In the lap of nature

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

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

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

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Just keep working

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

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

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

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Sow the seed of sharing

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

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

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

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Empathy - an art to learn

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

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

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

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The alternative plan

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

Not many of us are aware about perfect planning. Not all of us are into a business that we have learned planning and management perfectly well. However a small concept about planning that I would like to share is that of plan B. Whenever you are executing some work already there exists a blueprint of how you would accomplish the same in your mind. This is your immediate plan A. Once you realise this then think differently and almost oppositely. If what you imagined just then wouldn't happen what else would you do at the same place and at the same time. This question shall automatically trigger your mind to plan another work which is nothing but the plan B if plan A doesn't work out.

 

Sometimes you would end up failing on both plan A and B and at such times you can execute some of your cardinal activities. Cardinal activities are those which you shall plan for yourself for your day to day upgradation. These cardinal work can occupy any time frame and can be done in any place. I will discuss more on cardinal works in another blog. Until then keep sharing your views on is.mohanbn@gmail.com
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Prospecting can lead to business

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

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

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

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Customers love service

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

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

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

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