Monday, December 31, 2012

A kick is better than a pat

I remember reading this statement in one of the books of Mr.Shiv Khera. I have just edited it partially to fit into a decent title. I am myself a strong believer of appreciation. A pat on the back is a simple indication of appreciation. Unfortunately the same appreciation doesn't work all the time to increase the momentum of action. At such times it's the kick that does the magic. Fear is one of the strongest motivators for work to happen. Probably this explains the negative force required to initiate the positive action in life.
 
When everything's going fine the motivation to work may or may not reside but when one is pushed to the corner, he has no other option other than to fight back. Even a micro-organism like an amoeba has the inbuilt response to stimulus built into its CPU. Likewise people are no exception. Appreciation builds in confidence in a starter but it has a limit after which it just leads to complacency. However the kicks of life such as rejection, failure, defamation, financial crunch, exploitation, etc are the tough times that really trigger the fighting spirit in us. There are two outcomes of such scenarios. Few people get bogged down by such instances and give up on fighting back until the situation gets tougher to demand their fight. However people who have the better fighting back threshold get triggered immediately and start revolting against the challenge of life and this is where the real test of life begins.
 
Only when coal burns under the pressure of the earth for quite sometime does it convert into diamond. So pressure, force and thrust are the pumping factors that move us into action on a daily basis. Only difference is that such a pressure is external for normal people while it's self-generated and inflicted by the highly self-aware people. You can write your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Never give up until you finish

Unfinished work is an indication of winnerless attitude. When any work is started there is already a lot of work that would have initiated the start of the process. Once started additional time, energy, resources and efforts would have been invested in the work. No doubt that whenever any new work begins there is an initial excitement but later due to the repetition and routine kind of work, motivation subsides and people give up in between. The loss is just not in the incompletion of the present work, the loss is also undoing of some other better work that could have been completed. An incomplete work takes away time-space from this universe that could have been invested on some other work otherwise. The worst part is that it wastes the time-space after taking it away from a fruitful work. Hence mark your target towards completions always.
 
Whenever any work is started, definitely there is a picture of the target in the mind. Make sure that you pin this target really serious in your mind and tell yourself that you cannot stop until you finish it. Motivation will definitely subside due to the longtime involvement in the same kind of work. Repetition and routine type of work will take away the interest from continuing the work. At all such times, just remind yourself about the double disadvantages of an unfinished work. The third disadvantage is that it sets a frame of mind to leave work incomplete in future as well which is the worst that can happen to hamper the progress of any individual but an attitude of completing everything shall always build the repute of reliability in the eyes of others. A half-filled glass is always half-filled no matter how much ever optimistic one is.

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Accidents of life

Recently I read a line from Mrs. Sudha Murthy's book which said that we are proud about the nations we are born in and this pride is a mere accident. One would be proud of India because s/he was born in India. If the same person was born in some other country s/he would be proud of that country. Similar to this is our new year. People have a lot of craze for celebrating new year. It is after all a number at the end of the day. It is just a mathematical modulation of dates done ages back.

If we really dig into the names of the months in our calendar you can see that october has 'octo' which means '8' but is the tenth month, december has 'dec' which indicates '10' while it's the twelfth month. Some people sometime back, sorry, longtime back assigned some names for a set of days and called them months. When they found that the phase of the same month repeated after one revolution of the earth around the sun they repeated the same month names. Who knows at what point exactly on the earth's orbit did the earth start revolving to coin it as the start of the year. Since there had to be some start January 1st was coined as the start of the year and the day previous to that was coined as the last day of the year. If some other date would have been named as the start of the year, still the seasons or festivals wouldn't have changed. Year would function the same way. Probably coining a start of the year was itself a major accident that happened because of which companies started allotting holidays and people just got one more reason to party and celebrate without any logic.

Life is just filled with such irrelevant logical conclusions for unreasoned accidents. Every day is a fresh day, let's make the best use of it. There is no point of being proud about those for which one has not contributed at all apart from being at the right place at the right time. All pride would  have been there even if the person wouldn't have been there. So concentrate on those works which can be of pride for others once you have contributed your best for it. Your feedback shall be a worthy contribution on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

God-fearing or good-fearing

'He was a very God-fearing man' is a sentence that I have read a couple of times in books. This aims to convey the message that the person was one who followed rituals for God very strictly and consistently. I personally haven't seen God live. I have seen the photos as many of you would have. I believe that, since God is the creator of the world, he shall protect as well. Then why should we be afraid of Him who is on our side to protect us?
 
Some of them may argue saying that one cannot do work that's against God. Well! I don't expect anyone would get ready to fight against God. I have observed that parents/elders warn children saying that if they don't perform the rituals or not perform rituals properly then God shall punish them. If they don't go to temples God shall punish them. These kinds of things breed in fear in children about God. Then they start going to temples and following rituals just out of fear rather than worship. It is as if people are paying bribes by visiting temples and performing rituals just to safeguard themselves from the anger of God. Can we call this real worship? Is God someone who will harm us just because we didn't follow the rituals? If someone says following rituals in spite of you not having your heart/mind/soul in it is real worship then I don't understand if this irritation-filled worship really reaches God. I believe that the relationship between God and man should be just like that between two best friends with no rules but just values. A person should not be afraid of God. S/He should be able to feel that God is with him/her all the time and listening.
 
People need not have to avoid doing things fearing God. People need to be afraid of doing things against good for others. If any act of a person harms or affects another human in a negative way and with the same negative intention then that is bad and such an act must be avoided by being good-fearing. Let's make friends with God and good. Please feel free to share your feedback on

Cardinal rules of life

Life is a set of limited number of days blessed upon us by God without mentioning the upper limit. What we do out of this is completely left to us. As days pass on many of us look back at our past, some with grief, some with regret while a few with satisfaction. Some with grief because they couldn't do all that they wanted to, some with regret because they didn't do all that they wanted to and some with satisfaction because they could a bit of all that they decided to. All that you must do shall form the cardinal rules of life.

Time just escapes at its own pace and doesn't wait for us to take any action. It's left upon us to run along with it to make things fructify. The reason that many don't achieve all that they want is not that they didn't want to. Simple and the silliest reason is that people tend to forget what they wanted to do. People remember those work that is enforced by others and constantly reminded of or those work which can satisfy their immediate necessities. After about one or two decades they end up just regretting for having lost all the time to make any difference at all. So it's very important for us to divide the work towards our goals and dreams into daily activities. All such daily activities that shall take you towards what you want out of life shall be entitled with certain must-to-do rules and they shall be called as cardinal rules of life. "I must workout in the gym everyday for 90 minutes to have a healthy and fit body", "I must write a blog everyday to develop myself into an author". These are examples of some simple cardinal rules that I make for myself.

Make sure that your cardinal rules are a combination of both your work and target. The moment you read your cardinal rule, it must remind you about your goal as well as the work that you must do to attain the same. This is one of the practical ideas that I designed for myself for a better productive time usage. Do let me know if it helps you as well on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

The triangle of life

Our life is balanced on three main factors. They are time, money and health. Humans wish to lead a very well-balanced life. It's difficult to
balance a see-saw which has two sides. Then you can imagine how difficult it is to balance something that has three sides. Our life is meant to be balanced on these three important factors. Let's see further as to how these 3 fulcrums of our lives control us.
 
If one wishes to have a very healthy life, s/he must be ready to invest good amount of money on good nutrition and proper medication alongwith sufficient amount of time for rest and recovery. On the other hand, if one wishes to have a lot of money in life then one should be ready to sacrifice health as long as s/he can manage to survive decently with medicinally controllable ailments and also will have to invest most of the time only in earning money rather than on family or friends or recreation or even self for that matter. On the third hand, if one wishes to just have sufficient time for his/her business or family then s/he must be ready to spend enough on quick transports and take risks of life to save enough time. Only those people who can find the best balance among all these 3 controlling factors of life can lead a happy successful life. Fortunately or unfortunately not every person seeming successful to your eyes is able to accomplish the best of the balance in life and is always in the pursuit of the same.

At any point in your life if you are feeling depressed or stressed out just ask yourself as to which of these three you are missing out on? Is it money or time or health. If you can point out anyone of these immediately try to lower the other two to regain the balance of life. Your opinions do matter to me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
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Saturday, December 29, 2012

The struggle continues

Darwin's theory of 'Origin of Species' states one of the postulates as 'struggle for existence'. As existence continues so does struggle. Animals struggle to find the right food and shelter for protection. On the higher hand, we, humans have to struggle for everything. We need to struggle to earn money and we need to struggle on even thinking as to how we spend money. Since money is the only measuring metric of how a person can survive to lead a well-organized life we shall consider only the struggle for money here.

I am not sure if you have been through such incidents when you are compromising between money and comfort. Some people are just lucky enough to have a well-established background courtesy ancestors and parents that they needn't worry to match the ends meet. There is a part of the human population that struggles to make the ends meet on a daily basis. No earning in a day shall only mean no food for the day. Unfortunately there is even a deprived section which is still struggling to find a way to meet the ends. In between these sections there is another set of people who have to meet the ends on a monthly basis. All source back to the lack of financial back-up. This struggle keeps continuing for a long time breeding the fear of taking risks as well. Even calculated risks can be taken sometimes only if it is well known that there is a solid support back home else the struggle just continues.

There is probably not one particular solution that can solve the struggle of life. Just have a brave heart to accept the given scenario, pin your hopes strongly to convert the situation into a better one. There is no escape from this struggle. As our expectations sore higher even the level of struggle climbs up but you needn't struggle to give your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Pin your hopes strongly

Troubles or problems seem to exist in this world at their own wish and will. They neither care about people nor animals. They pound their feet wherever they see that there is the minutest possibility of living. They do not care whether you are poor or rich, Christian or Muslim or Hindu, healthy or wealthy, optimistic or pessimistic or anything for that matter. If you are thinking that you can run away from these, you are definitely wrong because they are omnipresent. All that can help you is your hope for survival.

When I say 'survival' I don't mean only the survival of your life alone. I mean the survival of your desires and dreams. Most of us are afraid of problems though we optimistically call them as challenges. In fact the wondering fact is that we are more afraid of problems that shall occur in future rather than those that are currently eating away our peace into pieces. Friends! problems are the part and parcel of life and they shall play their part as designed. Unfortunately some people who have perceived their problems as the hardest ones go on to expect the same kind of life even further. Law of attraction works and they get it. In due process they start sacrificing their dreams of luxuries one by one and at the end of life blame that they could never enjoy the best of life as they were fighting the worst of life. It was a choice to choose between fighting the worst and getting the best. At such instances of making the right choice just make sure that you pin your hopes strongly.

Hope is probably the only reason that we get into sound sleep at night. Problems shall occur irrespective of you living or just surviving your life. Don't just be bogged down by thinking about them all the time. Sometimes you will have to take steps for a better life in spite of knowing that the problems shall arise. All the problems shall get managed. So keep the worry at bay by just making sure that you have pinned your hopes strongly. You can pin back your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Friday, December 28, 2012

You gather to give

In one of the recent blogs I had written that man gains knowledge only to teach it to others. I had decided that I would be writing a blog on the same topic. Later when I sat down to think about this concept it suddenly seemed to mean far more than what it actually meant when I wrote it a few days back. Hence I shall put down all my thoughts about this concept in this blog. We come to this earth empty-handed and shall return empty-handed too. So what happens to all that we gather in this so called  'LIFE'?

The people who do the most amount of research and read a lot of books and excel academically are generally teachers, lecturers, professors, philosophers and scientists. These are the people who share all that they have gathered throughout their life with their students either directly through classroom teaching or indirectly by writing thesis, textbooks, research papers, reference books or by recording videos and tapes. They amass all the knowledge possible only to share it back. Businessmen and the other working lot work hard to earn a lot of money. They gather all this wealth only to give it to their employees, families and further generations. Many big companies also share the amassed wealth with the poor, under-privileged and needy through corporate social responsibility projects. Politicians and people in high leadership positions work hard to earn these positions of power only to pass them on to their disciples who have followed their leadership all this time. Be it power or knowledge or money, each one is gathered only to be given back.

The world functions in such a wonderful cyclic fashion. Man thinks that he is the greatest with the knowledge/wealth/power that he holds in his hand currently. Seldom does he realise in this peak period of pride and prestige that the wheel of time continuously is ticking spoke by spoke. At the right time all that he holds shall get transferred to another set of hands and all that remains is shallow. You can write to me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Sometimes just a gesture is sufficient

Recently I was watching the interview of a very famous movie hero who had turned into a politician. He was offered a role in one of the big budget movies offlate. He couldn't accept it because of his political commitments. He stated that ot would be difficult for him
to be punctual for shootings and hence it would disturb the complete schedule of the movie shooting. At this point he mentioned that even if he doesn't give any appointments for any meetings, by the time he leaves his home after just saying 'Hello' to all those people who
would have come to see him, this itself would take a minimum of three hours. At this point more than the busy-ness of the actor cum politician I understood how important it is to wish people. All that people want is a small recognition through any type of a gesture.

'People are not difficult, they are just different'. This is one of the famous quotes of Er. Sujit Lalwani, a star international inspirational speaker. There is a desire in every human being to be considered as important. Unfortunately most people rely on others to fulfill this desire of their's. A man who is completely self-aware, knows his worth doesn't care about what others think about him but not all people on this planet are wise enough to have such wisdom. They need to be recognised is what they feel. In majority of the functions and public meetings you might have observed that it's almost next to impossible to talk to anyone in detail because there are just too many people seeking attention of the hosts. It is quite possible for the hosts to miss out on saying just a 'Hi' to few of the guests and in majority of such cases people come back home and start blaming that they shouldn't have even gone to the function. They blame that the hosts didn't have even the courtesy of saying 'Hi!' to the guests knowing that there were just too many people to wish. This eventually goes on to develop cold relationship between these set of people and they revert the same action of disrespecting when they meet the next time by not even wishing the other person that goes on to completely cut the relationship.

There are 700 crore plus people on this planet. We can be very sure that not all will be with us forever. Out of the even few of them who are with us there is no point in losing them on such simple stupid occasions of not wishing them either by ignorance or overlooking.
Make your best efforts to wish people whenever you come face to face with them because all that people wish is just a wish. I wish to receive your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Free lifestyle: Free of make-ups and get-ups

The only two points in life when we least care about what others think about us are; one, when we are in our birthbed and the second when we are in our deathbed. In fact there is a famous proverb is kannada which translates into english like this- "When we came to this world we were naked and when we go back from this world we shall be naked. What you find in between these two is just darkness". This proverb is more rhyming in kannada. In spite of this clear understanding we put up a lot of get-ups and make-ups to show our untrueselves to the world outside. Reasons are many for doing so while we are losing out on the real happiness of a free lifestyle: free of get-ups and make-ups.

Someone said "eating is our choice but dressing is others' choice". This statement is so true that if you observe the people around you, you shall find that people can't wear dresses which they like or are comfortable in. They have to wear dresses that suit the customs, business etiquette, pride or to just impress someone else. Most of the times we don't throw out our opinions either because of elders' fear, embarrasment to people in higher positions, fear of law, fear of losing the liking/respect from people. We put on an artificial smile just to hide our emotions and move on with such situations. Man has completely lost the ability to sustain on one's own emotions except a few highly matured yogis or wise men(similar women included). In today's modern generation suffering from emotional turmoil, each one needs someone else to rely upon, to share the owes of life and someone to empathize and sympathize. At the end of the day life just seems to be a drama where in we just play the roles assigned by the world than being ourselves.

The reason for all these get-ups and make-ups are our desires. We would want to seep in through every possible situation only to enjoy all that we desire. Hence you will find those people who have either lived all the desires of the world or who have renounced all desires in their purest form who don't fear saying their true inert feelings and dress in a simple style called the free lifestyle: free of make-ups and get-ups which not many would like do compromise for in this modern sophisticated fashionable world. You can really feel free to feed your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Observe to absorb

Observation is one of the strongest powers that's hidden in us. Unfortunately not many of us make use of it properly. The main reason is the urgency to know stuff much before others. So we jump out asking questions to get our answers quickly to satisfy the needs of our inquisitiveness. I am definitely not against asking questions. In fact it is one of the best ways to learn. Only condition that I have is that questions should be thrown after good amount of observation is done and when one is unable to interpret further.

Let's take a simple example of observing a flower. If one takes a flower in his hand and starts observing it carefully from the point where it originates from the twig till the tip of each petal, one can observe so many different parts. Some of the parts might be even unknown to him. This will spring up a lot of questions about the unknowns in the mind. Then the mind shall start storing the descriptions of each part deeply observed. Next time when one is actually engaged in the study of the flower he will be easily able to recognise and also remember all the parts. However a person who would have just seen but not observed a flower has every chance to forget or confuse between different parts of the flower. Observation registers images in our memory and images store loads of information. Hence I named this blog as observe to absorb.

Not just with a flower, people lose patience in happenings around them and repent due to this ignorance later. A simple observation of how people talk can reveal the real intentions behind their talk. Observing silence and smile of a girl can lent out the amount of love she has for you in her heart. Some of the greatest legends have not been those who read a lot of books, they have been those who observed a lot of people, places and situations. You can write to me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Rearranging and reordering

As per research it has been found out that a significant proportion of our time is lost in rearranging and reorganising the stuff around us. More than doing or creating new things and new work we are busy with rethinking about all the old stuff and sorting them. The thought of writing this blog was triggered in my mind by a mere careless task of mine. I was wearing a sweater which I removed and put on the stand. In the process I didn't notice that the sweater wasn't folded in a neat form before I put it on the stand. When I observed this I once again took back the sweater, folded it neatly and put it back. Probably you might think that folding into neat form would have taken the same time whether done before or after. Yes! I do agree with you on this point but the extra time spent in taking and putting back the sweater on the stand is the loss of time and energy.

So a simple careful act of folding the sweater before throwing it on the stand would have saved probably 10 seconds of my time. When I just extend the same thought to the many other tasks that I am involved in it just freaks me out to even calculate the amount of time and energy that get wasted in setting right the things done imperfectly. No doubt that none can be perfect but why is that we don't do any of our work perfectly? Why is it that we always find some or the other loop holes in our work? The simple reason for these questions is that we ignore the extra time and efforts required to fix the mistakes. Unfortunately we include the time of rework also in our schedule. As a result of this, we tend to do away with the work at hand rather than giving just a little extra concentration to make sure that there is the least rework that's possible. 'To err is human'- accepted! but it doesn't mean 'to only err is human'. There are certain mistakes that pass right in front of our eyes without us realising them sometimes. Such require a detailed second time analysis but there are certain other errors that we call as silly mistakes. They are caused by our speed and recklessness to be correct. Such small silly mistakes should be corrected with a review while we are still at the table of work. Else re-reaching the table of work itself takes away our precious time.

Sometimes life feels so busy while sometimes the same life appears to be just busy. Not all times we are at work that we desire to do. Sometimes we end up doing work that just demand our time and efforts, seldom our interest. I think most of the times it is this lack of interest that takes away our 100% concentration from the work that we are involved in. I can really empathize with each one who undergoes this scenario. Nevertheless life seems to take the path which shall bring us closer to what we want rather than the path which we desire to tread. Feel free to throw in your comments and feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Friday, December 21, 2012

Self-defence: An essential education

The recent Delhi gang rape incident has been one of the biggest shocks for the nation. From the moment I read about the incident on facebook, my mind has been in complete unrest thinking about this incident. All media are reporting the consequences of the havoc caused by inhuman beings. People are protesting on streets, online and police are trying their best to capture the criminals. Amidst all these one thought that was prodding my mind was 'What can I do about this incident?' Yes! I can participate in any of the marches or campaigns and show my support against this inhuman act. What next? was the next question. Will just the punishment to the criminals be a permanent solution for such a problem?

That is when this big problem showed itself as the subset of one more bigger problem that has been infecting our 100 crore plus population. Rapes, murders, blackmails, human extortions, etc, a lot of such henious crimes are executed on common public. It might be almost non-existent or very meagre of such incidents with the trained police or military, the simple reason being these trained people know to defend themselves well. On the other hand the common public seems very weak in front of the minds which have decided to harm others. Not all criminals who commit crimes are well-versed in the fights. They are just one step ahead in thinking to harm the other person, that's it. The victim is among the general public who has no training to even combat an attack except very few who might have learned some martial arts. So the base problem lies at the incapability of the common man to defend himself under attack. This is the problem which I want to address.

Our education system is so well designed from nursery upto Ph.D to defend ourselves from illiteracy. Very few schools/colleges/ institutions have the concept of teaching self-defence to students as it is not at all a part of our curriculum. The physical education performed in schools hardly can reduce the weight of obese growing kids. Today's need of physical education is that of defending from any kind of attacks even from weapons for that matter. The world is not safe as it seemed earlier due to over population combined with lack of sufficient resources for all compounded with human greed and most important of all due to the lack of humanity. Just complaining against government or police or the public who stood silent while the hazardous crime was happening right in front of their eyes cannot solve the problem from the roots. Just like how the victim is afraid, likewise the public watching is in front of the muscle or weapon bound evils.

I want to propose that self-defence must be included as part of the education curriculum right from childhood by the education ministry. It can be any of the Indian martial arts or karate or kung-fu or taekwondo or kickboxing or anything that can make a person capable enough to defend oneself under any sort of physical attack. More than self-defence the real teaching of these martial arts inculcates the spirit of a warrior in every soul that undergoes the training. If people are trained right from childhood, not only will they defend themselves but shall even jump out to help others under trouble. I am tired of hearing statements which shout that every individual should be a soldier in himself/herself. How can it happen if the soldier is not trained at all?

Unfortunately in a country like India where more focus is given on bookish studies both by the parents and teachers its hard for students to even devote their time and energy for sports. So very less percentage of parents enroll their children for martial arts outside school. Then what about the rest? I believe that a man should be well-equipped with both mental and physical skills to protect himself from both types of problems and there is no other better place than school where a child spends more than a decade of the most precious early time of its life completely dedicated for learning. So self-defence must be taught right from 1st std to every kid be it boy or girl to help a strong man/woman step out of school by 18 who is strong enough to face the real cruel world. I am on my way to promote this mission of getting self-defence training inculcated in the education system under physical education section with a vision to see a nation full of soldiers. IF YOU ARE WITH ME, do show your support by messaging your ideas and opinions on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

In the lap of nature

Few days back when I was chatting with my cousin, he started sharing a lot of information and his personal experience on trekking. Probably one of the off times when I kept listening than talking! He went on to share the difficulties that one might face during trekking, the water scarcity, the heights and lot of other things. I was almost scared to go for one such adventure. At the end he just mentioned that all the struggle is worth whilst surviving through the top of the hill when you are just in the lap of nature.

I have just got the excerpts from the experience of the person who has been there thousands of feet above the sea level and who has enjoyed the real bliss of nature devoid of traffic jams, horns, barking people noises. All that you hear at that altitude is just the sound breeze of the cool air across your face, the jazzy ruffling of leaves and the birds singing and dancing to their own tunes. It is as if one has left all his problems and tensions in the below earth and has now completely moved into a different world surrendering oneself in the arms of nature to take him forward in life. In spite of 50 other people who have also climbed the same hill top being around not even a single person is either wanting or willing to talk to another human being. Each one wants to just talk to the nature which seems like God right in front of them. Each one wants to introspect and analyse all their past and discuss it with the nature to make better postulates for life thenceforth.

The final experience of hill-top introspection is what that attracted most of my interest despite all the hurdles while climbing to the top. But I could understand one thing and that was everyone wants to reach the top despite the hurdles on the way only to rise above all human misconceptions and offer oneself in the lap of God to evaluate all their past actions and surrender to ever-lasting happiness. Your feedback is welcome on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Monday, December 17, 2012

Just keep working

It is so obvious that time will pass whether we want it or not. It just doesn't wait, just like a tide. The best part about time is that it maintains the same constant speed of one second per second and never does increase or decrease its speed. Unfortunately we humans blame time to be too fast during our good times and time to be too slow during our bad times. Everything just lies in our perception.

Out of the 24 hours gifted to us everyday we try to manipulate with these 1440 minutes in so many 'n' different ways to plan our work better. Yet we fail time and again in front of the odds of nature. Immature planning accompanied with entropic circumstances just create havoc out of the entire charted out plan leading to tension and failing of commitments. Just like 'Heisenberg uncertainty principle' where in one cannot find the momentum and position of an electron at the same time likewise, once cannot plan every second to picture perfection. Ups and downs and sideshifts are bound to occur. So the best plan is to have the list of work to be completed arranged in the priority list and keep doing one after the other as per rough planning along with necessary timing considerations. Just make sure that the place and action of next work is on the mind while working on the present work.

Just like time passes one hour by hour, you can move on from one work to another. At the end of the day you might not have completed all the work but you can sleep peacefully because you would have completed at least some work by working continuously without sitting and planning or contemplating as to why something went wrong or right. Keep the cycle of work continuous so that all your priorities are addressed with action more than just mere thoughts of planning. Keep sharing on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Sow the seed of sharing

Sharing becomes such an integral part of our life as we grow up. The human mind/heart (you can choose whichever makes more sense to you) is incapable of holding all the experiences, facts and figures that one goes through in life. Probably the only reason a person accumulates knowledge is to share it is what I feel. Wow!!!!! this can be an enitrely different blog altogether. What say? Ok, let's come back to the sharing part. So when do people share?

People share with friends or relatives with whom they feel close enough, whom they think shall understand their situations. I am sure that you have heard it numerous times that children share all that happen in school at home just like how parents share all that happen in office at home. So there must be a starting point for this sharing somewhere. Let's take a hypothetical situation. When you are among your friends and you start a topic of movies and share your recent facts about it what are you expecting next? It's undeniable that the other person shall shell out his/her facts about movies and start sharing whatever recent things that s/he has heard about movies. This type of an experience happened to me very recently. When I was taking a session for kids in a school, I just shared about my accident and how I got hurt, immediately the kids started sharing their experiences of having got hurt. I had sown the seed of sharing.

Sharing is what makes each one know more about the other person that eventually strengthens the relationship. So if you want to know what other person has been through just sow the seed for sharing by sharing few of your past incidents relating to that of the other person that you want to know. Remember sharing is caring! You can post your comments on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Empathy - an art to learn

Can you feel the same what the other person can? It's a bit difficult. I can understand. Different people have different notions and hence different emotions regarding the same incident or circumstance. However the best relationships are between people who can share and emote the same level of feelings and emotions. When water is flowing it can always flow through a level same as the previous one or at least below. It cannot rise against ascending levels except for high forces.

Let me relate the water flow example here to the levels of empathy. Empathy is all about putting oneself in the shoes of the other person and trying to feel what the other person felt. So if one can emote same level of emotions or deeper ones like that of the person who is sharing his/her experiences then sharing will continue. More the sharing, better the relationship. However if the person in front cannot feel what the other person is sharing then it feels just as a plain talk and hence the person might just stop sharing further if the person opposite cannot respond. Only in cases of extreme conditions the person might go on sharing irrespective of the opposite person's response. A single person cannot go through all the situations in this universe. We also have to remember that every situation has something to teach us. To learn and also to guide a person one must be able to feel the emotions with the same intensity as that of the other person and this is called perfect empathy.

The better a person can empathise with other people, the easier it becomes for others to share their feelings, emotions, thoughts and experiences with the person. Only when complete details are shared a good suggestion can be provided to make the situation better. People feel close to those who can understand and empathize with them better than others. So learn and master the art of empathy to have great relationships. Do let me know your views on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Thursday, December 13, 2012

The alternative plan

Every work has a plan. When the plan works out well the work gets completed without any hiccups. Not all times does the plan work out as per our expectations. Always there are some external factors that influence our work which might have a completely different plan than that charted out by us. So at such times when the plan A doesn't work out do you have an alternative plan? If yes, then cool else what can we do is the content of this blog.

Not many of us are aware about perfect planning. Not all of us are into a business that we have learned planning and management perfectly well. However a small concept about planning that I would like to share is that of plan B. Whenever you are executing some work already there exists a blueprint of how you would accomplish the same in your mind. This is your immediate plan A. Once you realise this then think differently and almost oppositely. If what you imagined just then wouldn't happen what else would you do at the same place and at the same time. This question shall automatically trigger your mind to plan another work which is nothing but the plan B if plan A doesn't work out.
 
Sometimes you would end up failing on both plan A and B and at such times you can execute some of your cardinal activities. Cardinal activities are those which you shall plan for yourself for your day to day upgradation. These cardinal work can occupy any time frame and can be done in any place. I will discuss more on cardinal works in another blog. Until then keep sharing your views on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Prospecting can lead to business

Prospecting happens when you encounter a prospect and build a relation of knowing each other. Prospect means a stranger basically. Prospecting is a method of building new contacts. Business doesn't have any rules.  It doesn't restrict you to a certain set of people only. It's all about how many contacts you make and how well you make use of them. You can build business with any person you see on the street if you are able to model out something that can fulfill either your or his/her needs. So let me connect prospect and business now.

The basic underline rule before I move forward is that anything that can satisfy or fulfill one's needs or desires can give rise to a business. Every person on this planet has certain set of needs and desires which s/he wants to satisfy/fulfill if someone can offer a fair deal withing the person's budget. If you have a valid product then you have a customer for sure. You just have to find the right customer base and prospecting is the alternative of referral marketing. I will touch referral marketing topic in another blog. Let's see prospecting for now. Everyone on this earth can be your friend. So how did you make new friends when you were a kid. You probably went out of your home or to school and found another kid and started talking. The common with both of you was the environment. So with any stranger, find out the common ground where you both stand. It might be just the traffic in front of both of you. It might be the cold weather or the same showroom you visit or just the same bus in which you're travelling.

Once the common ground is identified just put across your view about it which should ask for a reply or a nod from the other person. The moment the other person replies, the conversation begins based on which you just build a simple 3-4 minute conversation. Introduce yourself and exchange cards. Your one more friend for life and one more customer for business is ready right in front of you. This easy is prospecting. Do pour in your questions on prospecting on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Monday, December 10, 2012

Customers love service

I myself have been a repeating customer for many businesses which have served me really well. In business you have two main streams. One is the product and the other is the service. Some create products for the customers to serve them while some provide services directly to the customer. Some businesses combine both of them by offering you services to their products. Steve Jobs was one man who always focussed on giving maximum user satisfaction in the usage of any of the apple devices. The key here is the customer's satisfaction.

No matter how wonderful your product is, if the customer is not treated well when s/he comes to you for the purchase then you won't get the sale. Sometimes in spite of knowing that a better product is available somewhere else customers prefer to go back to those vendors who served them well during their previous purchases. This is quite natural though its against the logical reasoning of choosing a better product at a better price. The simple reason being sales do not happen over logic. Customers buy out of feelings and emotions. A very simple example for this is the purchase of clothes. Anything that you put on that can cover your body and give protection can be worn logically but the irony is people prefer to wear clothes in which they look better than what they really are. In fact wearing stylish clothes has got entangled with prestige issue nowadays. All these happy and pride feelings are just emotions without any mathematical logic. So whosoever can win the emotions of the customer through a charming service shall get the sale.

Service is all about a smile, respect and thank you. If you can serve the customer smilingly with complete respect to his/her choices and thank him/her for giving you the chance of helping him/her then you can be cent percent sure that the customer is satisfied with your service and shall come back to you for a repeated sale. Customer is the King and he needs to be served well and satisfied and he shall return to you soon and often. Shower some of your sales lessons on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

The tolerance limit

The most common habit among people that you and me would have observed is that of setting the time in the watch few minutes ahead of actually what it is. People have this feeling that if they see the time earlier than what it has to be that shall help them do lot of work much ahead of the deadlines. It is as if you deceive your own mind that you didn't set the clock ahead in time and it was the real time to trigger the sense of urgency. But still you will find that one who does this would have completed the work only by the deadline and feel happy that if the clock was set right s/he would have been late to complete the work. Let me reveal the logical reasoning here.

The human mind plans every work on a rough calculation basis based on past experience and motivation levels of the present. For example you may estimate the time to brush your teeth as 5 minutes and time to take bath as 15 minutes. This follows for all the activities that we are involved in. Seldom we remember that we are not the only deciding factors for things to happen. There are multiple external factors that shall also contribute to the early or delay in completion of work at hand. Unfortunately not may of us account this for calculation and end up blaming ourselves for not planning properly. So any work will have to be set some extra tolerance limit than the time you estimate it to take. By setting the clock ahead the human mind gives space for the influence of external factors or I can say that it sets the extra tolerance limit. So instead of setting the clock ahead of time if one can plan out the extra time required as tolerance all work can be accomplished using the real-time clock itself.

Tolerance limit need not be only with reference to time. Tolerance in terms of budget planned for household things, tolerance for the extra information needed to complete the deal, tolerance of having extra resources to complete any work are to be well-planned and included even before execution in order to avoid any further tensions or delay or loss of work. Plan your resources, time and goals with tolerance limits so that even if you save on few they can be used in the future. You can participate in feedback sharing on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Sunday, December 09, 2012

Make a comeback

I am very sure that you would have witnessed a lot of comebacks by a lot of people throughout your life. You yourself might have been an example of one of the best comebacks. Then you will have a lot to empathize while reading this blog. If you haven't experience any sorts of comebacks till now then this blog shall try its best to provide you the insights into a comeback. A winner is not one who wins once but one who knows to comeback even after losing a million times only with the belief and hope of winning once again.

The world has evolved through many civilizations and ages to reach the best time that we are surviving in today. All that man wanted in life when he was dropped on this planet was just a piece of food to eat, a metre of cloth to cover himself and a shade of tree to rest. Progressively the needs and desires have gone on to increase multifold times and man is put in a race to satisfy all of them. In due course of struggle all of us try our best to compete in order to achieve all that we desire to accomplish. Sometimes due to different reasons we fall down from the race and it takes quite sometime to get back. During this brief period of being outside the field lethargy and indiscipline set in while we are recovering from the hit. So when we make a comeback, fitness and complete preparedness to get into the field are tested really hard compared to those people who were practising inside the field while we were recovering outside the field.

This initial period of comeback tests the real spirit in us that dares to make a comeback. Any comeback will be commented as luck if we don't win after being back in the race. So we will have to put in double the efforts and passion than before to make sure we are back to the winning position once again. The world has forgotten all those comebacks which just entered a game and then retired but it has remembered only those comebacks which recorded new records for the world to follow on later. Do come back with your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Explore, Excavate, Embrace, Encompass

Sometimes I think of just sitting in the house and writing as many blogs as possible and it becomes equally impossible. I feel as if I have ran out of all ideas to blog about. On the other hand, while I am on my vehicle all around the city every incident that takes place in a meeting or in the traffic keeps feeding the idea list to blog about. That is when I tell myself that the world is not inside the house, it's outside. Get out of your comfort bed and go out to explore.

The world has got every possible culture, psychology, species, monument that can mesmerize your eyes and upgrade your knowledge database. I accept that today internet has brought all that's in the outside world onto the small screen of a phone or tab or laptop or desktop in your home. No doubt that you can see the pictures, videos, even chat with people over internet but I can challenge you that you cannot feel any of them. You won't be able to feel the human touch, the hug, or the texture of walls or anything else. May be that technology that can satisfy the sense of feel will take some more time to evolve. Anyone who is blind or deaf or dumb can survive with just the simple sense of feel while a person who has lost the sense of feel is said to be in coma. I hope this emphasizes the importance of the sense of feeling for one to value it. So in order to have the best feel of everything go out of your homes to explore.

Not just explore but also try to excavate the deeper hidden history of all that you explore. Expand your horizons through explorations and deepen your wisdom with excavations. While doing so, start embracing all that you learn and feel. Imbibe deep in yourself all that can make you a better soul and a contributor to this world. Encompass the knowledge more and more only to turn into a global individual who can share the global experience with every local whom you meet in your life. Do share about your 4Es with me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

A mere thought

I have seen many people complaining that how much ever they work all goes as a waste and they reap nothing out of it. Even you might have heard people claiming something like this ''No man, I just wasted my time doing all this stuff''. Friends! even garbage sells. Then how can your actions go a waste. Not just your actions even your words cannot go a waste. I can guarantee you that even a thought in our mind doesn't go a waste. God has planned this world perfectly well for us. What you sow is what you reap. The output of this world is clearly controlled by the input of thoughts, actions and words of the inhabitants habituating the planet.

I am very sure that by this time you are going back to all those recent thoughts, words and actions of yours. Hence now I would like to share the concept of waves and antennas in relation to human mind that I studied in one of the books that I read. Every human mind is a transceiver. Each one of them emits particular frequency of waves and can receive signals emitted by other brains. This is somewhat similar to the concept of telepathy wherein two or more individuals can communicate without the usage of any media except for their mind and concentration powers. So every thought of yours gets converted to a wave and emits into the surrounding universe. When similar thoughts are emitted by other antennas tuning to the same frequency of thought as generated by you the impact of the thought increases which makes the thought to convert into reality on ground. That is when you are astonished to witness that what you thought just came true.

So there is no point in neglecting any thought that comes to your mind because you never know the intensity of the thought generated by you. Hence make sure that you focus your mind on stuff that concern you the most with the utmost intensity so that lot of them turn into reality soon and beware of any ill thoughts that might just hamper your progress. Every thought is capable of churing around a tornado just like the butterfly effect. Your feedback is valuable on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Feels nice to be remembered

It was around a couple of days back when I had been to the gym by 9pm or so that I saw a lady who reminded me of someone whom I had met before. By the time I gave few seconds to my brain to search its memory bank I recollected that the lady in the gym was none other than my beloved teacher who taught me during my kindergarten schooling. Immediately I rushed towards her and asked if my guess was really right. I was almost 100% sure that she would feel happy that I still remembered her but definitely she wouldn't be able to recollect my name because it had been a gap of more than 2 decades since I passed out of my kindergarten.

I went near her and uttered her name just for confirmation and to my surprise the reply wasn't a 'yes' or a 'yeah'. The reply was 'Mohan!!!!!' pointing at me. I was just astounded. How on earth could this teacher of mine remember my name so clearly after 2 decades????? I was just amazed by her memory. I just thanked her for remembering my name. Then throughout my workout I was only smiling that my teacher could remember my name even after 20 long years. I was just patting my back that I was so famous in school that no teacher could ever forget my name. It's very natural for students to forget the name of 50 and odd teachers' names that they witness during their lifetime of education. The teachers interact with hundreds of new students every year. When a student cannot remember just 50 teachers' names how can one expect a teacher to remember all the students' names. Might be no teacher remembers all his/her students' names but if he/she remembers your name even after 20 years then you might just be one of those lucky pets of his/her.

This small incident taught me so much about remembering people. Even after 3 days of the incident I am still happy that my nursery teacher remembered my name. Just imagine how much of happiness you can create for a person by just remembering him/her. You need not help or serve or give anything to the person to make him/her feel happy. Just remember their name until eternity and that itself shall serve as the best gift you could possibly ever present because it feels really nice to be remembered. Do let me know if you remember my blogs on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Have an opinion

I was reading the starting few pages of a text book and found that there was a special note to teachers to make the learning more learner-oriented by making it interactive and participative. In order to execute the same I was asking Yes/No type of questions in class for which I expected answers which would be too simple. Somehow not all participated in answering these. Some students remained silent without taking any of the two options with a resort to 'I don't know'. Probably they weren't sure about their answers and hence deferred from participating even in throwing forward a viewpoint. That's when I felt that each person should put forward an opinion irrespective of how sure his/her perception is right about it.
 
Not everyone is aware of all the things that are happening around. However the corollary doesn't hold the same because everything that's happening around influences each one of us directly or indirectly no matter how ignorant we are about them. Butterfly Effect phenomenon is one of the simple examples to prove that whatever happens on this earth influences all of us for sure. So when everything around is controlling you, it's your right to have a note of all the happenings around you. Not just having a note but also to have an opinion of the same so that you can correct it and improve the situation. On the other hand, even if you are wrong, learn from the learned people the right perception which will elevate your level of growth. Whether your opinion is right or wrong there is advantage on both the ends. God has blessed each one of us with a logical bent of mind which can analyse any situation to our level of maturity with the knowledge of our past experience and exposure. With these prerequisites anyone can calculate for himself to be diligent enough to evaluate the situation of high prominence. Once this can be done, one can arrive at an opinion and not be the person who doesn't have any idea as to what to think.

"Mounam sammathi lakshanam" is one of the famous phrases in regional languages. It means that whenever a person is silent when asked for his/her opinion then it means that he/she has agreed with the same opinion as that of the questioner. Since many of us keep quiet without raising our voices, those few who have an opinion only in the interest of politics convert our silence into their votes. As a result today there is so much of corruption and mismanagement. So it becomes highly essential for each one of us to have at least a simple opinion so that many such frauds can be avoided. It doesn't matter whether you are right or wrong as long as you share your opinion. Do share your opinion on is.mohanbn@gmail.com,