Questions and Answers

The world would have been completely silent and calm if we hadn't had the fortune of speaking to each other. I am damn sure that, my dear reader, you are able to hear my voice in your head right now. You might be just reading what I have written here, but definitely there is a voice running deep down in your brain which is not audible to the outside world but, for sure loud enough for your head. Communication forms the intricate part of establishing a bond in any relation. It involves just exchange of opinions. Whenever no discussions are happening, then it only means that there are a lot of questions building up in our minds. All you need to do at such points of time is to throw the questions and get the answers. If you are on the other end of the table as a leader then pull out the questions and give the right answers. Questions and answers have the power to calm down all highs and lows of our feelings and emotions.

People would have been more than happy if everyone around them did exactly as they expected each one of them to do. Unfortunately, what happens in a human's brain seldom reaches the people around. As a result, exchange of ideas, thoughts and feelings in terms of words are very essential. Sometimes, or should I say, a lot of times not all the points made satisfy a person's appetite for information or confirmation of the information received. At such times, there are always possibilities of confusions, distrust, emotional conflicts and a whole lot of other silly issues to creep up. The assumptions that build due to too much of gap in communication also submerge the truth and the reality and build a mountain of unnecessary heap on top of the objectives, due to which the complete essence of the objectives is forgotten. The arguments and disagreements arise. Losers give up fighting on such issues to resolve them either due to ego or laziness. But a leader must take the stand. He must be ready to put down his ego, crush it and take the first step to make the person in front of him sit, and help in solve the queries bothering the relation. Heaps of irrelevant and irrational questions need to be answered until the true objective surfaces itself. Every human being is at least blessed with the ability to realise the importance of lost objectives, and when made realised to be ready to relearn them. Some souls get their ego as a defence just to win the argument rather than the true discussion or the objectives. Once again you need to question and get the answer or answer the same old question until the ego is satisfied.

The biggest role of a leader comes to picture here. A leader must be ready to dig into the mountain of doubts and uncertainties that people carry in them, due to which, neither they proceed in life, nor allow someone else to move ahead in life. A leader's job is to make people answer the questions and thus form a channel for them to leak out all their negativity so that positivity can be filled into them. The process is not as easy as it can be spoken about or written or read. It's a tough job of a leader and only a leader can take up such tough challenges and solve them to make the world a better place to live in for people around him.

Every problem has a solution

Life is a wonderful journey for those who are ready to see it unfold and be prepared to receive the shocks and surprises that it might throw. For some, life becomes drudgery because what they expected and what life gifted them were in opposite poles. No one decides what one needs to get out of life. It's a culmination of lot of factors that moulds the life the way it unfolds. Things that we can have control on seem easier than those on which we don't have any control. Such uncontrollable circumstances take the name of problems. Every problem has a solution just like how every lock is made with a key. Problem is a problem until we discover the solution for it. The best part is- everyone has equal rights to discover the solution of any problem troubling this world.

Once a person is born on this earth, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot escape the clutches of the earthy life until his time to leave the world arrives. Until then he has to pass his time on this planet. When we have no option to escape life, let's enjoy life. There is no point in sitting and moaning about things happening around us. You have the rights to cherish the good moments of life. Likewise you have the responsibility to combat the sad moments of life. While good moments make your heart go light, the tough moments should make you tough to face the challenges of life. Nothing comes easy here; you have to earn it, my friend! For those who doubt whether they will be able to earn what they desire to, here is the simple single philosophy which can empower you to believe in everything that you wish should come true. Every problem has a solution; you just need to discover it. You cannot say which solution will, for sure, solve the problem but you can be sure that when you hit the right solution the problem shall vanish. To make it happen you need to have a firm belief on God and thyself. You have to believe in yourself that you are going to be the problem-solver. Only then will your mind open up to search for solutions. Mind is one of those wonderful creations of God fit in a human body that can solve the unimaginable mysteries of this beautiful planet. Use it well and believe in your efforts which shall go on to solve the problem. What you dream is your right and no one has the rights to snatch it away from you.

There are a lot of people out there who will create problems. There are a lot out there who will complain about problems. There are plenty of those who will only see the problems and run away from them accepting defeat. None of these three categories of people take any action to solve anything. The remaining is the fourth set of people like you and me who should become the torch-bearers for the rest of them around us. We should carry the light of solutions to all the problems that hit us. Not to forget the most important lesson during the tough times of life - "Every problem has a solution".

Everyone needs that trigger

All of us are loaded with huge amounts of talents, skills and abundance of intelligence and energy. Each one of us possess a diamond or a dynamite in ourselves in terms of the worth and explosive capacity respectively. We need to explore the hidden treasure in each of us to scale the unimaginable heights of life. In the search of finding the strength and support that can accomplish his dreams, man has travelled across the world, and sometimes into space too than trying to find them in himself. No gun which is loaded with bullets fires all by itself at the enemies. There is a trigger for every gun that fires away the fears of life. Everyone needs that trigger to jump into real-time action. You have the chance to be that right trigger in the lives of those who are in your network; use it well.

Going back to the story of Ramayana, an ancient manuscript of India, there is an episode wherein someone has to fly across the Indian Ocean which is widespread thousands of kilometres to reach Lanka, the land of the evil king Ravana. Many monkeys claim different distances that they can fly across but Hanuman, being the staunchest devotee of Sri Rama doesn't raise his voice. This startles his seniors who were very much sure that this magnanimous feat could be achieved by none other than Hanuman only. Then one of the seniors goes to Hanuman and speaks to him about his strengths and his achievements when he was a child. Hanuman, being one of the Supreme deities starts recollecting his inner strength and starts growing in size to get ready to leap across the Indian Ocean, a massive feat which he finally accomplishes. Likewise each one of us has expressed our best forms or our best performances in some or the other places or at times. Since the human memory is not as long-lasting as that of a computer, we tend to forget our own capacities and credibility. At such points of time, all of us need some triggers that can put us back into our peak forms once again. Sometimes situation can become one such trigger. Sometimes people around us become the triggers for us. All that we need to know are that we are needed to get triggered as soon as possible. There is no point of loading the ammunition if you're not using the weapons. In the same way, there is no point having loads of talents in us if we are unable to use them for a good cause.

Different people get triggered for different reasons. One must excavate his thinking process to find out the reasons because of which he can get triggered. Humans are experts at studying about others than themselves. Using the same strength each one of us has the ability to assess our friends or relatives much better. Let's use the same power to find out what are those triggers which are absent in their lives. Being an outsider we can find those missing ones and supply such triggers to others on a regular basis whenever required. If each one of us can be those triggers for the people around us then each one of us stand the chance of getting our triggers from the people around us. This mutual triggering can empower each one of us individually and our society as a whole.

The grapevine communication

More than 50% of the productivity of companies is lost due to grapevine communication. For those who are unaware about grapevine communication, you can Google for a lot of information and statistics out there. In simple words I can explain that grapevine communication is the portion of communication during our work time which doesn't result in any kind of results or progress. Simple examples of grapevine communication are; two colleagues gossiping about the clothes of their manager or someone sharing about review of a movie with his teammate during work timings. Such stuff doesn't lead to any progress of the work or the individuals involved, and definitely not that of the company.

People join companies and work only with an intention to progress ahead in life and to maintain a well-sustained livelihood. Being so, still they involve in grapevine communication and cut down on the productivity of the company. This is quite a paradox for many of us. Well! It’s all but natural for us, human beings. We are not machines. We have an extra emotional part to us. Machines keep doing the work as per the instructions given, whereas humans need an environment that is lively enough and congenial for their style of work. A laughing or sniggering environment is generally preferred to keep our moods high. Sometimes just to drain away the home strain with a third person like colleague makes people feel much relaxed to work. To cater to the emotional states of oneself or that of others people jump into grapevine communication discussing about all the stuff apart from work. That is where one of the individuals involved in the communication must be at least aware of recognising the trap that each one is jumping into knowingly or unknowingly, and cut short on the unnecessary discussion. Unfortunately, people hinder away from putting the full stop in such conversations with the fear that they might attract the scorn of their fellow-mates which is the case most of the times in work places. A person who thinks of work is termed as a killer of happiness for employees. As a result, many managers and directors are hated because of their seriousness towards work resulting from their in-depth understanding of the consequences of grapevine communication.

People, while working, must realise that they are in the workplace not to deviate from work. They have to focus on what is the next target or which is the next deadline. That shall keep all of us in regular momentum so that we don't stray away into non-essential chit-chats. Even if our colleagues are getting into such stuff we must take the initiative to reorient them towards their work. Only then an organization can become a giant. Though there might be resistance initially, people shall understand your true intentions towards progress of the work for the unintended interruption in their conversations and shall start following the suite very soon.

www.adad.in

Finally there is a platform for people to share about all those tiny things that they did in a day which meant tiny ounces of help to people around them. What you speak more is what grows more. A lot of platforms, both offline and online, have given us the freedom of expressing all that we want to the entire world. None of these platforms have placed any restrictions apart from the security settings till date. Unfortunately, none of them drove a vision into their users as well. All of them just gave the stage, but here is the new trend of the new generation that shall give the right stage to speak the right stuff to inspire more of it to happen - www.adad.in

All of us want to know that we have been a reason for some positive difference on this planet. We would like others to pat our backs and encourage us to do more and more positive stuff. Doing small good deeds loses its recognition in the eyes of normal people, as a result of which many refrain from doing good deeds. Hence the new platform has got launched online which is spreading its wings offline too and that is "www.adad.in - A deed a day". Anyone can register on this platform and start posting his/her daily good deeds. People always said that God alone counts and calculates your deeds, both good and bad. Probably this site shall share a small responsibility of at least maintaining the database of all the good deeds that you do in life. Since the platform itself asks you to post good deeds, you don't have to hesitate from posting feeling that you're boasting about yourself. What is being spoken more about happens more often. If it's your good deed that is spoken more often by people then more of it shall happen for sure. Your small deed might give someone an idea of doing something similar to that. Your deed can inspire a thousand others to repeat the same. As a result, a chain reaction shall set in, where each one is inspired by the other person's good deeds and the number of good deeds shall increase exponentially. If people are speaking about good deeds, reading about them, writing about their good deeds and doing positive things then there is no reason for the world not to get better. A whole vision of bettering the planet has got triggered through this novel platform.

All that you and I can do is support such an initiative from youngsters. Let's spread the word so that everyone gets in sync with the new trend of the new generation. It's high time that people across globe should join hands to increase the positive impact on our society than merely sharing profile pictures and counting the number of likes and comments. Let the time spent scrolling down our timelines reading unnecessary stuff from others' lives get invested in doing more good and posting about them so that more number of people are triggered to jump into action. www.adad.in shall become a rejuvenator for someone who has come back home after a hard day. It shall be the happiness quotient riser for the new world of ours.

The lawnmower is coming

I observed in one of these huge gardens that the gardener was tightening the bolt of his lawnmower and getting it ready for work. He cleaned the blades and started to run the lawnmower over the grass. Those tiny heads of some of these grasses which were overshooting the heights of their neighbours were chipped off and they followed the Law of Equality (at least in terms of height). As the process continued I observed that the grass strands were bending in the direction in which the lawnmower was rolled. The moment the same lawnmower hit the grass in the opposite direction, all these strands bent in the opposite way. The lawnmower was the decision maker on which direction should the grass strands bend.

The billions of people running around in their daily lives are very much similar to these grass strands. The governments or perhaps, the people forming the governments are the lawnmowers, who can make the people follow the direction that they show. The law might switch through several amendments, wherein the second amendment might just be the undo of the first one. Nonetheless people got to follow it and work as per the existing law. Coming to the plane where many folks of our kind inhabit, we are in the wee generation which has the ability to get influenced by the many trends that keep coming and going. There is nothing called right or wrong; there is nothing called picture perfect. Movies influence us, the girls/boys next door or next class can change our lifestyle without even talking to us. There is no strict regime of culture that can hold all the people. We are like those grass strands which bend as per the influences that are cast on us by people (similar to lawnmowers) in our surroundings. Fortunately or unfortunately there is not just one lawnmower; there are many of these which are trying to run around and get all the grass following only them. The question is- Do you want to stay as a grass strand unbalancing around or do you want to be the lawnmower?

It's up to you to choose a life that moves as the life takes you or be the champ who moves the life the way you want to. As the old saying goes, "If you don't utilize your time, someone else will for sure", there is no option of being independent of the two choices. If you are one such sturdy weed, then you will be ripped off from your routes right then and there. You ought to choose. You got to choose whether to bend your head or make others' heads nod to your choices and decisions. Only then is there a scope to exist in this world. Living life doesn't mean to be just in existence, it means to live the life the way it deserves to be lived.

Respect and regard

In our email communication we write 'Regards' at the end of the mail before writing our name. We use a greeting such as 'Good morning', 'Good evening' or 'Dear', 'Respected' to begin the mail with. The email already shows at what time the mail was sent. It also indicates as to from whom it was received. So these simple words of formality or greeting might seem redundant but they are necessary. There is a particular format in which a formal letter must be written. The way we write in expresses our respect towards the person to whom the letter is concerned. No one is obligated to respect another person, it's just common sense to understand the philosophy of 'give respect and take respect'.

 

Communication is one of the most intricate parts of our daily life because every moment we are communicating something or the other to the world around us. Conveying the right respect and regard to people with whom we are communicating is highly essential to ensure the right flow of communication and relationship sustenance. No one likes to be asked about work at the first shot. Everyone expects a warm greeting before even beginning a conversation. People are already pressurized from all sides by commanders who keep asking for reports from them. We are humans and not computers. Even animals expect care and love before getting ordered to sit in a corner. Likewise even humans expect courtesy before being asked anything. This warm feeling can only be expressed through respectful greetings and warm regards which everyone needs to learn else the simple straight forward words might sound just too offending.

 

Even if we go back to the days of old stone age, humans definitely existed and they lived. Even in the modern age people are thriving in their wonderful lives. Hundred years later too, humans shall exist unless there is a drastic sudden catastrophe that might wash away the human race from the face of the earth. People are here to stay. The work came later. All that people need to live is food, clothing and shelter. More than the hunger for food, there is a greater hunger for care and love in this world, said Mother Theresa. Respecting the feelings and emotions of people is far more important than the work to happen. Hence expressing the right respects and the best regards to others while communicating should be our way of living.

The 8 YOUNG SUPERSTARS of Bangalore

Today's youth is useless. This is one of the most offending statements that I've heard from the mouths of many elders. I wish to claim here like other great men that today's youth are used less and not useless. Swami Vivekananda would say, "Give me 100 energetic young men and I shall transform India." IU (Inspiration Unlimited) was born with the same vision to transform the world and that is where, we also needed youth to take part in this auspicious crime. It was May 18th, when we officially launched IU1010, wherein we chose 10 mad and crazy people from different parts of Bangalore to build leaders in them. Through a journey of 8 challenging weeks of tasks and lessons, IU team was successful in moulding these young leaders for our society who astonished the Bangalore crowd on July 14th.

 

Aditi, Anusha, Harikiran, Harshitha, Nikhil, Pavada, Spoorthi and Vishwesh were the youngsters from Bangalore who organized a massive conference on the topic, 'Being Entrepreneurial' for a gathering of close to 150 Bangaloreans. I was glad to be one of the speakers on the list who was invited along with Mr. Bharath GC, Mr. Anil Kumar KN and Mr. Sujit Lalwani. The conference happened on July 14th afternoon, from 2:30pm up to 7:30pm in Telugu Vijnana Samithi auditorium and was indeed highly inspiring.

 

Spoorthi and Harshitha were the two young ladies who shouldered the responsibility of compering the entire event. These 8 young STARs were the reason for close to 150 people to learn about entrepreneurship. Right from booking the hall to winding up after the event, every part of this mega event was taken care by these 8 inspiring individuals. The event kicked off with inspirational videos followed by an energetic introduction by Mr. Bharath GC. Then the stage was taken over by Harshitha and Spoorthi, who introduced the concept of entrepreneurship. I was glad to be invited as the first speaker and I spoke about the 'E' of 'Entrepreneurship' and that 'E' symbolizes 'EXPLORING'. I explained about how exploring every talent, skill and opportunity can make one entrepreneurial in life.

 

The next person to rock the stage with his technical bent of mind was Mr. Anil Kumar KN, who introduced the requirement of energy and enthusiasm for one to be entrepreneurial. He was followed by none other than the One Young World Ambassador from India, Mr. Sujit Lalwani who shared his entrepreneurial journey and showed how he had made it so big in life at such a young age. The climax was the feast of the entire event. It was all worth listening to the first 4 hours because the last hour held the proof of all that was spoken during the initial 80% of the conference. The time had come to know and witness about how ordinary students in their graduation had gone on to transform their lives in just a matter of 8 weeks and had impacted 5 lakh lives. The last hour ignited tears of happiness in the eyes of parents of these 8 powerful young souls. Each of the IU1010 candidate was invited on stage to share his/her experience in IU1010.

 

 

The first person called upon the stage was Spoorthi who shared about how hopeless she had felt just 8 weeks back and today how she stood as the hope for many and about her project on dignity of labour. She was followed by Aditi who filled her speech with her attitude of gratitude to her mentors and shared about her project of 'Help Women Lead'. Then came in Harikiran who shared his dream of becoming the youngest Chief Minister of Karnataka. Then came in the ever smiling Harshitha who blew away the audience with her powerful words. She was followed by Pavada who showed that language can be no barrier to become a leader. He was followed by Vishwesh who shared his dream of owning a Hayabusa by his own earning in the next one year. Then, we had Anusha who showed that she could be an inspiration to thousands of students even though God had taken away her parents from her. Finally, came on the stage the Indian indoor  cricket team player, Nikhil Kanchan who rocked the stage with his words. These 8 young leaders were the superstars of July 14th and will remain for times to come to stand as live examples of what youth can do and how they can change the country.

 

Last but not the least, I cannot forget the people from the audience who jumped onto the stage to share their feedback. One person also shared about how his friend had survived cancer by watching inspirational videos of Sujit Lalwani sir online. This was the cherry on the cake for the entire event. I wish and pray to God to bless all of us and keep blessing to repeat such success stories again and again.

Boru kottina, THANK YOU!

Attitude of gratitude can take us to great altitudes of life. Thanking for whatever we have and whatever we have got is a must to lead a satisfying life. Sometime back I was watching the audio launch of a Telugu movie "Iddarammayalatho", where in the hero of the movie stylish star Allu Arjun gave a speech. Initially, he told that generally during such functions people thank cameraman, director, stunt master, choreographer, music composer, technicians and others and it seems boring to the audience. In spite of it being repetitive and boring, he exclaimed that he would do the same boring thing of thanking all the people who had worked for the movie.

 

Here is where we come to understand the title of the post today. Probably the south Indian audience understands the title being partly in Telugu which is a language of Indian origin. For overseas readers, let me give a brief description of the title. "Boru kottina" in Telugu language means "Even if one gets bored...." Allu Arjun began his speech by thanking everyone though it might seem boring to anyone who has been watching such shows regularly. He explained as to how 300 people come together to work for a movie. The dance masters keep thinking about different variety of steps that they should choreograph for the hero to impress his fans. The music composer keeps researching and experimenting about what kind of songs need to be composed in order to bring life into the movie. Likewise every other person in the entire unit works and gives his/her best to make the movie a grand success while at the end, the hero of the movie takes away most of the credit.

 

First of all, I appreciate Allu Arjun's attitude of gratitude. Many of the times, we also tend to take certain things for granted and seldom remember to acknowledge or thank or appreciate the help that we receive. It's very important for us to thank God for what He has blessed us with. All people living around us have been in some or the other way responsible for our well-being. We must acknowledge every such person at some or the other occasion. Last but not the least, we must thank our very own souls for being in us and leading us.

 

I thank each and every reader of mine who has inspired me to write more and more and share my thoughts and ideas. Thank you all once again!

The RIGHT thing

Right things at right places with right people make right things happen at the right time. There are so many 'right's in the previous sentence that it just gets difficult to understand as to what is the right thing to be done. However confusion is a part and parcel of life and hence you are bound to enjoy its bliss. Right and wrong are two perceptions at the end of the day. What is right for one person might seem completely wrong for the other.

 

I have heard this justification from a lot of people that all the successful people were just present at the right place at the right time and that's the reason they were able to become successful in life. If success was a mere result of coincidence then probably half of the world would have been successful which is not the case. Success is a string that is formed by connecting all the dots at the right intervals. Success is not a point on a board, it's a long route that doesn't seem to end at any point of life. Success demands perfection and perfection happens due to the combination of right inputs. That's what this blog post speaks about. Along with being at right places at the right time, doing the right things along with right people is also important. Nothing right happens on its own. We need to execute the right action to encash the right results.

 

Connecting back to the perception concept in the earlier part of the article, doing what is justifiable and brings about good to majority at no cost of harm caused to the minority is called the right thing. Things which are done with good intentions in life will always ensure right results for us as well as for the ecosystem around us. Give your best and you can be sure that the right thing shall happen on its own and God shall take up the responsibility to reward your efforts rightly.

Something will happen for sure

All of us were born tension-free into this world but as time goes by, we attach every type of tension around us and by the time we leave this planet we also leave behind a huge pile of worries and tensions. Fear of what will happen in the future is one of the most critical issues that's disturbing many souls around us. What will happen in the result? What will happen if there is a catastrophe? What will happen to me if my company shuts down?

 

Man has the unlimited ability to think out of the box whenever it comes to predicting the future. More than predicting the future it's more of the fear of the future that keeps talking in the person. No matter what we think or what we do, none of us have a complete control to what can happen in the future. We can try our best to make happen the best but we need to be aware that not always what we desire is what we deserve. Just because this probability of things turning out wrong can happen, we needn't worry about those things which turn out wrong. All that we need to know is that something will happen for sure. At least nothing will happen for sure if nothing else takes place. Man has to be prepared to face the unexpected. Life is a journey that brings every other day unexpected challenges only to make us stronger to face the life ahead.

 

Exam is a big worry for students while inflation is the biggest worry for a country. Recession is a big tension for final year students while food for the next day is the basic worry for a poor fellow. At the end of the day, each one of us want something from the future and the probability of it not happening often feeds imbalance into our minds and life. If we are able to console ourselves that something shall happen for sure and we can give our best to make something that's beneficial for us to happen as well, we can free our mind of tensions so that we can concentrate on what needs to be done at present.

Prompt and instant

Recently, during a book-reading session with my friends, I came across a line which asked, 'How long is your response to stimulus?' The stimulus can be anything that's external or internal. How fast we are in answering the stimulus determines our speed of action. The world is delighted with prompt and instant replies and actions. The slightest delay that we do in our prompt responses results in sowing seed to a disease called procrastination.

 

The general perception of people about others is that people are lazy. Each one has his own set of problems which seem much bigger than that of others. Amidst the chaos that one is going through, it's generally tough to be alert all the times when there is an external calling. It might not just be the problems, even the to-do list of a person might be too long to cater to someone else's calls. Unfortunately, the outside world is completely unaware of the problems that we are entangled in or the tasks that we are entitled to fulfill our duties to. When opportunities knock our doors in the form of others, if we are not prompt in answering them, they move on to the next door without waiting for us. Hence problems or our work can never stand as a reason for not responding promptly to others' requests. On the other hand, if we are prompt in responding to an external request or call or an order, we are respected for our quick responses and opportunities shall follow later.

 

Prompt response does not mean that one has to leave all the tasks at hand and start answering the external request. If each one left their work to fulfill what others ask for, then not even a single work will be completed. Prompt response only means to answer the incoming query and providing a suitable action plan for the same. Once a prompt response is given and an action plan is stated and decided upon for a task, it enters the to-do list of the person and should be done as and when required. However, work will happen only when our responses are instant and prompt.

 

Feel free to throw in your comments here.

Chess for Social Change

ENTREPRENEURSHIP is a huge field to address in a span of 2-3 hours. Still team IU gave its best to cater to the necessity to kindle the fire of entrepreneruship among the youth of Bangalore on the occasion of Labour's Day a.k.a International Workers' Day on May 1st of 2013. During the session there was an interesting participant among the crowd who came on the stage to share her feedback and here's her inspiring story to inspire a lot more.

 

A brief introduction about yourself

My name is Bhavana.B. I am pursuing my MBA from Maharani College of Arts, Commerce and Management. I am a national level chess player. I have represented my school for 3 consecutive years in chess and have won many prizes. I have participated in HKES tournament wherein I secured first prize and in many other inter-college competitions wherein I have won many prizes in the chess competitions.

 

With how many people have you shared the knowledge

about chess and what were the implications?

I have taught chess to 4 of my cousins out of which one went on to participate in national level chess competition. She was trying from 4 years but was unable to make it. Last year, I left my internship to help and guide her. By God's grace and my guidance she was able to pass through all the rounds at the national level and is a national level player now. Right now, we have 3 national level chess players in our family. Also, there are couple of young cousins of mine, one studying in 6th std and another in 2nd std  whom I am coaching about chess. It's a pleasure to also be teaching about chess to a 5 year old kid.

 

Apart from these, I am also training a 3 year old kid in chess. I have shared my knowledge about chess with Gururaj.S, who is a member of faculty in RIESI Bangalore and passionate about promoting the game of chess. I had written down some articles about chess and passed them on to him. He had got them circulated and I have received many positive feedback about the same. Once I had got a message from a teacher from Tumkur whom I had never met that my material had benefited her and she would be teaching chess to her child. I was very happy to know that my material had helped someone whom I didn't even know. I wish that all these people go on to become international chess players.

 

How do you plan to use chess as a medium for social change?

Today, whenever anyone talks about sports, it's mostly cricket or football. Indoor games are not given much scope. I want to make sure that chess becomes a part of our lifestyle itself. Just like how one doesn't remember when s/he brushed for the first time, I want people to not even remember when they started playing chess. It should become an intricate part of life is what I believe to achieve.

 

You can pass on your feedback for the fantastic work that Bhavana is doing on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

Talk to self

I was checking out one of my diaries that I used to use before where I had written the notes of the leadership workshops that I had attended. In one of its pages it was mentioned that talking to oneself is very important. In Hindi it's called as 'aatmachintan'. Discussing with oneself is the best way to bring about clarity for one's decisions and shall help in aligning one's actions towards accomplishing the goals set.

 

Time and again people are confused about their own decisions. The reason is that they decide once and discuss about their decisions with 'n' other people to seek their opinions. Unless they get majority of the responses positive, they go on doing it believing that their decision will be right only when majority of the people also accept it. In doing so, people are just adding more confusion to their decisions rather than strengthing them and acting on them. The most important person on whom all your decisions might impact is you yourself. Hence you need to discuss about your decisions with yourself more than anyone else. More the number of times you discuss, more the clarity you will have as to why you made those decisions. Not just decisions, be it an idea or a simple thought or a dream, vision, goal or anything concerned with one's life, s/he has to talk to himself/herself to understand the basis of one's own thinking and evaluate it oneself. Unless you are clear about what you want to do, you can never expect someone else to understand the reason behind what you want to do. Talking to self regularly for a good amount of time shall always make our thinking clearer to ourselves first, which later can be conveyed to anyone else with complete confidence and clarity.

 

Talking to onself needn't have to be only verbal, you can even write and explain to yourself all that you want to do. Once you are convinced logically with your explanation then you can give a green signal to yourself to go on with your work without turning back. You always reap the benefits of what you do and never that of others. Hence it's completely upto you as to how much you talk to yourself so that you are the first one to be clear than anyone else about what you're going to go for. You can post your feedback once you talk to yourself for a minute about the blog on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/ismohanbn
www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

AWAKE celebrates International Women's Day

Congratulations to every woman out there in this world who has been working to make this world a better place to live in, as we celebrate the 102nd
International Women's Day today ie. March 8th, 2013. On this occasion AWAKE
(Association of Women
Entrepreneurs of Karnataka) had hosted a grand function at the 4-star hotel 'The CAPITOL' and I was fortunate enough to be a part of it and add more energy and entertainment to the event as the host for the 2nd half of the day with IU games on behalf of TENUVISE.

 

The hotel banquet hall was grand with glittering and hanging lights. It was a wonderful scene to witness more than 100 women entrepreneurs who had gathered to celebrate the spirit of women entrepreneurship ranging from the age of 20's till 60's. The enthusiasm these women showed was just more than mesmerizing. A total of 8 teams with 8 members in each was made before we kicked off with the games session. It was an astonishing surprise to precisely have 8 teams of 8 members each on 8th of March. I just believed that it was divine plan to make this happen.

 

We started off with the game called 'Sell your slogan' where in each team prepared slogans for the item that they were suppose to sell. People got items ranging from onion, chair to love letter to sell with their slogans. Each team participated with equal interest and enjoyed the game. Then came the exciting game of the day called as 'Papyrus Raja Rani' where in each team decorated two of its members with just newspaper as king and queen within 10 minutes. All the teams were superbly involved in this art game and at the end of 10 minutes we had 8 pairs of King and Queen who beautified the stage with their ramp walks, proposes, hugs and kisses which was a scene not to be missed. This was followed by couple of individual games like film dialogue delivery and ball games. Ladies delivered dialogues in different languages and entertained the audience.

 

The program concluded with a splendid cake cutting ceremony as a mark of celebrations and the prizes were given away to different teams and individuals by the President of AWAKE. It was a great occasion for me to emcee and I enjoyed it thoroughly well. I would like to thank all the lovable audience, the AWAKE board of members and not to forget my beloved IU team who supported and made this a grand success that people relished the joy of the session to the best extent. Looking forward for more event hosting and emceeing opportunities to entertain and energise a lot more people. You can contact me on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

Gap widens the relationship

Communication is one of the most prominent bridges to maintain relationships. Whenever there is communication gap between two people it automatically hurts the relationship. The more the gap the more departed the people go. Communication is the strong bonding that holds people together. Out of sight is out of mind.

 

Relationship is all about better understanding of each other. The strength of a relationship can always be estimated by the measure of the depth of understanding of each other between two people and to understand a person one has to spend time with that person. This spending of time with each other can be in the form of meetings or phone calls or email communication or any other type. At the end of it all, communication is a must to establish the trust or respect or love between any two people which eventually moulds into some sort of a relationship. Whenever there is a slight communication gap between two people, either of the two must take the initiative to communicate. Unfortunately in today's self-esteemed world, both the parties have ego issues because both feel that the first one to initiate communication might just surrender to other person's ego and hence both restrain communicating and eventually the realionship falls apart.

 

We build relations not to break. Also, building alone doesn't suffice. Everything that has been built in this world has to be maintained else it deteriorates and perishes. Likewise even relationship must be maintained once built and communicating on a regular basis is the best way to maintain and sustain relationships with lot of people and hence a great human network. Your feedback is also a communication that can help our relationship grow stronger and hence you can mail it on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/ismohanbn
www.twitter.com/ismohanbn



Reputation is Temporary

All of us want name, fame and reputation(though all three mean the same, I still want to emphasize on the size of desire in us for these) . We want people to know us, adore us and respect us. We like and love to be in the limelight. Probably some of my dear readers might be nodding their head sideways disagreeing with the want, still its a human instinct to seek attention, credit and recognition. Some might not desire for reputation but will definitely not mind a bit if they gain some. Let's dig deep into one more quote from the book 'Life Simplified!' by Sujit Lalwani, a pro in sales and marketing and the master of networking.

 

Each one of us are working in our streams contributing something or the other towards the world around us. Some work harder while some work smarter. At the end of the day when it comes to return for the efforts we have put in, it's always either in the form of cash or kind. Cash is a complete monetary aspect which we won't touch in the current blog. Coming to the 'kind' it might be some kind of a honorary gift or a reward or a momento. When the number of these rewards start increasing, the name of the person shall start spreading to more number of tongues and in recommendations of the required type. As more and more of such occasions repeat where the person is being referred to among large audience definitely the image of the person grows in the eyes of the people and this is what reputation is all about. Most of us seek this kind of a special attention

where in we expect that  people should recognise us wherever we go because our name should have reached the place before us.

 

Just like how a human life is mortal, even the reputation is short-lived which is built just around us and not around our work. Reputation that symbolises only a person is as alive as the person is. The moment the person ceases to exist on the planet even the reputation vanishes. In fact the reputation that we try to build is so fragile that it breaks away with a simple misunderstanding. It is just like trying to build a monument out of the softest glass on this earth. Hence the author suggests one not to run behind something that itself doesn't have any value. You too can share your perceptions on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

 

You are welcome to book your copy of the book 'Life Simplified!' on www.sujitlalwani.com

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

What will others think about me?

"Sabse bada rog, kya kahenge log". This is a transliteration of a Hindi statement which means that the biggest disease is 'what will others say?". It inertly indicates the worry about what others will say about me. I had always thought that this was a very simple and well-known topic and hence not necessary for me to address. But I find that each one I come across is suffering from this disease and sometimes even I tend to forget this saying. The best reinforcement is by sharing.

 

Man is a social animal. As a result of all other homo-sapiens surrounding us we are answerable to lot of them for our words and actions. The worst part is when we need to even answer the strangers about things completely unrelated to them. So many people suffer from the pain of worrying as to what the other person might be thinking and saying about them. This worry doesn't have any logical reasoning because it is just made up in one's own mind by a mere assumption without any confirmation from the other person whether s/he actually is thinking about him/her in the way s/he imagined. The person is really not sure if the other person spoke the way s/he has imagined him/her to have spoken. We interpret gestures with different meanings at such worry times and reaffirm our nonsensical made-up thoughts to deepen the pain further. If it really mattered to both about what the other person thought or said about you, s/he will share it with you directly and the matter can be resolved. If the other person has not spoken to you directly about what s/he is thinking or saying about you then it's none of your business to worry about that.

 

"An idle mind is devil's workshop" was a previous slogan. Today's slogan is 'an idle mind is devil's paradise'. All these thoughts about other people come to our mind only when it is not generating thoughts about our work. So either there is a scarcity of work or goals. So the moment you think about what others will say or think about you, you can be sure that you have to once again revise and reinforce your goals. I hope you liked this blog. If so, pour in your valuable feedback on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn

The convincer's power

I have heard it many a times that there's your way, my way and the right way. You tend to hear such statements whenever there are arguments. Coming to arguments which flow to a proper logical end without either of the parties escaping, you can always notice that there is one side which has a strong convincer who has an answer for every argument of the opposition. This convincer has the ability to reverse the debate if he is made to team up with the oppostion side. This is the power of the convincer.

No matter how much ever logical reasoning exists, still it's the ability of the convincer that decides the detination of the debate. No matter whichever side the convincer is shifted to the debate tilts towards that end. In this diverse world with different cultures and different people, nothing is right while nothing is wrong. Some things are right according to some people while the same things are wrong according to some other set of people. No one really knows the real depth of good or bad. So as long as the powerful convincer is able to convince others to follow his path, they shall follow. Whoever has developed the courage, ability and urge to convince others to agree to his viewpoints always wins the debate just by the mere confidence more number of times than the rational reasoning.

 

This world needs a person who can rule over it. People are confused as to what is right and what is wrong. They need a leader who shall show them the right path but not all shall express this inner feeling of their's. So it's left upto each one of you to decide whether to take hold of the reigns of this world and drive it in the best direction or not. Really looking forward for your reviews on is.mohanbn@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/ismohanbn

www.twitter.com/ismohanbn