Not everyone is you

In the tight race of making many things happen it becomes quite difficult for everyone to play the role like everyone else. Each one shall follow a style of one's own in a speed of one's own. Everyone needs some space to pitch in one's own performance. Unfortunately not all kinds of work are individual-centric. Lots of tasks are dependent on more than one individual. That is where coordination and coherent speed of working need to be maintained to accomplish the results. While doing so, due the slowness of few people the entire team shall follow a slow process. No one can blame the other because it's all team efforts. All that you need to know is that not everyone is you, not everyone is like you.

God has bestowed each human being with some or the other talent. Each one of us go through or each one of us is waiting to find that Eureka moment when we discover our passion. It takes quite some time for all of us to discover our true passions. It's not just God alone who decides your talent. The environment you grow up in and the influences that you undergo during childhood also matter in moulding your talents and skill-sets. This being the case, one must not hurry on concluding someone else's capacity. One must always have the God's advocate eye to search for positive stuff in the most adverse situations. One must be able to recognise the true strength in the person standing opposite him. A fish can win a swimming race but never a running race. Likewise the moment you have spotted strength in a person in your team, make sure that he gets only those kinds of opportunities where his strength gets utilized the most. This shall empower him as a great leader. A leader must stop expecting that even the people working around him should have the same calibre and deliver the same results. God has never produced clones on this planet. So, no matter what, two people cannot work the same way at all points of time. Hence a leader must know that not everyone can be him, and guide accordingly. The moment there are expectations out of people to perform the same way like that of yours, they shall only shatter and bring more sorrow and lesser progress for the team.

A budding leader also looks up to his leader/mentor and it is natural for a budding star to imagine being a leader someday later. It takes committed hard work to reach a significant leadership position. Never ending efforts are indispensable while working to become a strong leader. When you are growing you must close your eyes and ears for any sort of stuff wherein you're pitched against the notably strong people. You need to remember that everyone cannot be like you and you cannot be like your leader at one shot. Treat people as they are than treating them for the way you desire them to be. None can ever be like you.

Trust and belief

Every new seed turns into a sapling with a dream to evolve into a tree with the belief that it will match the sun’s eyes in the morning and the trust that sun won’t deceive from rising the next morning. Not just the plant, every living being on this planet goes to sleep with the belief that it will witness the time after sleep and the trust that the surrounding environment won’t eat it up while asleep. Life itself stands on the two wheels namely trust and belief. Without these two nothing is possible to accomplish in this world.

In the modern day world, there have been a lot of examples wherein the trust and belief of people have been taken advantage of and people have been cheated and betrayed very badly. As a result, people have lost hopes on words like trust or belief. Man has become the biggest enemy of man himself. Due to the innumerable instances of having been the victim of such emotional betrayals, people have started eyeing everyone with disbelief and distrust. It takes ages together to earn the trust and belief of people. Unfortunately there is no other better way to work and rock in life. A group of people have to trust each other and believe in each other’s integrity to work together towards massive goals and visions. Nonetheless, it’s even important to evaluate the people on whom we entrust our beliefs. Doubt and deceit are the best ways to win the competition but not to build a team. In a competition only one person wins but in a clear-hearted communication the entire team wins. Never is an individual a successful person (though only one face represents success on most of the occasions), it’s always a team that flourishes in success or perishes in failure.

By trusting none we don’t even open an opportunity for others to prove their integrity and austerity. Hence there is no probability of achieving anything called success than a mere routine life filled with notions and presumptions. The world has to move towards a better future and for that, we have to unite together trusting and believing each other. No wonder that life will show its dark colours at times but we need to ensure to toughen our evaluation process with every darker shade that blinds our eyes and visualize the brighter side of life. What we visualize is what will materialize.

Upgradation and expansion are must

Some of the chat shops at the corners of the streets make the tastiest of the foods that are sometimes unavailable in the big star hotels. Many enjoy having the junk food that these roadside standalone food-on-wheels shops provide. Obviously, I don't exclude myself from this list of foodies. Just few days back when I visited one such food cart, I saw that, right next to that a new food shop on the footpath was open which served variety of other food items with people swarming around it. It automatically caught my attention and I could hear the earlier shop owner grumbling at the business that the new competitor was taking away from him. All this jealousy filled grumbling was only because he was losing business and the hindsight reason for the same was lack of upgradation and expansion.

If Microsoft had stopped at just first version of Windows operating system, they would've been out of business long ago. If Apple had stuck to their first model of iPhone, Samsung would have eaten up all the clients of Apple within a matter of few months. Every big company that we see has evolved through the gradual process of upgradation. Only if the shopkeeper had worked on establishing shops of similar kind in different areas or hired more workforce to upgrade his menu and prepared and served new snacks that could provide various options to the customers the new shop owner wouldn't have seen any business opportunity next to him. Alas! the first shopkeeper was content enough with having one food cart with 5 items on the menu as it had been working for him from years together. Unfortunately, on one fine day a competitor landed up right next to him, who took away majority of the market share in the form of a black swan.

If you're not updated, then you're outdated. If you're not upgraded, then you're outsmarted. Just like how evolution is the natural upgradation phenomenon of nature, just like how the universe is expanding, we need to learn from them that even we need to upgrade our products, skills and services. We will have to expand our work geographically as well as dimensionally to make sure that we aren't shocked by the surprise arrival of one of the competitors in the market one fine day. Customers will always be in search of new things in the market. If you're not providing them ,then definitely someone else will capitalize on the same. It's up to us to upgrade and expand our business wings to serve the huge and diverse customer base. No wonder that upgradation and expansion are must for survival just like the Darwin's theory on survival of the fittest.

He, in his own words

Recently, I finished reading one more book within a matter of 2 hours and that was 'Bill Gates, in his own words'. I also got to know that even my friend had read a book with a similar title, 'Barrack Obama, in his own words'. Both of us were shocked to know that we had read these books on the same day though we hadn't decided to do so together. Both these books have titles which denote that they are the autobiographies of the respective celebrities but it is a complete misleading concept. These books are mere collections of the quotes of these people quoted at different conferences, speeches, interviews etc. But both my friend and myself were mislead by the titles and had bought the books.

 

While we are buying the books online, seldom do we get a chance to go through the content of the books. We are moved by the title and the cover page to buy a book. Unfortunately some of the authors (so called authors) are taking advantage of this loop hole. They are framing catchy titles which convey something else apart from what the real meaning is and are making money out of it. However, not everyone falls prey twice to such nonsense. Customers are not fools. One fooled customer shall definitely spread a bad word about the author who compiles just the quotes of a person and showcases it as the autobiography of that person. Though these kind of authors might fetch some initial monetary benefits, they will suffer in a long term. Writing a book is about creativity. It's an art with which one should not play around and definitely must not play with the feelings of the common man who spends his hard-earned money on a book for knowledge and wisdom.

 

However, never giving up the optimistic spirit that I carry, I must suggest that, it's not the author who decides how to cheat us with a book. It's up to me as to how I can use the book to take the maximum benefit out of just the quotes mentioned in the book. I learnt that there is already an existing book authored by Bill Gates called as 'The Road Ahead'. I learnt about the various conferences that he has been a part of and the focus areas of Melinda Gates foundation. I learnt about how the perceptions of a billionaire like Bill Gates are with respect to different topics. It's completely up to us to learn whatever we want from the book we read and understand what we feel is right by seeing the word around us.

How far can you plan?

Planning is an essential asset that is required for every person on this planet today in this fast progressing world. So how far can one plan is a question of interest. Generally people have short term, mid term and long term plans. These plans vary based on the time required to accomplish the short term, mid term and long term goals. However when a person is involved in planning, it is not just for what length of time is the plan made which is important but how detailed the plan is, is also very important. So when I ask 'how far can you plan?', I refer to both the length and depth of planning.

 

Everyone has to do something or the other to pass time. Some might work while some might play while others might just rest. The human mind is so well tuned to continuous activity that it keeps asking for what is the next task. As a result everyone of us has some idea about what to do next. This is where we can differentiate between A stars and rest of them. How well and far planned is your next activity determines your course of life. People who are in pursuit of their visions, goals and dreams generally are aware about all the minutest details of their plan and also have a rough picture of the next plan such that it progresses towards accomplishment of their visions. They even chart out a time plan so as to complete the different steps of the plan. The rest might just have an idea on what to do next and might think about its execution only during run time. Unfortunately such people end up with reasons and excuses more than results. They shall have no idea about what is supposed to be done after that activity. This is where we take our time, resources and life for granted.

 

Whenever you are into an activity you must be aware about at least 5-10 next steps as to how you will grow and master that activity and also what you would be achieving at each step. Sometimes people jump into work out of curiosity or temporary motivation without understanding the long-term goal of that work. When their immediate targets are reached, they find themselves clueless about how to continue further, whether to continue further or change. Hence whenever you're planning to jump into something try to make a plan which has depth as well as longevity. You can share your opinions on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
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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

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