘values.”

It’s about recognizing that our life doesn’t happen to us, but we make it happen. In doing so we look at some of the things we have forgotten for a while now, for eg., the theatre, the music, the symphony, adventure, arts and crafts etc., just to see how we can bring back their magic into our life.

To do such a thing, we need to get into the driver’s seat. We need to decide what we need to do with our time and money, our emotions, our work-life balance, and live life the way we want to in spite of the frenzy pace be it in a metropolis of otherwise.

If we valued ourselves, we would be more at peace with ourselves. We would see more things clearly, as a result, take better decisions.

To do everything without a hurry or scurry.

‘The rushing around that takes us now where,’ which unfortunately has become the trademark of our lives, and in the process make space for more meaningful experiences in life.

We just need to remind ourselves that we need to value not only our life but those of everyone around us. Let us value others for who they are rather than not what we would like them to be.

I will close this to let you know that you all would say to yourselves, it’s all about “BEING ME.”

Put life into focus...

Why nobody cares for you? Because they're living their own life.

You may get depressed by thinking that you're alone in this world. You don't have any partner to share all your in-depth thoughts & emotions. Even your life partner misunderstands you at times. Nothing is going according to your choice. People don't understand what you want to make them & so on...

What are you thinking! "Oh my gosh! I feel likewise most of the time!" Have you ever asked yourself why your thinking pattern is going to be so self centric? I believe you didn't or you did but got no clue.

Reality is we all are alone in this world. We only have some emotional & biological engagements that make us social creatures. But always there are some feelings you can't share. In childhood there were some secrets you never told parents. In family life there are something you hide from your partner. During old age you'll have some secrets not to be shared with children. All those secrets make the identity which we utter as "I". Otherwise, rest are common.

Problem arises when you either try to please everyone or try to be good to everyone. Just impossible! We're not clones! There must be some deep level difference which you're trying to provide a make shift balance on surface level.

Put life into focus...

Want to be a champ? Work hardest.

Want to retain championship? What to do for that? Any clue?

Want to sit on boss's chair? Yes or No?

You'll definitely answer affirmative. Do you understand what promotion means?

It's positive result is you'll get monetary benefit as well as portfolio prestige. But it's negative result is your employment opportunity will decrease in numbers. The higher you'll climb on corporate ladder, lesser will be your options to change organization. Isn't it scary?

Of course it's scary for many, but not for all. Those who are bold enough to take long term decisions by sacrificing negligible blocks & short term benefits can have proportionately better chance to survive in a leadership role.

Same ideology applies for all heading a family to heading a nation. There will always be something objectionable or disagreeable. But leader must be courageous enough to continue withought taking a step backward for collective gain.

Put life into focus...

Healthy relationship is never perfect. It's not like a romantic love story that contains feel good ambience everytime & all the time. It's full of differences, flaws, emotional tussles, arguments, romance, good times, night outs, etc.

It's a complete package of odds and evens.

Looks pretty identical with yours? What are you thinking? " Awe... we've all these things in our life. What special you're saying!!"

Do you think you're not in healthy relation? If yes, why?

Because you get affected with ongoing events. Be it loving or quarreling, your thinking gets fully occupied with that flowing emotion & the moment you experience something contradictory, you fail to hold emotional outburst.

Don't you feel that you're missing something?!

Yes, you're. And that's a small space in your heart. Take it under consideration whenever your thinking feels a tremor. Don't go all through with brain. Take your heart also & feel how enthusiastic the journey is!

Because heart can trust & can't conspire.

Put life into focus...

Irony of life. That's why we are not happy with own life. Everytime we think others are in far better situation. It's a problem of our distant vision. Not ophthalmic, but psychological.

A sense of pure social competition is responsible for vision disorder. Process to overcome is also very easy.

You've to concentrate on yourself. Compare & compete with yourself. You very well can have one or more idol, but to reach their status you need to improve yourself inch by inch. If you're not aware about own base, how can you measure growth!

Better to accept yourself as it is. Know the true self. Determine how long you've to go to reach the ideal self & what you need to do for that. Once you're confident, just start. Don't think of failures, that's inevitable.

Until & unless you aren't experiencing darker phases, you can't land on bright spot. So, want to shine like Sun? Be ready to burn like it frst. Don't look at the grass on other side. It'll always look greener.

Put life into focus...

Once Radio was society symbol. Owner used to be considered as a rich man. As population was not very dense, antenna of radio on rooftop was seen from long distances. Even owner had to spend Rs 15 per year as license fees.

Wrist watch & bicycle were prestigious gift for son in law.

Landline telephone was symbol of aristocracy & that too without long distance call facility. We needed to book trunks for that. Knock from postal peon used to ignite our excitement.

Two wheelers were rare in small localities.

After 82'Asiad TV started to get spread with robust antenna & booster. Only channel available was DD.

Major source of entertainment was cinema halls.

Kids used to play outdoor games, neighbours used to exchange domestic preparation of delicious foods, used to sit in a group to talk, even used to look one another in crunch moments.

Situation started to change after introduction of computer & cable channels. We got some new things to explore & all were amazing in the beginning. Slowly we started to attain daily soaps religiously & started getting disconnected from next door neighbours.

Computer upgraded from java to windows. Laptop came thereafter.

Then came cell phone & we started to expand our virtual world thick & fast.

How many of us knock neighbours nowadays!

Put life into focus...

Have you ever faced any reality which you know inevitable but don't want to experience? Believe most of us had such time in life.

Most common happening is your near & dear one on deathbed. You know very well that however critical the situation is, you need to continue treatment knowing the fact that you're playing a game you can never win. Still we all play with a hope that some miracle can happen. Despite making mind, we can't accept the ultimate.

Say, there is a trust issue between you & your partner. Both of you know but never tried to sort it out through discussion. As a result, your relationship is getting worse day by day.

Your boss has some ego problem with you for some indefinite reason. You know but never dare to ask directly because of red-flag possibility.

All these are common stories in daily life. Do we handle it smartly. Mostly no. We don't take risk of making bosses more annoyed, never ask partners directly to know the ground reality, never try to accept the universal truth "man is mortal" for own periphery.

All these issues are as real as sunlight. Still we try to keep as it is to avoid any further aggravation. Actually somewhere we feel very unconfident about own integrity which affects our confidence lebel badly. And we feel safer to compromise.

Just be the real YOU.

ALive Every Moment

Saturday, May 15, 2021

o Leadership is either "Build or Crush"

o Beyond the Ordinary Syndrome

o Shy of Asking for help!

o We Are Enrolled In A School Called Life

Leadership is either "Build or Crush"

That is the one question that can spell out their "inner strengths," their "inner core," and their character. Just a very few people during their lifetime come anywhere near exhausting the resources dwelling within them.

There are deep wells of strength that are never used. A truly strong person does not need the approval of others any more than a lion needs the approval of sheep.”

If you are not, then become more decisive ! Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made, nothing happens…. Decision is the courageous facing of issues, knowing that if they are not faced, problems will remain forever unanswered.

Beyond the Ordinary Syndrome

Shy of Asking for help!

We Are Enrolled In A School Called Life

About Me

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