JOURNEY

Year 2009 is finally over, and now all the news channels, websites, blogs and even radio channels would have mentioned about each others new year resolution. For so many years resolutions havn't been taken seriously and people don't pay attention to their resolution after two days. Why resolutions are neglected whereas goals are not? After all new year resolution is nothing but your goals for the current year. Treat your life as a business and compare everything with an analogous business situation. And ask business questions. For example. Do you have a new year resolution?(Yes, No, Probably) compared to Does your business have any goals?(An obvious yes) Or How are you planning to achieve your new year resolution?(haven't thought yet) compared to How your business will achieve the goal? (Number of Ways) Or Have you break down your resolution into monthly resolution?(Wait that is not mentioned anywhere) compared to Have you break down your goals into monthly g...

Have you ever played the puzzle " Connecting the dots "? Untill you connect all the dots you do not get the bigger picture. Life is a similar puzzle. Untill we connect all our thoughts, our actions or events, there is no picture. Today my sweet wife asked me a question. "If you were given a chance to stay in just one room and do just one thing, what would that thing be?" She chose to read as many books as she can. I requested to lend me pencils, colors and sticky notes and lock me up. Out of curiosity she asked me what would you do with them. I answered I would connect the dots in my life and try to draw a bigger picture. There are some incidents, moments of my life which are absurd, which just happened to me which made no sense to me, but after days or years they make perfect sense. At the end all those moments, incidents would just make perfect sense. I feel we have been given a task, a role to play in this world. I want to connect all my dots ...

How many sources of inspiration are there?  "Infinite". Yes there are infinite sources of inspiration. You can get inspired by watching a bird build her nest or by watching videos on TED.com or see Barack Obama's Historical speeches on Youtube . There are plenty. The point is did you get them. Are you able to co-relate their story with yours? How does this leader's situation analogous to me and what is in there for me.  Are you curious and hungry for more inspiration? And how many we actually need to succeed.  You guessed it right.  We need Infinite .  But why we need infinite sources of inspiration?   Because our Journey is very short to make a difference in this world.  And we want to accomplish our goals within a short period of time.  We never know which one will help us in the long run. Remember last time you got a help from the person you never expected in the first place.  That is the key.  We never know who will h...

Of course we all need money but that should not be our sole focus while doing any job. If you work to learn something then your enthusiasm, dedication and effort will increase. To enable learning you need to be creative. If you are motivated by money all your focus would be devoted towards money. Money kills the creativity in you. If you work to learn new skills or on improving your existing one then you will start asking intelligent questions to your boss and peers. Slowly you will know more than anyone else in your areas of expertise. I have always focused on learning aspect on any job. It has given me strength, confidence and wisdom. If you focus on learning then all night long you will wait for the morning to go to your job. Money will follow excellence and excellence will come by learning. Some people stop learning after they have achieved success. They have moved into their comfort zone. Finally they realize they have been fired from their job. If you believe in con...

How many times you thought that you had a great idea and just couldn't do anything about it? "Oh, I wish I could do that" is not acceptable in modern age. Have you experienced like that in your daily work, your assignments, cooking food, project, design or meeting. Have you ever tried being creative and be different than others? What prevented you from doing those? How can so many great people come up with marvelous ideas? There were many great moments in life that you could have made them different, memorable and as seth godin would say it " REMARKABLE ". How can we capture those IDEAS and implement them? Learn from a child who fearlessly expresses everything in a drawing book. Corporate companies have " DRAWING BOARDS " in their meeting room. And many start up companies keep them to brainstorm new ideas. Having a drawing boards in our life helps us capture those great Ideas. Because our life is our start up company. "Always d...

How some people just find about everything they are looking for? They can find anything in Google . In real life too there are many people who get what they want. It depends in our approach and how we look at a problem or a task. I try to correlate virtual world with real world. Our lives reflect almost the same way we do search online. What you do if you don't find something? You will ask some one right. If you don't find anything on Google , user other search engines, ask someone in forums, blogs , websites, place a comment, tweet about it, find user groups online or help them if you know. Our real life is no different . If you don't find anything look for help. Ask some one who knows about it friends, your boss, family, a commuter or a professor. Find people of similar interest groups, connect with them, ask them questions, find more people, build a network, call them or just help them.

Years of research into finding what leads to success, Richard St. John's summaries them into 8 secrets and 3 minutes. A short video but very compelling, I found out on TED . I have restated them here if you want to copy the list. PASSION WORK FOCUS PERSIST IDEAS GOOD PUSH SERVE I loved the word " Tedster " at the end when he closes.

Why very few Start up companies are successful? Why very few individuals are Billionaires? 9 out 10 companies fail within first five years of their formation and 9 out 10 such companies fail within 10 years. So is the success rate of new start up companies. Hence we do not see a Google, a Microsoft, an amazon.com every day being formed. Our lives are quite similar. Not everyone can become Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein or Warren Buffet. What sets them apart from the crowd? Successful Start ups and Billionaires have few things in common. 1) Clear cut goals 2) 3 year, 5 year, 10 year plans 3) Vision for the future 4) Strategic partnerships 5) Continuous improvement 6) Invest in R&D 7) Invest in Human capital 8) Invest in long term Assets 9) Hard work and persistent effort 10) Passionate How can these have an impact in our daily life and our career?

Have you done your SWOT analysis before? SWOT -Strengths(Internal), Weakness(Internal), Opportunities(External), Threats(External). SWOT analysis as we commonly refer in business case studies, it is very important in assessing a company's position.( More info ) This helps companies in refining their mission and formulate appropriate business strategies. Well life is also a Business in many aspects. We have a blur picture of our strengths and weaknesses in our mind but we never explicitly write them down. Take a Drawing board, do your SWOT analysis and place in your home so that you see it everyday, twice or thrice a day. Experiment this for few days and revise it. It will have enormous amount of Impact in your thinking, behavior, attitude, relationship, job, goals and your Life . So what are your strengths ? "You have the right to change your life if you don't like it. "

Have you solved this famous puzzle? You have to connect all the 9 dots using four straight lines without lifting your pen or pencil. Most of the people are not able to figure it out. You can see the answer here . The Beauty of this puzzle is, it forces you to "think out of the box". We are used to learn whatever professor teaches us. Or we used to do things the way it is in books or it is in manuals or tutorials. In real world it does not work that way. You have to work out different strategies to get success and best results. You have to ask different people, refer different sources, apply trial and error method and apply your knowledge to it. We all are born with the same tools that God gave us. Teachers don't teach something new they just present the facts together in front of us to let us think differently. Do you think out of the box?

Do you use Sticky notes or the Post it Notes in your daily life? Sticky notes help you to brainstorm "incredible ideas". Developers, artists, scientists, engineers, doctors, and many use them to solve their greatest design challenges. Sometimes you use them to notify someone or yourself. Sticky notes find a common place in almost all the offices. Efficient managers use them as reminders and creative people use them for connecting the dots for their ideas. I like them very much and I feel everyone should use them in their daily life to maximize their efficiency in everything. How do you use Sticky notes ?

If you feel that asking for help from someone is dumb, then you need to rethink. People in this world are always there to help you. You might not get the right help at first attempt but being persistent in the approach will work out. If you are looking for something and you don't find it ask someone to help you with. It could be a smallest grocery item in Wal-mart, it could be finding a Job, or finding something online. I have learned a big lesson in my life and that is if you don't ask for help, you don't get it . There are people who want to help you. They like being asked for. Not asking for help in a professional environment is the biggest mistake you will ever do( read this ). Do you need help ?

Everyone should at least take one sales course in their life. Every once in a while in our life we sell something. We try to sell " our learning " to get a job, we sell our old house or we sell our used Car. Some people are very good at selling and it is a born talent with them. Some learn from other's experiences. But Sales representatives are trained in this skill. Are you trying hard for your job interview? Are you good at presenting yourself ? Is you House or car not selling? Try doing one of these. 1) Take sales course 2) Watch a sales video on you tube. 3) Buy sales related books. 4) Contact a sales person and ask questions. 5) ( Most Important ) Get some experience in selling Are you ready for selling?

If you do not know how you can achieve your goals then you should start looking for Mentors or Gurus (Master of the Skill, commonly used in India). You should have at least more than one Mentor. We all have set Goals for our life or at least we have a picture of what we want to accomplish. These Mentors will help you with their insights, research, work, advice and recommendations that will take you miles closer to your Goals. You should ask this questions to your self. Whom should I ask for advice I need help in " " field? Do you have one?

Hey I just changed the Template of my blog. However We too have a Typical Template in which our lives are structured. Everyone has a template in his/her Life. The way everything is structured in your life. We add and remove things, experiences, people, relationships, feelings, and everything. Being comfortable in a given Template is what matters after all. Having friends, relationships, groups, jobs that are comfortable for you then you have a working template. How is your Template Organized?

How passionate you are about anything you do? " You have to constantly worry about the work you are doing, otherwise rational people will just give up on the way " --Steve Jobs(CEO of Apple Inc.) The above quote was said by Steve Jobs on his interview along with Bill Gates(founder of Microsoft) on ALL THINGS DIGITAL. You can watch the video series here If your products are not "Remarkable" then your team is not passionate about it. Just think about any Apple products. Aren't those products truly amazing and sexy? Your mind should be filled with the product, your work, your organization, every effort you make then only you can be passionate about anything you do. You should be obsessed by your work so much that even in the middle of the night, you are excited and wake up to finish it. Then only you can be Passionate. Only Passionate people create remarkable products, products about which you can make a remark. When I want to get any kind of inspiration on de...

This picture was taken from the bus on our way to Munnar back in November 2006. I guess we stopped here to see a beautiful waterfall. We went to see this great Dam. Not like Niagara falls though but this dam's flowing water is also a watch. Hey ! that's me ....Looking so different back then .. Tea gardens !! TATA tea has highest number of tea gardens here. The best quality of tea is always exported and highly expensive. Sexy Waterfall !! I can stay there whole day doing nothing but watching the waterfall and people taking pictures, eating pineapple, taking shower, and having fun. Did I missed Alleppey !! If you havn't seen Alleppey, famous for its backwaters, in kerela then I guess your missing something emmensely beautiful place. It was raining when we visited in boats and all the coconut trees could be seen lined up. It looked like someone had aligned all the trees and made crossed roads in waters. Personal Recommendation If you visit alleppey stay there for o...

"I have a dream" said Martin Luther King in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial on 28th August 1963 during March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Well we all know how defining moment that was in American Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King had a dream that all African American citizens will be treated equally and given equal rights. After almost forty years the great American dream got fulfilled when Barack Obama was selected as the forty forth president of United States of America. Dreams come true if we do dream at all. We should all dream for something in life. Quite often times we are confronted with people who discourage us from dreaming and urge us to be practical. Yes we should be both practical and theoretical. Do Practical people don't dream? Dreams make you powerful, they give you the strength to fight. Dreams motivate you and get you through tougher times. We will not work hard if we haven't set a goal for us. For those who do not under...