Exposure and experience

The world is filled with so many diverse things that one lifetime isn't sufficient enough to witness all of them. Some of the most intricate miracles of nature are hidden in different parts of the world. Working for regular food, clothing and shelter is a normal routine that everyone is forced to do on a daily basis. Those who accomplish this responsibility will definitely want to see what more life can show them. In order to experience new things we need to have some knowledge about what all is happening around us. That is where exposure comes into picture. Lack of exposure leads to lesser number of chances of experiencing different dimensions of life resulting in an unfulfilled life. All of us would love to live our lives to the fullest extent possible.

The world is so vast in geographic scale that it is impossible for a person to set his foot on every step of the planet. Thanks to the internet world which has brought down the entire world to just our laptops or mobiles. In spite of earth turning into a global village, the challenge to know everything is really huge. Just knowing from far also doesn't help much. One needs to witness the unexplored portions of life. A very simple example is that of an engineer and a commerce graduate. An engineer doesn't know anything in the commerce field apart from his engineering syllabus. Likewise commerce doesn't understand head and tail of engineering. One need not be an encyclopedia knowing everything but one must definitely have awareness about the things existing around. That is where one needs to take initiative to learn about new stuff on a daily basis. Once sufficient knowledge has been thrown light upon, one must not just stop with the exposure; s/he should get into volunteering into tasks that can give him/her an experience of how the field works. If one has undergone such experiences in few diverse fields, then that person will be much more aware and careful in real life, and there are very less number of chances for him/her to get deceived by anyone else. Ignorance has definitely cost a lot even to the wisest best of one single field. One needs to have an all-around knowledge to challenge the current world.

The world shall not initiate any process to come to your home and let you know all that's happening around. You will have to get of your comfort zone called house and go out to explore. You might have the fear of unknown but what you need to explore is the same. Shed your inhibitions, become a kid and start exploring the world as a newbie. The world has lots of new things to offer for sure. As you keep gaining exposure about new happenings, simultaneously put your hands into activities that you have never done till date. This wholesome experience shall enrich your life in multifold manner.

The five people around you

Birds of the same feather flock together. This age-old proverb is more than sufficient to let us know that we get along with people who are similar to us, who think like us and have similar interests like that of us. The environment we are in automatically influences our knowledge, character and attitudes. Our environment is not formed by anyone who stays far away from us. It's always influenced by people around us. That is where a very important lesson that my mentor had taught me long time back comes into picture. Your being is formed based on the five people with whom you spend your most time with.

Most of our habits are derived from our parents or guardians because they are the first set of people with whom we spend our starting years of life. Next come our siblings or other family members and then the school atmosphere. All these factors influence only the early years of our lives during which things are mouldable in us. After a decade of experience on this earth starts our real influence and from that point onwards we start choosing the kind of people with whom we would want to be surrounded with. As we grow through years of life the people with whom we spend most of our time becomes a limited set of 5-10 people. These are the people who shall impact our lives from very close distance. That is where choosing the right set of people around us becomes very important. Our character shall automatically get framed as the average of five characters around us. Choosing them well is our responsibility. One must have a clear vision of what kind of a person s/he wishes to become in life, and only then can one choose those people who are already living a life that s/he dreams of. Finding five such people and being in daily interaction with them can help you create a life you dream of much earlier than you have actually planned or believed in, because now, even the environment around you is accelerating the process. Hence it becomes very much important to choose the right five people in life.

What happens if you don't find those 5 key people around you? As per Murphy's Law, you are surely going to find someone else for sure, but beware not to choose that person who cannot resonate with your dream life. Be alone at that point of time just using your Law of Attraction and asking the universe to bring the kind of people you want in your life. Let the universe take care of the rest. Being alone you are already spending time with a serious person in you who is serious about the future dreams. Who better a person can you find other than you? Make use of the friend in yourself and keep your search on for those five diamonds in your life who shall come and shine your life much better than that of theirs.

Modes of knowledge transfer

In earlier days when the Gurukul system of education existed in India, children from the kingdom used to go to a forest area where a school was established by a Guru (Teacher). This school was called as 'Gurukul' in Sanskrit. The children used to reside in this place for a decade to learn from the Guru. Among such students, there would be a group of students who learnt when taught only once. There was another group which learnt when taught twice and there was another group which learnt when taught thrice. Based on the number of repetitions a student would take to learn a lesson, there were different groups of students made and the lessons were taught accordingly. Learning was the same but the method was different for different sets of students.

In the current world, there are people with different abilities. Some need to be taught by teaching directly with words. Some need to be taught by exposing to practical exposure. Some can be taught by just speaking over phone. Some can be taught through online video tutorials. Some can be taught by asking them to perform certain tasks. The modes of learning differ from one person to the other. It becomes very important for the mentor/ teacher/ trainer to choose the right mode for the right student. I do accept that it's not easy for someone to spot the right methodology for every student instantly. One has to try every available method to find out which method exactly works for the students. The quickness in choosing the right method shall be achieved as one garners more and more experience. This option of choosing the right method doesn't apply only for the person who is sharing lessons. It applies to the student also who is learning the lessons. It's the individual's responsibility to work and find out which type of learning works right for him/her. Once again the method which sounded right some days back might not sound apt some days later. So, one should be ready to change and adapt to new modes of learning as time moves on. Different information demand different modes to reach a person. So, one should be ready to explore different streams to embody different kinds of information.

While one is battling through different modes of knowledge transfer to choose the right one, a student or a teacher might get into conflict while choosing the right method. A method which looks lucrative might not be practically implementable for a certain student. But the feelings attached cannot be erased until the wrong implementation is proved. So people must be ready to face bitter consequences too while exploring and experimenting with different modes of learning and teaching. At the end of the day, what's important is, learning the lesson. If the right lessons aren't passed between the mentor and the mentee then not just one person is at fault, it's the relation which is at fault by default.

Only conviction drives the vision

Commitment to work and dedication of time and efforts are the most essential requirements to reach our goals in life. Goals can range from being unrealistic dreams to rational visions. It all depends upon the individual who holds these dreams and visions in his eyes. He has the ultimate power of converting thoughts into reality. Fortunately or unfortunately, man doesn't realize the strength of this power unless he uses it once and that one time implementation requires thorough conviction. Conviction alone can drive visions into reality.

Conviction is all about sitting and doing the task at hand irrespective of whether it is interesting or not. Conviction deals with more of completion of the activity rather than the liking or the disliking of it. Starting different kinds of work is easy because there is the assistance of the initial curiosity or the beginner's luck. Sustaining is the challenging part and taking the work to completion is the toughest challenge. However, the mere decision of making up the mind for something so massive, can only be the result of taking commitment. A commitment is always kept up to because of conviction and hardwork. No matter how much time or energy it takes , one must make up his mind without even getting such distractions.

There are different ways to raise back your conviction. Have a mentor who can spot the flaw points in you without any doubts or questions. Develop the habit of reading more books because they are the sources of knowledge and wisdom. The vision towards which you're driving must be more important than the intermediate results. Only then will the conviction be able to drive us far ahead in life to accomplish all that we dream of.

Get updated, else get outdated

Man has travelled a very huge time journey from being an ape to a homo-sapien. During this period of evolution he has treaded the path of Old Stone Age up to the modern e-age today. With every upcoming age, he had to update himself to the requirements of the new age. In fact, Charles Darwin himself says in one of his theories about evolution that 'it is not the strength of the species to survive that results in survival but it's the flexibility of the species to adapt to the new conditions'. Hence, I salute to the mankind for having survived so long. But, are we applying the same upgradation process in our lives?

 

Today, if we don't update our knowledge and wisdom and upgrade ourselves, we might still survive as human beings but we might be just considered as the outdated individuals among our tribe. A very simple example to state here is about our computers only. Earlier we used to use floppy discs to store data but today there are no floppy drives at all in any desktops or laptops. So we have to be updated to know the usage of CDs, pen drives, dropbox, googledrive, skydrive, cloud computing etc for transfer of digital information. I still regret that I had bought a box set of floppy drives when I bought my PC around 6.5 years back. Everytime I see those unused floppy discs in my drawer I just feel how ignorant was I about the developments in the field of computers during my engineering studies. We need to be aware about the changes that are happening around us. I definitely agree that it's totally difficult to keep a track of all the developments but it's surely not impossible to keep ourselves updated about the new stuff that's getting innovated and discovered in the field that we are involved in. Else, there is no hope of being in pace with the competition or even running in the race of life for a satisfying livelihood.

 

Life has been blessed upon humans with all the necessary accessories fit in the human body only to learn more and do more. Being the best gifted species on this planet we need to do our bit towards the creation we are a part of. We owe a lot to the world around us. The best way we can honour our civilizations and the work of all our ancestors is by making sure that we grow what they gave to us by an inch or as much as we can and hand it over to the future generation before we leave this earth. If this duty has to be fulfilled we need to make sure that we are aware of what's happening around us so that we can improvise on them else we shall remain as the outlaws not from the society we are a part of but from the community of hardworking individuals who are striving to make this world a better place to live in. All of your comments are most welcome!

Instinct to conclude

All of us want to be experts in analysing everything and everyone. More than the want, most of us have already fallen into the pit of assumption that we can comprehend any person or any situation with the wisdom and experience that we possess. Unfortunately this is the reason why we jump into quick conclusions and far from perfect decisions that hamper our further progress. You might have observed that as experience and knowledge grow in a person, s/he becomes more descriptive about anything and keeps enough number of ways open before concluding about anything or anyone or any situation.

 

The instinct to conclude and finish quickly is also a sign of sense of urgency but this cannot be applied to those entities which are not under our control. Our work is under our control and hence sense of urgency can be applied but when it comes to making decisions when someone else is also involved in the project along with us, it's a blunder on our part if we jump into instinctive decisions that can have negative repercussions later. You might have observed that a baby touches the fire instantly the first time it notices fire which is an instinctive decision by the baby due to lack of experience with fear or lack of knowledge about fear while you will for surely find an aged adult taking sufficient time to jump into any type of decision even when the entire country is in crisis so that s/he gives the right decision after analysing and evaluating every aspect of effect of his/her decision. Wisdom grows only after sufficient knowledge is applied in practical scenarios increasing our experience.

 

I have always had this instinctive habit to finalise things quickly and immediately so that I can move over to the next task and I feel no shame in confessing that I have ended up on the losing side by taking such instinctive and incorrect decisions. I have always regretted after committing such mistakes since I couldn't revert the situations late. However I have learned my lessons, have you? Please let me know on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

Collecting new experiences

Last few days I have been in a spree of meeting people and learning about what they have done and how's their past been. Due to the 

people from diverse backgrounds whom I have met, I have learned many lessons and also understood about the human psychology partially. As a reason of these meetings, I have got immeasurable understanding about how people of different age and belonging to different backgrounds think and act. I cannot definitely claim that I understand everything but surely I understand a bit better now than before.

 

We have got one single life and in that we have a very limited amount of time. It is definitely impossible for us to go through all the possible experiences in the world. So sharing the stories of our personal experiences and listening to others' experiences are the only ways through which we can assimilate variety of experiences which help our wisdom grow. This inturn shall help us to handle various challenges ahead in life. Not just an advantage for us, by collecting new experiences from others we gather sufficient knowledge that we can guide some other person who is undergoing a similar situation like one of the experiences that we have gathered from other people. More the amount of varied experiences, more the problems that can be solved because problems are limited in variety but are applicable to many people. So a single experience of one person who has solved a problem is sufficient to solve the same problem of thousand others.

 

The best way to make a collection of new experiences of many people is by meeting and talking to a large number of people. In today's busy world, people seldom find their close ones to be free to discuss in detail about all the experiences that they have undergone till now. As a result people are ready to share their experiences with someone who has the patience to listen to them. So just be a good listener and you can take away a baggage of experiences. You can share your experiences with me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

wwww.twitter.com/ismohanbn

The impetus advantage

Impetus means 'the force that makes something happen or happen more quickly'. Here I would like to focus more on the impetus generated due to different reasons. When a small stone is rolling down it can cause certain amount of damage but when a big boulder is rolling right at the back of this small stone and pushing it harder then the damage caused is much more. This is a simple example of the impetus advantage.

 

The impact created by a single force is always less compared to that created by a force that is backed up by one more force. It can be of different types. I have heard few people saying that success doesn't teach anything but only failure does but success provides an impetus for further success. Even when the work is less compared to the actual expectations the previous success always helps to leverage it's value to guarantee further success. A simple follower guided up by a wise leader always has higher chances of winning and also wins in most of the cases when compared to a simple person who does the same amount of work as per his level of wisdom. All these are simple examples of impetus advantage.

 

Swami Vivekananda's advice of reading lot of books, travelling lot of places and meeting lot of people helps one to gain this impetus advantage. The experience and the knowledge bank shall help us in every endeavour of ours and provide us an extra added advantage called as the impetus advantage. Your feedback shall provide me an impetus advantage for my blogging, so you can send your feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

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

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

New from the old

There is a concept of a bird called Phoenix. It is said that this bird has no end to its life and is eternal. It grows from the size of a small bird into a big beautiful bird with unimaginable magical powers. Then as days pass by, it weakens into the older self and burns into ashes. This is not the end still. Then once again a small baby bird is born out of these ashes which repeats the life-cycle. Probably you can witness this in the movie Harry Potter.

The example of a phoenix is a clear indication that something new always is born out of the old and the existing. Even the famous salesman-cum-speaker Zig Ziglar says that creativity of coming up with something new lies its beginning in the amass of lot of existing knowledge previously. There is nothing that man has created newly which was non-existent before. Whatever the innovations that man takes to his credit have all been different combinations of the existing materials on earth. This doesn't stop at the materialistic things only. Going forward with a simple example of an aeroplane, man had no idea of flying in the air until he saw the birds doing that. That is when it struck to his mind as to how he could achieve the same and Wright brothers did the work on this. The more you are exposed to, the more you know, the more you learn, more is the number of things that you can play with. You can experiment by having different combinations of different informations in different quantities to come up with something new everyday. Hence target to read more, learn more, travel more, teach more and do more.

Most of the people today are obsessed with the concept of patents and new inventions. They fail to accept the fact that they need to use the existing things to create something new. They are under the misconception that their work will not take help from anyone else's work and spend years of time and energy in vain just thinking as to what new, out of the world invention that they can come up with. If you are one such individual of such a group, please come out of it and think as to how you can use the old and existing facts to serve any pressing need of the current world. This approach of yours will lead you to innovate novel methods and new devices that will add to your achievements list. You can reach out to me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

Only a handful

No matter how much we try to grab, we can always have just a handful. Open your arms to collect the rain drops, million might touch your palms but only a handful of them stay back. Same is the case with everything in life. We live through a million moments but only a handful of them live back in our memories. We meet and interact with thousands of people but only a handful of them hold our hands. We scan through numerous books during our entire lifetime but only a handful of knowledge remains in our brains.

Life is all about filtration due to the limited capacity that a human being possesses. Not just the capacity its also about the necessity. Its inherently built in our systems to hold back what's necessary and to let go of what's not. I remember the statement of Robin Sharma which goes like this "The best way to start off with an idea is by having a lots of them". Also Zig Ziglar who is a master salesman mentions in his book that creativity takes birth out of abundance of knowledge. To dig deeper into this statement we can take the example of famous scientists like Thomas Alva Edison, Albert Eisntein and others. Thomas Alva Edison failed 9999 times in innovating an electric bulb but succeeded only after these many failures, Albert Einstein came out with an equation of mass and energy relationship a E=mc^2. This was a single equation that the entire world came to know about but the amount of research and efforts behind deriving this equation was humungous for sure. This also relates to the perception 'only a handful'. No matter how much ever a man works and achieves only a handful of accomplishments of his get to be known by the world. All those great men out there in the open world achieve bigger and grow bigger day by day because they are aware of this fact that only a handful of their work gets to be known by the world. Hence they put in all that they have got in them to make things happen.

Unfortunately this truth of life takes a lot of time to sink into many of the common minds. In this 2-minute maggi noodles world, people want results and recognition very quickly irrespective of however small their work is. Remember friends! however long a river is, it can fertile only few banks that it passes by. Ultimately most of it has to reach the ocean. Only by doing a lot can you accomplish few achievements in life. Just be ready with open hands to hold back the handful of rewards which will only come after you have put in uncountable efforts behind the same.
Hope to know your perceptions on this blog on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/Mohan.B.Nagesh
www.twitter.com/ISmohanbn

Decipher the discussion

Decipher means to read or interpret. We keep talking day in and day out with ourselves and others. Which are those times we actually discuss? Few instances in a day wherein we discuss on different topics hold some concrete data however stupid the topic of discussion might be. How many discussions do we remember point to point depends on how deep the discussion touched our intellect. We keep conversing with our friends everytime we meet or call or chat. But there are special occasions where some really serious discussions happen. These discussions actually help in resulting in a better understanding of each other involved in the discussion. Probably lot of insight would have gone in the discussion itself on the topic but later once you are home you can go back to decipher the discussion to learn more from it. This is the experience that I want to share with my dear readers today.

Today, I had a fabulous discussion with one of my best friends whom I know from almost 3 years now. I have had many discussions with him on different topics but today's discussion was something special. Until now most of the topics used to be just plain exchange of opinions or factual matters but today's discussion was about a new venture that we would be coming up with. We had a mild discussion about the same about a week back and had come to decisions of the ways of its execution. I feel this earlier discussion was just a preface to what happened today. Today we were able to criticize our own approach which we had planned around a week back. We were able to modulate a new way to project our venture. We had points and reasons tossing between each other on the table. Then both of us gave our thoughts about them based on our experience. I am more of a guy having a background of addressing masses as an inspirational speaker. My friend is an ace tech-expert who knows the technology and its applications to the best detailed level possible. When both of us sat down to discuss as to how we make the technological applications meet the masses, it was a wonderful travel time for almost 3 hours. I understood more about how technology is perceived among common men and among the people in industry. I shared my thoughts on how this point needs to be communicated with the general public to have the maximum impact.

By the end of our discussion we could formulate key points and almost an agenda-like document for the new venture that we would be coming up with. This was such a fruitful learning for us itself that we were able to clearly put down our thoughts into an organised form of words. Even after I came home the points on which we discussed upon are roaming  in my mind and I can clearly see a rise in perception level in myself and my friend. Hoping to have more such discussions to learn more and grow more.
Please share if you have any important topics for discussion so that you can catch up with me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/Mohan.B.Nagesh
www.twitter.com/ISmohanbn

Uncommon from the common

Probably you're still wondering as to what the title means. Before proceeding let me make it clear that this blog might not apply to all. Generally I write blogs which are generic enough which can be felt and experienced by almost all the people in all the situations but this blog is going to be an exception. This blog is dedicated to those exclusive set of people who feel they are quite different from the general public around. Some individuals exist who don't care about the norms of the society having a very high level of thinking and find it quite difficult to get down to the level of ordinary man's thinking. If you're one among these, you need not feel odd about it as I have the solution for you.

Sometime back when I was watching an interview of Dr.Kamal Hassan in a management college he made a statement something similar to this (as I don't remember the exact words) - "At the age of 22 I thought that I was the lonely genius in this world and wanted to commit suicide but later I got down to the level of the world around and started my work". I also had had conversations with few other exceptional people in their career and success who shared the same feeling. They felt they were really talented and skilled enough and that the surrounding world didn't understand their value. I am not talking about aliens here. Some of us are like this right from our childhood. The silly ego competitions among common men don't interest us, we have some of the most brilliant ideas and thoughts that the general public doesn't even understand, we think quite different and positive than the existing pessimistic world which is always under the fear of survival. When we discuss certain topics with ordinary people, they can't even match the plane of thinking and the talk which just irritates us. When Mahatma Gandhiji announced that he would get freedom through non-violence, no doubt that people laughed at him. In today's world if you go out and say that you're equivalent to Mahatma Gandhiji in terms of thinking and work, people discard it as either you're crazy or just casting your pride around. No one seems to accept when you declare yourself as a genius. But the worst part is we know what we are and that we are right about it and hence can't take any rejections in this regard.

The world is foolish enough to buy aerated drinks just because a physically fit actor advertises for it who never uses it. If you average out the IQ of the world you will find very few geniuses and a large number of stupids, eventually due to which the IQ of the world falls even below average. So just don't worry as to how the world treats your credibility or beliefs. The world understands only factual results. There is no wrong in thinking yourself as the best in the world or the lonely genius as sir says. Just keep patience not to expect any acceptance of the same until you use your ideas and knowledge to create the unimaginable results that the world has never witnessed. All the best to those exceptional people around the globe!!!!!

A strange different concept that I wanted to share. Eager enough to get the response from the exceptional geniuses on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/Mohan.B.Nagesh
www.twitter.com/ISmohanbn

The Right Time

Knowledge is in abundance around us. Lessons are in million numbers. Theories and agendas are running pages together in books lying in the libraries. Immemse wisdom circulates through the brains of highly intellectual people whom we are surrounded with. Stories of rags to riches and solutions for all problems in the world are printed and picturised in movies. Yet not even a single person on this earth knows every lesson of life or every solution to a problem. The reason is not just because the information world is vast. The reason is also that the discovery of a solution happens only when the person faces the problem.

'Necessity is the mother of all inventions'. This quote is so famous that even a school going child knows this. The reason for every invention that has happened was the necessity of it that demanded the invention to happen. Bringing this concept at the individualistic level, everyone of us learn new lessons and find solutions to problems only when we require it. It all happens at the right time. Sometimes we feel that we know the answers for certain questions posed by life but later we realise how cliched our answers were when we really face these questions in life. Very few among us actually put an effort to learn solutions even before the problem occurs. Most of us search for solutions only when the problem occurs. Probably this is the law of nature as the first statement of this paragraph says. I am not inclined towards whether you find the solution before or at the time of the problem because I believe in either case solution works only when the problem occurs. Therefore I am fine as long as you find the solution.

Its always necessary as human beings that we grow in our wisdom and intellect day by day. But we know that this growth happens only when we start learning new lessons and solutions to new problems. New questions and problems arise only when you start venturing into new activities and new information. Hence I would recommend my dear reader to expand your horizons of learning and increase your areas of interest so that you get a chance to learn as much as possible and also exercise your skills in every direction because we know that the learning will happen at the right time when you encounter the situation that demands.
Its tough to expect a feedback after you've spent so much of your time and energy to read through the entire blog. Still with a positive hope I share my online addresses - is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/Mohan.B.Nagesh
www.twitter.com/ISmohanbn

Sharing is caring

Hi friends! Probably this will be one of my short blogs but its very important to share because I care to share with my lovely readers. You share with those whom you care for. Be it sharing of knowledge or inspiration or emotions, sharing always strengthens the relationship. In sharing we learn more by understanding others' viewpoints. This also helps us grow in life. Sharing food or clothing or shelter will akways help the needy. Lets share with care to develop our family on this planet called earth.