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We do things either out of obligations or with conscious choice. Though falling into obligation also is our choice, it is not the wiser route.

When we do anything out of obligation, it doesn’t last long, or we don’t do it as expected because we don’t feel it the right thing to do.

But when we do things with our conscious choice, we tend to stick to it for the longest time because our heart permits it.

Further, when we do things under any obligation, we are more prone to revolt and finally do things that we don’t want to do in a calmer state of mind.

Though both are the choices, pick the one you will stick to for a longer period of time.

Since the beginning of the time when humans started socializing, we live together, eat together, and work together. The whole socializing is in our DNA, and it can’t be replaced by phone or video calls because we want to feel people.

What has started as a new normal is already seems to be the end of it. What has been in our subconscious as impression over the period of centuries won’t go away in a few months or years? Our yearning to meet. And socializing isn’t going anywhere.

Work From Home might stay for some as it had other benefits. Outside of that, the new normal is already counting its days.

There are two ways of serving your customers. Either you can treat your customers as someone who is interrupting your beautiful life by doing business with them. Or you can be respectful to your customers, remember their names, giving them special treatment and become remarkable.

Being respectful or industrial isn’t dependent on whether you are a small local company or a giant having a global footprint. Instead, it depends on the management, what they think of the customer relation, how much they are training their employees, how much they care.

Be remarkable with your customer service, no matter what size your business is because business is about leaving a positive impact on others’ lives.

What I said isn’t what you heard. You heard from your perspective and disagreed.

We all have different perspectives, and many times what is told and what is heard are different. This can lead to confusion if you don’t get a chance to clear the air.

If ever such confusion arises, make sure you sort it out with open communication and clear the context of what you said.

To disagree and getting confused is natural, and to solve it, the only way is open communication because open communication can help you clear the context behind what you said.

Freedom is not about not working or not doing. Freedom also is not about being irresponsible.

On the contrary, freedom is about living without boundaries, striving for difficult goals, not bowing to the outside pressure, inspiring others instead of managing them, setting up examples instead of lecturing, breaking all the mental barriers, and taking accountability for your life. That’s freedom.

Believe in the freedom, shoot for the sky. Unless you shoot for the sky, you will not feel real freedom.

While facing a challenge, go to the bottom of the challenge, find the real cause, and get the solution.

Often, we start thinking of everything else as the cause of a particular challenge, followed by the steps that aren’t relevant, which leads to even more problems.

Instead, if we focus on the real cause, we can find the real solution. Otherwise, we feel we are working on a solution but won’t solve the problem, which might create even more challenges.

Think deep, what the real cause is, and then tackle it. You might find this method slow because you are anxious and want quick actions. But it is a much better way for a meaningful solution.

Either you can wait for things to happen, or you can go ahead and make things happen.

When we wait, we are in a reactive mode. We react when opportunity knocks, and most of the time, we can’t see the opportunities when we are in the reactive mode.

While, when we go ahead and embrace things and make them happen, we are in a proactive mode. In proactive mode, we are actually controlling what we want instead of things to happen on its own.

Neither approach is wrong. It is us to decide if we want to control our destiny or be controlled by destiny.

The stories we tell ourselves could be the one that gives us peace, or it could be the one that takes away the peace.

It is up to us what we want from life. The stories that we tell ourselves that leaves an impression in our mind. It is these impressions that then manifest. What is manifested is the total of what we think.

Feed your mind the stories that you want for yourself. When your mind takes you to the unwanted stories, feed your mind the contrasting story of what you want it to do.

If you want success, happiness, and peace, feed your mind the success stories, as it would manifest what it is nurtured with.

The stories we should tell ourselves are the stories we want to live.

Most of the time, we go with the flow when it comes to following the rituals.

We don’t bother to know why a certain ritual is being followed. We either do things out of the fear or do it just because it is to be done without understanding; why?

Create the habit of questioning everything you do in day to day life. Be curious. Know why, and it would be more fun doing it.

When we know the work on hand and become intentional about that work, then the work’s loftiest can be completed without creating tensions.

We create tensions when we are fearful. The fear could be because seen of any number of reasons. But that leads us to spread the same, the fear.

When we know what we want, are intentional about it, and are into action, there is no fear. And when there is no fear, we are at ease, and we let others at ease.

When we know the work on hand and become intentional about that work, then the loftiest work can be completed without creating the tensions.

We create tensions when we are fearful. The fear could be because seen any number of reasons. But that leads us to spread the same, the fear.

When we know what we want, are intentional about it, and are into action, there is no fear. And when there is no fear, we are at ease, and we let others at ease.

Most of the things in life are simple. It’s the human brain that makes things complicated.

It is true for both business and personal lives. Managing relations and building a business should be simple, and it is simple. It is us who makes things complicated.

When we see that things are simple, we doubt how it can be so simple and work hard to make it complicated.

And when we complicate things, we waste our energy, focus, and, most importantly, our time.

Keep things simple. That’s the best way.

How many times have you searched something on the search engine and found what you were searching for?

No matter if you are looking for a recipe, some news, or a contact number, or a product to purchase, you will find it only if you will search for it and that too with the correct keywords. No brainer, right?

Unless you don’t tap into the search engine the correct keyword, it will send the irrelevant results.

And even in our life, we find what we search for. If you are looking for nice people, you will find the same; if you be looking for success, you will find the same. If you are looking for an abundance of love, health, and wealth, you will find the same, provided that you know what you are searching for.

If your life isn’t what you want it to be, check if you are searching for the right thing.

Key is, the right search with the right keyword.

Do not take things on the face value. No matter if you read something, hear something, or see something, do not accept unless it is backed by solid proof.

When things aren’t proved, go, and question, and if you aren’t satisfied with the answers, the next step is to experiment and experience things yourself. When we experience, we know exactly how it is.

Be wise, though, when you follow this strategy. Put time only where finding the answer is worth it.

I am sure we all go through that awkward moment when we call someone, and about after five seconds into the conversation, we realize we called someone else with the same first name and the last name.

Well, I did that again today, and my reaction as I realized was to apologize and accept that it was by mistake. Nonetheless, by mistake, the call ended up with a good two minutes talk, and the acceptance was very well received.

I realized that accepting that we have goofed up and made the best out of the mistake is where we should focus. After all, everything happens for a reason.

How often do you make such goof ups? My ratio isn’t bad, just because I hardly make calls.

When we are busy doing something, and when it is over, we feel void. And to fill up this void, we try to get busy.

Many times to fill up the void is more of an emotional decision than a rational. Instead, when something is over, enjoy the void, let it be the void. Who knows, the situation might bring something even better.

Why can’t it be avoided for the time being or for an extended time too? A replacement is not always necessary.

It is easy to be unremarkable. You can be in any field, make a good living, and build a thriving business and still be unremarkable. Being remarkable is not the needed step to becoming successful.

But if you want to do the work that is affecting others’ lives positively, where you inspire others to become even a better version of themselves, then focus on being remarkable.

Doing the inspiring and remarkable work is difficult, but that’s the way of life you want to perceive.

Being remarkable helps inspire others.

Focus on the one goal and give everything to it. Live, eat, drink, and breathe only and only that one goal.

When you put all your energy into one thing and don’t let anything divert you from your goal, it will manifest.

Once you achieve your goal, then move to the more challenging target and repeat the same process.

This way, you will challenge yourself to move to higher levels in life.

Whenever an important discussion is going on, there will always be one person who will personally pick the discussion. That person will focus on clutter while everyone else is trying to focus on the main agenda.

You have to see that your talks and the plans stay on track. Learn how to keep the talks on track. It’s important.

This is equally true in professional and personal lives: that one colleague, that one friend, that one cousin. There always is the one who loves to see things the way they aren’t.

Usually, there are two ways to do anything either you do it yourself, which popularly is known as DIY, or you hire someone who knows how to do it and supports you in getting it done.

Which path to choose depends on person to person and situation to situation. Some likes do it themselves, no matter how long it takes and how many opportunities are missed. While others like it quick, and all that matters to them is the speed, they prefer to hire someone who can guide them through.

What did you delete? How many times do you get this question when you delete a message because it had a mistake or because you realized it wasn’t in good taste?

It’s so obvious, and still, most of us ask the question. How many other obvious things make you react in the same way?

Reflect on it. It’s hilarious.

We wait a long time to take action, and once we act, we want immediate results. But that is not how things work.

Everything takes time to generate results, and getting impatient stresses you and weakens your commitment.

Be sure about the plan, give the time for the execution, and the desired results will follow.

Keeping patience is the key.

When our thoughts, deeds, and words are in sync, we don’t live pretentious lives.

If you see you feel different inside and shows different outside, check what isn’t in the sync and fix it. When we consciously align our thoughts, deeds, and words, it’s a bliss in itself.

Are your thoughts, deeds, and words aligned and in the sync?

Always build the team first, and the rest will follow.

Hire the top management team, even if it is not affordable at that point in time. Pick everyone yourself. Once that is done, let your team pick their subordinates.

Many times we compromise on hiring the top line, and that pulls brakes on the growth.

Never wait for the business to flourish before building the team because it will grow only when you will have the right team.

Do you have the right top line in the place?

Work in a way where you are setting up the system for the others to follow it. The generation to come will enjoy your hard work’s fruits and take it to the next level.

This is true for the leaders in politics, business, and family.

When you are a leader, your role becomes larger than life. Be the leader who shows the path to success.

When you are focused on a goal and working towards it, the journey will be full of challenges. There will be a time when you will feel to take a detour. But taking a detour sometimes doesn’t just change your route; it might also change your goal.

To make sure your detour doesn’t change your goal, keep eyes fixated on your goal all the time.

We normally feel empathy for those who need jobs, and we hire them. That’s not just an empty but also a sure backfire idea.

Those who need a job end it when the need is over. They jump off the bus as need is gone.

Instead, hire those who have the same goal and travel the journey together, giving whatever it takes. When everyone has the same goal, the journey becomes satisfying.

When you are working with a team, be open to the suggestion, especially when you have asked for it. If we start taking suggestion as a criticism and react instead of responding, eventually people will stop giving the suggestions.

And it is our loss when we stop getting suggestions. While working with others, be open to the communication.

You have a solid plan, a great team and the zeal to make it happend make sure you then focus on execution part.

Sometimes when the execution is not up to the mark, instead of fixing the execution, we revise the plan and that leads to the same below par results.

Know what needs the fixing and work there. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

When you talk about something or someone, check your feelings. Are you feeling happy or toxic? Does the talk brings a smile or do you frown? How you feel tells a lot about the energy that’s generated.

Either way, to understand your energy helps understand what to pursue and what to avoid.

Stay present all the time and practice understanding your energy, it would be good for your peace of mind.

If you are good at the cricket, you don’t want to move to golf which you aren’t interested in nor can play well.

There is no point in breaking the comfort zone if it’s not needed. Instead, expand your comfort zone. If you are a good batsman work on becoming the great one, don’t try a balling to prove you can break your comfort zone.

Be what you are, just be great at it. That’s all about the comfort zone. Everything else about comfort zone is so overrated.

When we take responsibility, we should own it. We should take accountability for what we said we would do. Do it because it’s a responsibility, not because someone wants it.

It should not be someone’s responsibility to take follow-ups. It should be your responsibility to do it. When we own our words, no one has to follow-up with us because we will never let ourselves down.

The customers should be delighted for your proactivity, for you owning your words and working with full accountability. You don’t have to give discounts or chase customers for the payment because you haven’t made them track you to get the work done.

When we take responsibility, we are accountable for it.

Only time has real value. You can generate everything, including wealth but not the time.

What you do with your time defines what you become. If you are saving money and give up time, you are giving up something that you can’t produce for something that you can generate.

You can’t afford to spare your time as a charity. Be wise with your time and focus on saving as much time as possible. Saving time doesn’t mean to be lazy, as that’s too is the waste of your time.

Build your life where you can spend time the way you want, still generating wealth for yourself because that’s how you can have QUALITY time for yourself and for those for whom you care.

Focus on where you put your time. Think before accepting any invitation, and before you jump into any business or a relation. Your choice will define if your time is invested or wasted.

Be wise. Don’t waste the only limited resource you have.

Do what is valuable because you might be loving to drive the car, or brewing a cup of coffee, or playing sports. And you might not be interested in becoming a cabbie or a barista or might not be talented enough to be a professional cricketer.

Do not do what you love, unless what you love is valuable enough. Instead, do what is useful and then enjoy doing what you love to do as your hobby.

Be smart and play your cards right.

We all have choices to stay where we are or to do something about it. Every choice we make has an impact on our lives. Some choices have smaller, while others have an enormous impact. Some choices have a shorter term, while others have long term impacts.

If we are making choices for instant gratitude, we have to be ready for the long term consequences. For example, if we are willing to eat junk for instant gratitude, we have to be ready for the long term health consequences.

While making choices, evaluate what impact your decision is going to have on your life. Because what we choose is what we become. No one, absolutely no one is responsible for what we are. It is all our choices that have made us what we are today, and it will be our choice, what we will be tomorrow.

When it’s time to decide, choose wisely.

When we have processes in place, it gives us freedom. When we have free time, we get time to be more creative. Without free time, we keep doing a mundane job.

Decide what you want to do? Keep doing the same thing or want to create a system and set up business and life in auto-mode? When you put the time in creating a design and processes, you get freedom from where it is easy to grow and comfortable for your team to follow the instructions.

Without the processes, people get confused as they do not have clarity on what you expect from them.

If you want to build the business, build the process first. Give clarity and enjoy the journey of freedom. Freedom to create, freedom to let people do their job, and the freedom to drive the growth.

It is easy to forget to be grateful in the daily rut of the life.

We live in the world which is in the constant race. Be up early because everyone else is waking up, be busy otherwise you would look lazy, keep networking otherwise you will be left out, be in the race because world is in the race.

And behind all the races, we forget to be grateful about what we have. The home, the peace of mind, the work we do, the people around, the beautiful sunrise, the birds chirping.

It is okay to be in the race as it’s fact of today’s life, just make sure you be grateful of what you have.

Ignorance is not always a bliss. Ignorance leads to the unknown fear, making up it’s own stories.

Even for the bliss, it’s important to go through the circle of knowledge, implementing the same and then letting it all go. That is the bliss.

Unless you don’t know what you are letting go, the bliss can’t be the real. Ignorance is not always a bliss, knowledge is.

When there is a lot to do, start taking one task at a time and start getting them done.

If you will keep thinking and will look for endorsement from others, the pile of work will keep increasing and that will not generate results.

To generate results, you need to have a clear plan of action and the right tools. These tools could be the right people, too, because you cannot do everything alone. Get the right people on board for your mission and get support from them.

Do whatever it takes, don’t sit and think. Get the right people on-board and in the life, and be in action.

When you know all yet, you let it be without feeling the need to change anything. When you don’t let others talk to get into your head, and are focused on your zen. That’s when you know you are on the path of peace, success and courage to lead your life and that of others.

While most of the business basics are the same post-COVID, many things have changed too. What was working before COVID, might not work now.

Don’t try to sell the same solutions that are not relevant anymore. Focus on what new challenges have arisen and build your solutions around them. We live in a totally different world and this new world needs new solutions.

See the businesses with new eyes, understand what is needed by your client today, find the gaps that you can help them a bridge, and provide the solutions based on these learnings. If you are ready to take that step, there is a lot of businesses that are waiting for your answer.

New challenges need new solutions. Don’t sell cookie-cutter, old era solutions to the challenges of the new world.

When the need is to change how you work, focusing on cosmetic changes will be useless. Focus on the structural change that can lead to the desired results.

Changing the logo, or making a new website, or changing your sales story would be a fruitless effort when the need is to change how you approach the work, how you manage the projects, and how you handle the challenges.

We live in a delusion when we think doing cosmetic changes would change the way we work. It would change nothing.

Make-up applied on the face doesn’t change the soul. When the need is to work on the soul, work on the soul.

If you are satisfied, push your limits farther. Push not because you aren’t satisfied but because you know you can do better.

Satisfaction shouldn’t hold you back on what you can do.

When we push our limits, life stays fresh. Otherwise, it becomes stale.

No matter how happy you are, never stop.

Only when we get determined about achieving something, we start finding the ways.

When we aren’t decided, our subconscious thinks of the alternatives and find reasons on how it is not-possible. As soon as we are decided, the same reasons turns into doing things.

When you want to achieve something, decide and get determined. Everything will start falling in place when you know what you want.

Achieving a milestone gives us pleasure and a way to look forward to the next one.

The journey is all about setting up milestone after milestones until you reach the destination.

Without the milestones, it would be a tedious journey. With them it’s a fun as we get to celebrate our small victories.

On this 250th blog post in a row, I am excited, happy for the streak and feeling full of gratitude today.

Thank you for mentoring, me, guiding me, reading my blog posts, and making it possible for me to achieve this milestone.

When you collaborate with your peers and competitors, you can make something bigger happen.

What better company can you get than having like-minded people to work on something big? When you have got a chance to collaborate with like-minded peers, grab it.

Competing is easy; collaborating is not because we are naturally competitive. When we unite, we see outside of our comfort, and it is always going to be a challenge.

Make sure you have the right structure in place so that collaboration becomes successful. And always have a glue that will stick everyone.

While it’s fun to go alone, if you want to go farther, you need a company.

Don’t hold up on the matter that isn’t needed. When we hold on to those matters, we lose new opportunities.

The new opportunities emerge when we let go. Next time when you are holding onto something, think if holding is needed or moving forward is a better option?

Giving up isn’t easy because we get attached. When we give up, we are relieved, and we feel free. When we feel free, we see new opportunities.

When it’s work time, don’t indulge in personal activity and when it’s personal time, protect it.

Unless you will make it clear, people will not know and will buzz you at the odd hours too.

Living in the new normal, the line between personal and professional time is disappearing. This can disrupt your life.

To protect your time is your responsibility so that you can give justice to different roles in life. And do it with zeal.

While I am a firm believer in integrity, it is equally essential to have committment.

Sometimes, integrity is disturbed due to one or another circumstance. And only when you are committed, you will bounce back. If you aren’t committed, it would be challenging to keep integrity once you break it.

While integrity is essential, being committed is far more significant to attain any goal.

Accepting failure is a way of getting back on track. It helps to find ways to fix the failure.

If you are in the denying mode for your failure, what is supposed to be a small problem can turn into an enormous challenge. From which it would become harder to bounce back.

Also, you are leading others in the wrong direction by continually running the propaganda about showing your failure as success.

When you fail, accept it. That will start your journey towards finding the solution. And eventually will turn into a road to success.

Looking through the haziness when the weather is rought isn’t easy. We all experience it when it’s cloudy or foggy, which makes our vision difficult.

For example, when a pilot is flying an airplane on a foggy day and has to land the airplane, his vision isn’t very clear. To support the landing on a rough day, the pilot has the support system that helps him navigate through the fog and land safely.

Without the complete system and processes, the pilot would be landing on his judgment, which will come from his experience. With the design, he will go ahead with full confidence.

To land safely in a tough time, build a system around yourself that supports and guides you through the haziness.

What system have you built to navigate through the rough weather so that you can achieve your vision?

Know yourself. Don’t do anything just because other’s are doing. It’s okay to be left out, if being in a group isn’t taking you towards your vision.

To take your own path is okay, if that is how you are. And being with the crowd is okay too, if that’s you.

Neither of the ways is good or bad, and nothing is right or wrong.

Just do what you are to enjoy what you are doing. Don’t do things just because others are doing it.

When you are overworked, overstretched, and dragging, take a break.

Come back afresh and take the plunge into the work again. You will be more focused and determined.

Taking a break gives you the needed mental and physical space. Otherwise, you will feel gloomy, disillusioned, and the results would be the same.

There can’t be any rule, and you should know when your body and mind are asking for off time.

Whenever you need, take a break.

Customer Relationship Manager’s job is to bridge the gap between the customer and the company.

A CRM should think and act with balance. If they are talking only for one side, the whole idea of CRM is lost. If you are tracking your customers data, do that to see how you can help them, not only to get more business. Customers are smart, they know when you are helping.

We see most of the CRM from banks, insurance, mutual funds, ISPs aren’t able to generate enough faith in their customers. This can be reversed if the focus is on the helping their customers.

We lived the new normal, and now it’s over. What was new normal a few months ago is now just the routine, and phase two has become the new normal.

With the economy opening and with more people stepping out, the new normal phase two has begun. Already plan for phase one is obsolete, and phase two needs a revised plan and strategy.

You need to see what are the challenges and opportunities in normal phase two. Because it’s an agile time, adapting to the new environment is essential.

Be an observant to see that the new normal is gone now and that we are in phase two already.

When you are on a mission, you tend to make decisions that you think would help.

You conduct the meetings, plan the next step, get everyone enrolled, and are ready to launch the task. And at the last moment, you and your team feel there isn’t enough clearance. Everyone is still confused and is in doubt.

At that point, the biggest challenge is that the announcement is made. What would people think if you will roll back the launch? How much impact will it have on the image? Will people get un-enrolled? These and more questions would arise, which will lead to fear and will stop you from rolling back, even when knowing that launching will create even more challenges. You are confused and worried as its the catch 69 situations.

The thing you should do in such a situation is that if it is not the time to launch, roll it back, and announce the breakdown. Accept and declare that it wasn’t the right time to launch.

Breakdowns are inevitable at times, and you should deal with them with courage.

I love to write blog everyday as it’s my medium to express myself.

I get that ‘amazing’ feeling when I write it by noon. Post noon, it’s time for meetings and phone calls that consume the rest of the day. And when I write the blog just before hitting the bed, i sometimes drag. Which doesn’t generate the amazing feel that I get writing my blog.

Writing daily blog is also giving me openings on my own preferences.

We love free things but free is not viable forever.

Sometimes we adore things only as long as it’s free. And we expect it to stay that way forever, even if we know what we are getting is valuable and involve a cost to the provider.

But how long someone can get us things for free? Either they have to start charging or they have to shut the shop. Practically, everyone would like to avoid the situation.

Be generous and willing to pay for the services that you enjoy. That’s the only way you can enjoy it forever.

Remember, free is not viable forever.

It’s your job to create the peace for yourself. No one is going to take responsibility for your peace if you don’t care about it yourself. After all, others too have to take care of their own peace.

If you don’t want to be around someone who is not at the peace, how can you expect others to do the same?

To be at the peace is the solo sports. You can’t expect others to be the part of the solo sports. Yes, there can be guides, mentors, coaches, other players along the journey to tag along.

You might have patience about something. That doesn’t mean you are patient for everything.

While I can be meditatively persistent about what I want, even if it takes a longer period, I can’t say the same when it comes to taking a test.

Since school days, when it comes to the test, I would finish the test off as soon as possible. Mostly the first one to finish in the exam hall. I just don’t have the patience for the test.

I recalled it today when I was giving a certification test and finished the test in forty minutes against the official time of three hours.

The point is, even if your personality trait is patience, it might not be the rule about yourself.

By the way, who else finishes the test paper before everyone else in the exam hall?

PS: Yes, I did score well if you are wondering what happened to the test results. 😁

We want to make it big and live a life of satisfaction. But we don’t want to put in the needed efforts. We don’t like to work hard, take stress and go beyond our fears.

When it comes to doing, we find excuses and reasons for not doing the required. We choose to tell ourselves stories about not doing the needed.

Or, we can pick what is our calling and live the life of satisfaction by giving everything that it takes.

It’s a choice.

WOW, the famous hotel chain Hyatt has launched a new program. The program is specifically designed for those who are working from home and still need a break. The program is called Work From Hotel, it’s still WFH, smartly.

The Work From Hotel initiative is just one of the many ideas we have seen during this pandemic.

To cope up with challenging economy, companies are trying new things, some ideas are working, others not. The important thing is, this pandemic has given everyone an opportunity. Those who are taking the chances, aren’t going to be the sure shot winners, but they certainly have a better chance to come out as a winner, post pandemic.

What is your idea? Have you given your idea an shot?

Take your time,but finish one task instead of jumping on ten different tasks and not completing any.

It feels good when you are managing multiple tasks, as you feel a lot of things are started. In reality, you are loosing confidence and focus as you don’t see any task reaching to the completion.

Take one task, finish it with focus and with speed. Then move on to the next one. This is how you complete a lot of tasks over the period of time with peace of mind and better results.

When we are in the favourable position, we shouldn’t take undue advantage. We think it’s smart to take benefit of others. Instead, we should think how to be fare with someone who is not in as favorable position as we are.

When someone is taken advantage of, that person learns the same and do the same when it’s his turn.

If we pass on what we have experienced, why not we spread the good for the betterment of the humanity?

We all have hidden agendas in almost everything we do.

If we are doing the charity, known agenda could be to help someone, and hidden agenda could be to earn the fame. Likewise, if we are promoting someone out of the way in the social group, known agenda could be that you wish well for the person and hidden agenda could be to earn the favor from the person in the return.

Most of the time, we aren’t even aware that we have the hidden agenda. Having hidden agenda is okay, only thing is, your hidden agenda shouldn’t topple your known agenda.

Below are some great learnings from early bird 5 am club. Value generated by many different speakers who also are part of the club.

• The abundance of money is good because it brings you freedom. More importantly, never criticize anything that you want in life.

• Happiness: Your actions define your happiness.

• Learn from the past, analyze data without being emotional, and create a future with the power of observation.

• There are always two thoughts going in our head, but listen to your heart, talk to your heart, and you will always find the answer.

• If you doubt, you create confusion. Don’t doubt, instead, have faith if you want to reach to the destination. 

• Follow policies yourself too, that your peer are following.

• Success is when it is 360 degrees. I am successful when I can do the work that I love, specialize in it, and contribute to others’ success. 

• What I learned today is that habit can be overcome by replacing it with positive habits. And I will make the list of ten things that trigger my negativity and which I will change it with positivity.

• When you fulfill your duty, challenges will come, but a solution will follow it. Finish what you start.

• Self-value: Know your value, respect yourself.

• To use seasonal vegetables and also learned how many health benefits it had and how many vegetables to eat in a day.

• Whenever I have supplied something to my subconscious mind, I have always received the answer. I will do it without doubting the subconscious mind’s capabilities.

• I have experienced whenever I put trust and monitor periodically; it gives me the freedom to work on my tasks. It also gives freedom to my team.

• Mock your role model. To achieve the goal, you have to remind yourself every day what your goals are and take massive actions on it.

The effort that goes into creating value is tremendous and I can’t be grateful enough to every value generators at Early Bird 5 AM Club.

Are you waking up early? Are you an IT professional? If so, I invite you to join the life-changing club at Early Bird 5 AM Club.

I am most productive early in the morning, and as the day progresses, my concentration, energy, and willingness all drop. And by the time it’s evening, I want to be done with the work and unwind.

It has been the same for years, and I know a few people who operate the exact opposite. Which is fine too, important is to understand what are your creative hours. Once you know your creative hours, leverage it to get the maximum outcome.

If someone is comfortable with the early mornings, and if you are in the late evening type, don’t try to change yourself. Just know what you are, be you and act likewise, wisely.

Do you know what your creative hours are? Share your thoughts.

PS. I have to make sure my early bird buddy wakes up before 5 am. If they haven’t, I have to give them the call and vice versa. Today, at 5 am, when one of my two buddies didn’t show up on the WhatsApp group, I called. I ended up calling Chirag Patel, who is not even in the early bird group, instead of Chetan Patel. Well, that was the LOL moment for both Chirag and me, as Chirag took it more gently.

When you are creative, you generate a ton of ideas. Instead of sticking to one plan, you keep jumping from one thought on to another without completing the first idea.

As you aren’t sticking to one thing, you aren’t able to bring the scaling to any work. And eventually, it leads to the performance that is below your caliber.

While being creative is great, to learn to focus on one thing, scaling it up, and then moving on to the next will give you the satisfaction of making it big.

You take it from the Ramayana, each of the four brothers, Ram, Bharat, Lakshman, and Shatrughan, were ready to give up the throne and life for each other. Though they were stepbrothers, they co-operated with each other.

If you take it from the Mahabharata, Pandavas and Kauravas were ready to kill each other, and that leads the whole epic to the war of Kurukshetra and killing almost entire Kuru clan.

In both the epics, the elders were equally responsible. It was the main character that made the difference. Ram and his siblings choose not to rival each other, and they prospered, unlike Pandavas and Kauravas.

If you choose not to rival anyone, no one can make them your rivals. It can be your sibling or a competitor. Instead, if you decide to co-operate, everyone can grow to a better future.

The matter of rivalry is the question of choice. It’s up to us if we want to see foes around or want to make friends.

Everyone is the hero of their own life. The hero doesn’t need another hero, and they need a guide to solve the hero’s challenges. The guide’s role is to support the hero to solve his difficulties and help him achieve his goals.

Hero and guide relation holds both in personal and professional lives. We hire a company that acts as our guide and solves our problems so that we can achieve our goals. Likewise, we look to the friend or relative who can guide us when we are confused and help us get clarity so that we can achieve what we want from our life.

Never try to be a hero in other’s life, as they already have a hero themselves. Be the guide.

The only three things you can EVER control are your actions, your reactions, and your mindset.

Everything else is outside of your control. Never try to control what you can’t. Instead, focus on self, and control what you really can.

When we focus on controlling elements that we can, we feel peace. It’s not easy, but once you get it, you will be at peace. Once you focus only on your actions, reactions, and mindset, you will stop worrying about others are doing.

The bigger picture is, if everyone focus on only their actions, reactions, and mindset, everyone will be at peace. Again, that is something we can’t control, so let’s control what we can.

What were your favorite comic books and video games while growing up?

I loved Chacha Chaudhary, Pinky, and Bill00 when I was a kid, along with Amar Chitra Katha that used to had moral stories. Mythological stories were also one of my favorites.

In the teens, I came across Archies comics and became a massive fan of Jughead Jones. Also, I read a lot of superman, phantom, mandrake, and spiderman comics. Spiderman is my favorite to date.

The reading hobby from childhood eventually turned into a more serious reading habit. Today, I love reading mythology, sales and marketing, autobiographies, history and culture, philosophy, psychology, and spirituality.

At the same time, I used to love video games from Atari and Nintendo. Some of my favorites were Pac-man, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Super Mario, Pinball, and Donkey Kong.

I still play Super Mario once in a while and Subway Surfer when I am in the mood to enjoy a good game. Oh, and once in a while, I try to read Archies and Chacha Chaudhary too but can’t read more than a couple of pages, LOL.

Share, what were your favorite comics books and video games? Do you still read comics and play video games?

Happy Independence Day to all the fellow Indians.

Freedom brings an opportunity, and every liberty binds us to another dependency. At the core, humans like to be dependent, striving for freedom.

Though we love freedom, we are scared of it because freedom brings responsibility. Only when we accept responsibility, we become truly free.

To be free is a choice, and now the time is for internal freedom. Let’s free ourselves from biases, attachments, gender, caste, religion, you and me, yours and mine, your country and my country, your God and my God, superior and inferior, hardworking and smart working, virtual and real.

An imagination of free country gives birth to the idea of freedom. Likewise, a vision of internal freedom ultimately will provide us with inner freedom.

Today, let’s start a new movement. Let’s celebrate internal freedom.

I love credit cards because they offer reward points and perks. Do you love credit card reward points?

I collect points fanatically. I use credit cards for various types of purposes, but the maximum points I gather are for travel. Travel reward points get me closer to flying free and upgrading my flights. I always try and double down airline and credit card points. Together they take me faster to a free trip.

Many travel credit cards also offer a lot of perks like free access to airport lounges, priority checking in and boarding, and discount on certain fares, improving the traveling experience.

I also collect points for rewards from payback.in to redeem it for amazon vouchers and use ICICI Amazon Pay card for the purpose.

While most of the credit cards don’t allow rewards points on the purchase of fuel, ICICI HP card has a tie-up with payback.in. This tie-up enables users to collect points on fuel expenses too.

I also use a separate card to maximize points on hotel stays that I can redeem against the future stay or convert them to airlines points.

And finally, a credit card that gives maximum cashback on utility expenses like electricity and gas bills.

I used to love the American Express Jet Privilege card, but it isn’t there anymore (not the card, the airlines 😛 Sorry Jet). Since then, I haven’t been able to find a purposeful replacement.

The one card I always wanted to possess is the American Express Metal card. It’s the highest level of publicly offered credit cards by American Express in India. Still, it’s too expensive against the perks it provides, so I am avoiding it for a year now. As at the end of the day, every credit card has to prove it’s worth.

Do you love credit card reward points? What kind of credit cards do you use? Share your suggestion on what are the best credit cards in India.

It’s been 300 days in a row since I am waking up at 4:45 am. I am grateful to be the part of Early Bird Club, where we inspire and hold each other to be up early. It would not have been possible without this group because I always wanted to be up early, and this group gave me the motivation I needed.

When we started, I never thought or planned to wake up 300 days in a row. But now at this point, I am thinking, why not give a shot to 3000 days and see if 300 days can feel transformational, what 3000 days can do?

Likewise, last year, my highest streak for meditation was 12 days, and then I thought to take a challenge of 365 days. And now when I am almost at 500 days streak, I would like to continue it for 5000 days as I see it’s changing me from inside.

What kind of experience would it be, going into the sixties with 15 years of meditation experience and waking up at 4:45 am every single day? LOL

Heartily, I am grateful to the group at Early Bird Club and also Surat Bookworm Club for the transformational journey so far.

Think Big. Be Wise.

When an opportunity knocks we get fearful. Even if the opportunity is the one that we had been waiting for since long.

When opportunity knocks and you get fearful, connect with your guides and your support system. They will guide you out of the fear and will support you to grab the opportunity.

Keep your support system ready for opportunity can knock anytime.

Think Big. Be Wise

You are adding a new way of seeing a challenge and experiencing the outcome from a different angle when someone reaches out to you with their problem, and you give them the solution.

Solving other’s problems enhance your experience.The more you solve other’s challenges, higher your grip on the topic.

When someone reaches out to you, listen with empathy, because, one, you are helping a fellow human and two, the amount of experience you are adding for yourself.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Remember, when you were in school, you didn’t prepare for the exams for the whole year and the week or night before the exams, you started studying. You were desperate, worried, and feeling a lack of confidence. This generates negative energy and the next day your exam paper didn’t go well. This is what happens when we aren’t prepared. We attract, what we prepare for.

Now remember, when you studied hard throughout the year, and as exams were appraching, you were confident, excited and eager. This generates positive energy and most of the time you would do great in the exams.

The consistent effort generates confidence and confidence generates positivity, which attracts great results.

Work every day towards the results you want and you will attract it. Ignore it and you will attract the same.

Think Big. Be Wise.

We are responsible for whatever we are and whatever we aren’t.

When we blame others for any situation, we are reflecting our self-blame. When we say someone had done something to us, it is because we allowed or we aren’t ready to drop it now and take responsibility to create a better future from here onwards.

To stop blaming others, first, we have to stop living in the past. We bring history to the present and create our future. Instead, we should think of the future and take action in the present. And, this is possible only when we take responsibility for our own life.

No one else, but we are responsible for what we are and what we can be.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Going somewhere? Do you want to go faster or farther?

If you want to achieve a broader vision and higher missions, you need to enroll everyone in your game and take them along. It will slow you down but will take you farther.

But when your challenge is that you want to go faster and farther too. What can you do? The answer is, find like-minded people.

When you have like-minded people with the same vision and missions, neither the speed nor the distance is a problem. Then the only thing left for you to do is to keep enrolling and aligned them as and when they seem to get distracted.

Tag along with the people who want to go where you are going, and at the pace you are going, when you don’t want to compromise speed and distance.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Burn the bridge, challenge yourself to the new territory, give your best because until the bridge is there to go back, you will never give 100% in the new territory. 

But when needed, you should be able to rebuild that bridge you have burnt. Burn it if you have the capacity and resources to rebuild and if you can leave the ego behind and can bridge back. 

Burn the bridge, because you want to expand your own self in the new place, not because you don’t want to go back ever.

Think Big. Be Wise

The best answer always comes from within. Deep inside, we know what is that we want. It’s either we don’t know how to talk to ourselves, or sometimes when we see, we confuse ourselves by adding more equations.

What can be done in such case, when you are confused? 

Connect to the “next best.” This next best can be your friend, partner, coach, mentor, or peer. Whoever you chose, make sure the person isn’t trying to influence you but support you in discovering the answer from within you. Chose the person wisely, the one who knows how to reflect your inner answer and help you reach the solution, you know.

Sometimes all we want is a confirmation from the next best. Until you discover the solution you already know, you will not feel ease with the answer. You might have to peel a lot of layers, but settle only when you feel at ease with the solution because that is the answer for you.

Simple, right? Maybe not easy, but with the practice, knowing the best answers by yourselves is achievable.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Putting to the practice what you learn is very important, otherwise the learnings are just waste of the time. Without practice you can’t enhance your experience.

Everyday we come across the situations where we realize that we learned something from that situation. And to actually benefit from the learnings, it has to be put to the practice.

Life is a university in its own self, it teaches you everyday, and these learnings when practiced enhance your experience. Just like seeing food doesn’t satisfy your hunger, learning without implementing it doesn’t enhance your knowledge. 

Learn with the aim of putting it to the practice and gain the experience. 

Think Big. Be Wise.

Peace and progress goes hands in hands. Unless you aren’t at peace with the self, you won’t progress emotionally, financially, and spiritually. And the only way to be at peace with the self, which I have learned is to practice the peace.

My experience lately is that the people who are at peace with themselves achieve more because they aren’t doing anything for anyone, not for war, nor peace. They are at peace with the self, and that supports their energy to flow in the right direction, which in turn makes them achievers.

Our war and our peace are always with us. When we are at peace with the self, we are at peace with the world. Which, in turn, keeps our mind focused, and we progress better. Be at peace with the self, and it will lead to progress.

Thing Big. Be Wise.

Time is everything. Time is precious than money.

If you can buy time by spending money, do it. Save as much time as possible because your free time is your biggest asset.

Once you create an asset, what do you do with it? Sensibly you would invest it where it would give the maximum return.

Likewise, if you have created a time asset, where would you invest it? Learning new things, building up a business empire, bringing a change, making a difference, doing volunteering, Or would you waste your asset watching television, spending time gossiping on friends, family, and politics?

When you know what difference it makes on how you invest your asset, you will invest where you get maximum return.

Use your largest asset wisely because time is everything.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Adapt like Tardigrades did or get extinct like Dinosaurs got.

Learning from history, the animals who couldn’t adapt to the change in the earth’s atmosphere are no more. Those who adapted are still thriving.

Looking back to the recent history, until the 1990s, we knew only one type of stores, brick and mortar. Today most of them are at the brink of extinction because they didn’t adapt. Those who adapted to the new era are thriving. The Internet has changed everything.

Likewise, the world pre-COVID and post-COVID are already different, and while few things will return to what it was, the change has already happened. To accept this new post-COVID world, to observe it and to see what you can gain out of it is the wisest thing you can do. The most natural change that you can bring is into yourself.

We live in an ever changing world, those who don’t adapt, perils. If you think world would be what it was, this is your wake up call.

Adapt or get extinct because change is the only constant. Don’t resist the change. Instead, embrace it and make the most out of it by being at the forefront of the change.

Think Big. Be Wise.

The best lesson, I have learned from Hindu mythology is how to function effectively as a team.

The world is created, managed, and destroyed by three different Gods in Hindu mythology. These Gods never interfere in each other’s work, unless help is asked for. 

It’s not that they don’t make mistakes but they own their mistakes and they fix the situation themselves or with the help of their counterparts.

This is great learning for anyone, on how a team should function. Every member of the team should know their job, what is expected of them, and then given the freedom to perform.

When anyone asks for help, others should jump in. When someone makes a mistake, they should own it and fix it alone or with the help of their peers.

A team performs effectively when everyone’s roles and goals are clear, when the team member knows what is expected of them, has freedom, allowed to make mistakes, and supported to overcome the challenges.

Same theory can be applied to the family. When everyone’s role is clear, they know how to function effectively as a team.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Your materialistic victory is your Vijaya, and your spiritual enlightenment is your Jay.

In the earlier years of our life, we tend to be more materialistic, and gradually we lean on spirituality.

Likewise, in the earlier years of business, the focus always is money, and then gradually, it gets into the need for Corporate Social Responsibility.

There is a time to do everything. When it’s time to gain Vijay, focus on it, and when the time has ripped for Jay, let it be Jay.

Think Big. Be Wise.

It’s always the dilemma, to firefight or not? Should you focus on finishing on hand task first or dive into solving a challenge?

First, check if it is a real challenge, or is it a made-up challenge? Are you really needed to solve it? What if you do not solve it right away? Can it wait until you finish your on-hand tasks? If the answers to all these questions tell you that it can wait, then certainly no need to get into the superhero mode and run around to solve these challenges.

And if these challenges are the one that only you can solve (and you feel it every time so be smart), can create bigger challenges for you if not taken care of immediately, can’t be waited until your on-hand task is finished, then go ahead and dive into it.

Don’t think firefighting is a waste of time, but don’t make it your habit either. For each task, think if to firefight or not?

Think Big. Be Wise.

Have the goals, and write them down.

Make a strategy on how you will achieve your goals. Work on your plan every day, keep records of the day to day progress, and map it with the objectives.

When needed, please make the necessary adjustment towards achieving the goals, without adjusting them.

Working this way, you will know what’s happening, and over the period, applying tactics to your strategy, you will learn how to achieve goals.

Have goals, plan strategy, experiment tactics, adjust, achieve your goals, practice, and repeat.

Think Big. Be Wise

What could be the answer to the question, does introvert speak less?

Have you ever seen two introverts talking to each other? They are unstoppable, once they find the similarity of their being.

When two introvert talks they turn into extrovert for time-being. What does that mean? What makes that happen? That’s because, when an introvert meets another introvert, they know they are meeting someone similar. When we meet someone similar, we are more open and receptive. The fear of the unknown when meeting someone who is not similar to us stops us from opening up.

If you are an introvert, you know what I am talking about. And if you are an extrovert, who want to make an introvert talk, find a similar topic, and build the conversation on it.

Simple, isn’t it?

Think Big. Be Wise.

How to avoid communication gaps so that your plans don’t get disrupted?

Communication gaps arise when the message delivered and understanding of the delivered message isn’t clear, and not being followed up.

In today’s situation, it has become more important that everyone is on the same page. Make sure what you say has a clear message so that team doesn’t get confused.

As a next step, ask the team to share what they understood and finally drop an email so that no doubt is left.

Never end a meeting without the follow-up email.

Communicate well to avoid communication gaps.

Think Big. Be Wise.

How to pick a book to read? What to read is an open question and there is no one answer to it but you can pick the book on the topic that you are interested in.

If you want to become a doctor or engineer you study science. And if you want to become a banker or CA you study commerce. Likewise, you can pick the book based on what you want to learn.

The second question is, what I will learn from the book? Books are like teachers. The students attend the same class, listen to the same words, and get the same education from the same teachers. Still, they end up taking different professions. Likewise, when we read books, we all get different learnings because just like the teacher, what books teach is one thing but what you learn from the book, you become.

Think Big. Be Wise.

It’s rightly said, we become what we think. And we think, what we surround ourselves with.

Let’s surround ourselves with the people and the books that inspires us, makes us think, teaches us good things, increases our knowledge and we eventually will become that, what we have surrounded ourselves with.

If we become what we think, let’s think what we want to become.

Think Big. Be Wise.

We rush to buy things that are on amazing deals.

What we don’t think is, if the deal is amazing for real or it’s just in our heads?

Most of the times, we aren’t even interested in what is being sold, we just want to buy it because it’s an amazing deal and we are sold to it in our head.

Instead, what if you start being rational and justify your actions? Is it for me? Do I need it? Why do I need it? Will I use it ever? Is it worth it? Will it make any difference to my life?

When the deals stop becoming amazing in your head, you will stop buying them in the real too.

Rationalize your actions.

Think Big. Be Wise.

More you face adversities, more resilience you can develop.

Resilience is about having self-awareness, ability to think independently, self-motivated, and ability to see self from the bird’s eyes view.

How do you face tougher times? Do you succumb or do you build resiliency? Either, you can crib on the situation or you can build the inner strength in the time of adversity, the choice is yours.

How to build resilience? Just accept the situation and practice, then practice more and then practice even more.

Build resilience to overcome the toughest challenges and you will bounce back from any situation.

Think Big. Be Wise.

What is preferable? Keeping the windows open for opportunities or to open the window when you see the opportunity?

Chances are when you open the window when you see the opportunity, you are already too late for it. Keep the windows open for you to see the opportunity earlier and grab it before it’s too late already.

At the same time, know when the opportunity is good, just grabbing it early isn’t enough.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Bridges are built to overcome the physical distance, likewise when we want to connect with someone mentally, we build the bridge of empathy.

Once this bridge of empathy is built, it’s easy to cross the gap and get into others world, understand their perspective and point of view. And when the bridge is built, they too will come and visit your world, will understand your perspective and your point of view.

Build whenever you interact with fellow humans. Empathy can do wonders in filling the mental gaps.

Think Big. Be Wise.

What is the better way? To be conservative or to be aggressive?

Well first of all know what you are. No matter what everyone else is doing and saying. If you are a conservative being and if you are happy, being conservative is the way for you.

Likewise if you are aggressive, you are aggressive.

You will be satisfied, focused, and most importantly happy, only when you live to your true self.

To be conservative or aggressive never should be a question. Just be what you are.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Is listening to an active or passive process?

We all have this understanding that listening is passive. Think, why the good leaders listen patiently and how it helps them?

When someone is listening, their brain is firing more actively. They are listening, processing, understanding, analyzing, and preparing for the next step. While on the face of it, listening looks like a passive process, but in reality it’s a very active process. If you are a good listener, you understand how much effort goes into listening patiently.

When you are listening carefully, it doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to speak. It means, you are empathetic, tactical, active, and has the understanding to look into another point of view, and this gives you an advantage over those who are eager to speak without listening.

While listening, you get to understand the other person’s world and that gives you the power to deal around.

If listening is more active than passive process, check what kind of the listener are you?

Think Big. Be Wise.

Umbrella always reminds me of the focus.

When anyone talks about “focusing” on setting up one goal only, that focus should be like the umbrella and not on its parts.

If you focus on the parts, you can never build the umbrella. When you go out in the rain or in the sun, you carry the umbrella and its parts come along with it. Likewise, if you put a bigger goal, all the smaller goals would come along with it. 

When setting up a goal, never target what you want to achieve in the next year or two years or five years, focus on what you want to achieve in your lifetime. That’s your umbrella. Once you define your final goal, other parts would start shaping up on its own. 

Focusing on your true potential is important, otherwise, you will end up being mediocre.

Keep your focus on setting up your umbrella goal.

Think Big. Be Wise.

When we do something that we are passionate about and enjoy doing it, we bring excellent results. At the same time, it happens that we lose interest in doing it after a while. What to do at the point when you lose the interest from your passion?

There are two options, either you refocus yourself and see if your passion is still in it. Or if you are clear that you aren’t passionate about it anymore, search where your new passion is. While consistency is important, equally important is to be true to yourself and your destiny.

If you have lost your interest in your passion and doing something because you were passionate about it in the past, don’t do it. Take a break, find your new passion, and follow it.

In the short run, this might sound difficult, but that’s the way to go in the long run.

Think Big. Be Wise.

What happens when even a visionary leader executes his vision without enrolling his team? Why he should enroll his team in his visions.

If the leader executes the idea without enrolling his team, the results would be minimum. While the successful visionaries enroll their team making sure the team understands what is happening. It’s the leader’s job to buy in all the concerned team members to make sure his vision sees the bright daylight and becomes a success.

The team can take the leaders vision forward only when the leader clearly explains them and get them on board to execute.

If you are the leader, enroll your team in your vision and they will make sure, your vision becomes reality. Because once they are in it, they will own it.

Think Big. Be Wise.

How about not being competitive and creating your own path? How about keeping ahead of the curve by choosing where you want to go?

Have you ever seen being competitive is being fearful? Those who don’t want to think anything new because they fear the failure so choose to follow their competitors, who in turn are following their competitor? Why not break this chain and be courageous by being the leader?

Being different needs courage. It’s for those who want to bring the change and put all their efforts in that direction. They sometimes are slow but are definite. Those whom others want to follow.

Those who choose not being competitive, choose their own path, stay ahead of the curve, and become the leaders to others.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Okay, so this sudden lottery is the maturity you acquire at a certain age or because of a certain event in your life.

The sudden lottery of maturity is more like winning a lottery when the lottery winner doesn’t understand what to do with that money. The sudden spurt in the maturity level has the same effect. You don’t understand what to do with your maturity.

The best thing to do is to go quiet and introspect until you get used to it. And this is true for both types of lottery. Don’t try to show it off on others as it won’t take time to lose either.

Think Big. Be Wise.

How have you been spending your time in this once in a lifetime opportunity?

Have you been binge-watching the Netflix? Have you spend time thinking and worrying about the future, but took no action? Have you been eating and sleeping just to kill the time?

Or have you used this time of isolation to transform yourself? Did you learnt any new skills? Did you figure out your goals? Did you make new connections, read books, upgraded your knowledge?

How you have spent your time during this opportunity, will define how will come out of this situation and where you will go from here.

It’s not late yet if you haven’t started.

Think Big. Be Wise.

How to do meditation and how does practicing meditation helps?

First, how to practice meditation? You have to commit to meditation for the long term to see the difference. Sometimes, you will wonder after a meditation session if it was worth the efforts. The only way to practice meditation is to do it every day, same time, without fail and without expectations.

Enjoy the process, you will experience the outcome of your practice automatically over the period of time.

Does it help? Big time. As you progress in your meditation, you will start connecting to the self. You will know things about you which you had never knew. You would feel happier, focused, and clearer in your thoughts. Is it worth it? One hundred percent and unless you don’t practice it, you won’t know it.

Meditate. There is no right or wrong way to do it. Just practice it. It’s the lifestyle you need.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Strategies and tactics, what is the main difference?

Strategies are out there, known to all, shared with everyone. You will find a ton of books written on the subject. It’s not difficult to know the strategies. There are management gurus and business coaches who would tell you what strategical options you have in a given space, time, and situation.

The tactics are, when you dive into the strategy, implement, experiment, learn in and out it and master the strategy.

Strategies are learned from outside, while tactics comes from living the strategy.

While strategies can be copied, replicated, and used as they are visible, but tactics are yours. Once you learn the strategy, focus on the tactics.

Strategies and tactics, how good are you to zero down on a strategy and how strong are you in applying different tactics to know what would work?

Think Big. Be Wise.

I like filling up the survey forms, especially if the request is from someone whom I respect and the brands that I trust.

I am very enthusiastic about filling up these surveys until I reach the point where I feel there is no end to the next buttons.

Hey brands, don’t kill my enthusiasm, keep the survey forms short. How about five questions maximum or two minutes, whichever is less?

Remember? We now live in a world where our focus span is less than a GoldFish. While the GoldFish has five seconds of focus, website visitors only has three seconds of focus time before they decide if they want to stay on the website or move.

Take the clue, if you are a marketer, make sure when you reach out to the people, your focus has to be how people feel, and plan your activity around their feeling, not how you want it.

Again, I want to fill up your survey form, just don’t push it way too much.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Create effectiveness by checking if something that you have estimated would take a year is possible to achieve in one quarter. Then see if you can do it in a month, then a week, then in a weekend.

Many times, we over estimate the work and feel it needs more time. We stretch it and we go unfocused. Instead, if you get determined and give focused time we will be able to finish the job much sooner.

Of course it’s not possible every time, in every situation and for every task but many times it would be possible.

When you are planning the task, see if you can create effectiveness and finish it in much shorter time. You will create time too, and will be able to achieve more.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Fire fighting skills is unique. Not everyone possess it. If the people around reach out to you when they are facing challenges, you are their firefighter.

It’s a rare skill because people don’t reach out to just anyone asking to solve their challenges. And if you are the one to whom someone would come with the assurance that you will help figure it out, then congratulations you have a unique skill to help people.

Don’t hide your firefighting skills. Instead, when you will help others, your skills will sharpen. And just like the firefighters who risk their lives to extinguish the fire, with the skill as rare as this, you could be a hero to many, Again, just like firefighters, you aren’t doing it to become hero, but you do it because you can.

Don’t show off being a hero, be the real hero. Stand for others, solve their problems, and don’t do it to get something in return.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Fear is fuel when used productively. You don’t have to be fearless always. Fear to fail succeeds you.

Fear of the future makes us work harder. When we fear failure, we strive to succeed. Fear of death gives us courage. Fear of hearing no makes us do things that would convert no to a yes. Fear of losing makes us give your best.

Fear, when you have it in the right context, can work as the fuel to your survival and growth.

Think everything in its context. Nor fear nor courage is right or wrong. It’s how you approach them is what matters.

Use your fear to achieve your goals.

Think Big. Be Wise.

We all create delusion thinking that nothing will happen to us. And until that something actually happens to us, we laugh it off.

Staying safe and taking precautions is good not just for you but for the people around you too. Don’t play around with other’s health and life, be responsible and accept accountability.

Stay safe, that’s being brave. There is a thin line between being courageous and acting foolish.

Pick what you want to be.

Think Big. Be Wise.

When others are thinking if an given opportunity is to be pursued or not, the true leader grabs the opportunity.

The leader probably doesn’t knows how he will do the task. All that he knows is that when opportunity knocks, you have to grab it with both the hands.

Opportunities are everywhere for those who are seeking it.

Do you overthink or do you grab the opportunity?

Think Big. Be Wise.

It’s so much of noise outside. People are opinionated and somehow it’s an accepted social norm.

Don’t take feedback from the people who haven’t done it themselves. Everyone has opinion to give based on their own experience and perception. It might not necessarily fit your circumstances.

Even those who have done it, might have done it in the different circumstances. Listen, learn and evaluate their advice but the most important voice you hear is coming from right inside you.

No one knows you better then your own self. Learn listening to your voice more than outside noise.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Why is it important to accept the reality and avoid delusion?

What worked in the past, will not necessarily work forever. Time changes, and so does the situation.

If you were making ten cold calls to generate two appointments and now if you are generating only one appointment for ten cold calls, instead of pushing yourself or the team to get the same ratio, check if the dynamics of the market have changed, needing you to put more efforts.

If you don’t respect the market and deny the fact, you will get frustrated and clueless, while generating the sub-par results.

Trying to generate results based on the past numbers can lead you to the delusion. See what’s working now and make strategy likewise.

Avoid delusion, focus on reality. 

Think Big. Be Wise.

When you give something, the receiver feels obliged to give back. This is smartly used by many people and living in social set up, we are obliged to give back when we receive something. At times we know that we are falling in the trap and still we can’t do anything because we are taught that taking and not giving back is not socially desirable.

Way out is, either politely and if needed strongly deny the favor so that you don’t have to return the favor. OR when you know that favor was done with the expectation to misuse the social norm of giving back, be brave enough, and simply don’t return the favor.

Sometimes, you have to be smart on how to deal even on the agreeable norms. Not being fooled is ethical. Ethical to your own being and to nature herself.

Think Big. Be Wise.

How to know what your calling is?

When doing something excites you, when your passion lasts not for hours, days, months and years but for the lifetime, when your quest is to learn and master everything not because you have to do it but because that makes you happy. When you feel this way, that’s your calling and that’s equally true for your human relations.

Where you feel home for years, know that’s your calling.

Catch it, hold it, embrace it. It’s your calling.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Your yearly goals are defined, how much efforts would be needed is reverse planned, work is going as per the plan, and you are monitoring the progress.

While checking the progress, you notice that your progress isn’t enough to achieve the defined goals. Now you have two options, either reduce the goals or increase the efforts. While it’s easy to reduce the goals, if you want to be an achiever, increase the efforts.

How to increase the efforts? Map your current efforts and results achieved so far and increase your efforts from here onwards that would support you in achieving your original goals.

Think Big. Be Wise.

How do you ensure to achieve goals?

I will be sharing my all-time favorite approach; I believe in it 100% and use it by all means. You probably have witnessed me sharing it right on this platform with you.

Step 1: Make goals

Step 2: Declare

Step 3: Commit

Step 4: Plan the first step

Step 5: Sub-divide in the actionable tasks

Step 5: Start taking action

Step 6: Repeat

It will push your boundaries and help keep you motivated as you gain momentum and traction to move forward.  The win will ensure you indeed stick to the plan and put efforts to achieve the goals.

This plan of action strategy will save you from the worst: inaction or dropping the idea altogether.

You probably have gone through the cycle of self-imposed self-doubts and over-analyzing. The little bugger creeps in with small self-doubt to hijacking the clarity and weakening your control over it—the subtle inflicting self-doubt eventually takes over the situation and commanding you to verify the feasibility of the task at hand.

You start by measuring the best, the worst, and then the all-in between scenarios, with a mindset of rejection vs. neutral. This then undeniably sets the wheels in motion to take over the control of the state and the next moment, without you knowing you will be either on to dropping the idea or selling yourself short on the goal.

Instead of adding ifs and buts, and over-analyzing, first commit to the plan, know in your heart, you can do it, and you will do it.  Be clear in your context when you discuss or even set to measure the edge cases. Get yourself set for the actionable first step.

It is crucial to commit yourself and have any action plan work for you, and in no time, you will be able to join the dots as you move forward.

What matters is the commitment and action. Everything else will follow.

Thing Big. Be Wise.

Generate wealth by investing your savings. More you save, more you can invest. More you invest, more earnings you will generate, and if you do this consistently over the period of time, and considering the magic of compounding, you can generate great wealth.

Saving money is interesting, because from there the journey of investment begins. Don’t just save, invest because that should be the purpose of savings.

Invest your savings in your business, in the stocks, in buying the cash generating real estate, for buying the books, and to take trainings among the other investment options.

Investing more is good for the economy in general. It’s good to indulge in luxury, until you are living way below what you can afford. Don’t buy expensive stuff, if you can’t afford and never buy expensive stuff just because you can afford.

One of my all time favorite quotes, “If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need.” by Warren Buffet. This quote says a lot because it’s from someone who has been one of the richest man in the world since 1990’s.

You can build empire when you invest more. Because investment creates wealth, and considering return on investment v/s inflation rate, simply savings your money can erode it’s purchasing power.

Bottom line is, earn more, live way below your means, save and then invest your money where you can generate more earnings, and eventually build massive net worth.

How do you put your money at work? Are you savings with the goal to generate wealth?

Think Big. Be Wise.

All the limits are imaginary. Unless you don’t push yourself and others to these self imaginary limits, they will not know that they can do better than the set limit.

And once you seem to have reached the limit, push it even further and you will see your limits extending.

You surely are allowed to live within the limits, but then you have to accept the success of those who has stretched their limits.

Get our of the imaginary limits if you want to live the life of your dreams.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Whenever we face any challenge, we have two options. Either we start worrying, overthink, do nothing, succumb to the challenge.

Or we get into action, see the challenge as an opportunity, take control of the situation, and rise to the occasion.

Whatever option you choose, it will eventually become our habit.

One habit will lead us to the cycle of lifetime anxiety, and the other, though, doesn’t guarantee success, will boost your self-confidence and confidence of others in you. Even if you don’t succeed, you will learn and in any case, it’s a better option than doing nothing and getting controlled by the situation.

Take charge of your life, get control, rise up to the challenge.

Think Big. Be Wise.

If your goals are higher, if you are really serious about being successful and if you want to be an achiever, than, average is not acceptable.

Possess outstanding knowledge, deliver great work, keep impossible targets, quest for excellence, network with high achievers, take actions that are unmatched.

We aren’t born just to be an average. Make it big.

Think Big. Be Wise.

If you want to be successful, surround yourself with the people who will answer, ‘consider it’s done‘ on any challenge you throw to them. And than they will do everything that it takes to get it done. They won’t stop until they finish the job. You don’t have to motivate such people, they are self motivated.

We all have such people around us, cultivate your vision to identify these gems and throw more responsibilities to them, make them your growth lieutenant and see things getting done in weeks that were in the pipeline since ages.

Every successful team needs go getters and more you have such people, more you would grow.

Think Big. Be Wise

If you are bombarding your audience with uninspiring posts and irrelevant updates, you are not doing marketing, you are just shouting and hoping someone will listen to you.

No one is interested in knowing from you what festival is today or waiting to read your post on yoga day unless that’s your business. That’s not marketing. That’s bugging your audience. That’s spamming. THAT’S SHOUTING.

Don’t fall in love with the likes, if those likes aren’t from the targeted audience. When you post something, your audience should be able to get value out of it, they should be able to feel relevant and they should be able to connect with you.

Build a niche, narrow your focus, have a tone, be responsible while posting. THAT’S MARKETING.

Think Big. Be Wise.

You have all the knowledge, you know everything what you need to do, you have a solid strategy and winning tactics, but until you don’t have courage to take the action, nothing of those matters.

Our in-actions are out of the fear, mostly the fear of failing or fear of loosing something or someone. The fear take over you so much that you get consumed by your fear and even before taking any action, you find excuse of not doing what you should be doing.

This leads to a constant cycle of building up the hopes and not delivering the results. You loose the faith in yourself and so does the people around you.

Take action, you might not win but you would certainly learn how to win the next time. Moreover people will believe in you, even if you don’t win.

Practice courage and you will fall in love of being courageous. It will elevate your life to the next level.

No one has become an achiever just by making plans, only those who take actions knows that nothing more matters.

Think Big. Be Wise

Most of us know how important it is to build a professional network or acquiring talent or growing the client list. While focusing on building, make sure you focus on retaining too.

It is easy to give up on the people and clients. Instead, if we focus on identifying the gaps, work towards filling them up and make relationships smoother, we will be able to retain the relations longer. Question is, why retain? Because longer the relations are it is easier to understand each other and more fruitful the journey become. 

Also, unless you don’t retain your existing network, building the new relations would be a waste. As with the leaking pipeline, if you will keep leaking the people from your network, all you would be left with would be much less compared to what you desire.

Don’t build new relations just because you are tired of the existing relations because the new relations will come with new challenges. Giving up is easy, retaining is smart.

At the same time, be wise, if the relationship is pulling you down, you should be wise enough to drop it.

Think Big. Be Wise.

When your thoughts are confused, it will show up in your speech, and the listener will be left confused about the message you want to deliver.

But when you have clarity in your thoughts, your speech would have the clarity as well. The speech with clarity generate the results and has the power to influence the people.

Built clarity in your thoughts, generate results and be the influencer for good.

Think Big. Be Wise.

As soon as you accept the situation, it starts getting solved. Until you don’t accept, your mind will never work towards finding the solution. As soon as you accept, things start changing for the better.

The point is, never deny the challenges to the self or to others, instead, embrace the challenges you are facing and the universe will start work to find the solution for it. You might call this phenomenon by some other name like subconscious or faith or science. Whatever you call it, you will experience that it works.

Challenges find solutions as soon as you accept it.

Think Big. Be Wise

When you are discussing working with someone, make sure the company or the person you are planning to work with understands the value you would be bringing to the work.

Unless it is clear what value you are bringing, people would have questions and doubts prevailing. Let them clear their doubts before you move ahead. If the doubts persist, its better to drop the deal.

Always have clarity before moving ahead to prevent confusion later on.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Have control on your desired outcome. The formula is simple. Missing any can lead to the outcome which is not at par with your expectations.

Plan: The first step always is the planning.

Execute: The second step, execute your plan.

Monitor: Set up a system to monitor execution of your plan.

Reporting: Set up the reporting as outcome to your monitoring structure.

Action: Take the actions based on the report. This will lead you back to the starting, the planning stage.

Commit yourself to the full cycle always to achieve better than average results. Planning to planning.

Remember, winning is in the action taken.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Listen to this post as a Podcast.

– Always be on time (preferably a few minutes before)

– Live below your means

– Respect everyone

– Laugh and make others laugh

– Listen more

– Gain REAL knowledge (not schooling type)

– Stay away from gossiping

– Stand for others

– Share

– Be simple

– Read

And what’s the best thing? You don’t even need talent for these things. Yet, these are the precious traits to have, to learn and to expand.

A leader needs three types of people around himself. These people guide him, work with him, and follow him on his goals.

– Mentor/Coach/Support System: Always have someone whom you can reach out to when in need. This person could be your mentor, coach, your friend or family member, depending on the matter. Always have your support system ready to have a discussion with when in doubt or when you need suggestions.

– Top Business Line: Pick the people who are sold to your goals, have aligned themselves to your visions, are willing to work on your ideas, who are seeing you as the leader, who supports your initiatives, and give their best to achieve what you have set to.

– Manpower: Hire people who believe in what you believe in. Never hire someone because they need the job. Always hire for their attitude. Check if their values are aligned to your organization’s value before you hire. A skill could be developed later on but if you have the right mindset of the people with you, it would help fuel your growth.

I see these three type of people as,
A. Someone who is walking ahead of you and guiding you when you need it.
B. Someone who is walking with you, where you are taking care of each other, motivate each other, and walking the same path.
C. Someone who is walking right behind you. Someone who is watching your steps, who is seeing you as their guide, and reaching out to you when they need the support.

Always have these three types of people around.

PS. My interpretation of the learning from my coach Chetan Patel. 

You took the mission. You are the leader. And as a leader, you know, only when you give freedom to others, give them responsibility and trust them, you will get the freedom to focus on the bigger goals.

More often than not, the leader either would keep himself fully occupied in the day to day tasks, keeping full control or will give freedom to everyone and will give up the control. Either way is okay depending on the personality type of the leader and how well the organisation structure is set.

Even after giving the control, the leader always should keep bird eyes view on the business and dive in as and when needed to motivate and guide the people.

This diving in should be done only when needed and should not be done because you are worried but should be done because you see there are gaps that need to be filled. Once your task of filling up the gaps is finished, set up the monitoring system, give the control back and get focused again on the larger goals.

A leader should always jump in, if it is in the betterment of the organisation.

I know it’s an overused word and mostly misinterpreted. When you take too much risk, leveraging our finances, your capacity, it’s definitely is a risk.

At the same time, when you leverage in a creative way, it is not just rewarding but also makes a lot of sense.

When I write a speech for the early bird group which I am part of, I also write a blog of the same, I also make a podcast of the same and I also add it to my company’s training modules as and where it fits.

Next, same topics would be used for the webinars and tutorials and finally I will convert it into the book.

Once the time invested in creating the speech, I make sure I leverage it. It’s zero risks and that’s the kind of leverage we should be focusing on. Not doing it something I won’t consider as a smart idea.

Think Big. Be Wise.

Do you want to be positive? Stay with the positive people and avoid those who aren’t positive.

Do you want to be focused? Stay with those who are focused.

Do you want to be an early bird? Then find the people who wake up early.

Do you want to be rich? Be in the company of the rich people.

Do you want to experience spiritually? Be with those who are spiritual.

Do you want to be financially free? Only those who has achieved financial freedom are the worth listening to.

Be with the type of people, you aspire to be.

It’s as simple as that, until we don’t complicate things, it’s simple.

Think Big. Be Wise.

This struggle between the internal and the external world is eternal. Since the ages, there is a constant struggle between what you want to do and what society expects from you. You give up and blame society because you don’t have the daring to care about your own dreams.

While it’s not easy and most give up to the pressure of family and society, those who don’t give up, live with a special feeling for themselves. They might not be the most successful in the so-called standards of society but they live a fulfilled life. They live with the satisfaction of listening to their heart.

Build your external world, the way your internal world demands and wishes and you will never live a life of confusion and disheartening.

Think Big. Be Wise.

I called one of the realtors I deal with, he said, the market is good, inquiries will flow in June as every year. Send me your requirements and let’s take it from there.

After a few minutes, I was talking to another realtor, he said, the market is bad, there are no inquiries, nothing is moving, let’s hold and do nothing now.

While caution is required, there is a difference between being optimist and pessimist.

Which one will you work with? My choice obviously is the first one. I would like to know your choice, leave it in the comment below.

Think Big. Think Wise

Achieve what you want to. It might not be easy, but it’s worth it.

A non-achiever will teach you not to think big. They will tell you why life is so difficult and why the achievers are all corrupt people. If you were taught that you don’t need to work hard to build an empire, it was because those who told you so never built the one.

An Achiever would never tell you it is easy, and will never tell you not to go for it. If you have dreams, go and chase them, achieve them, get in the habit of giving small sacrifices for achieving bigger dreams and when you achieve those dreams, you will know it was all worth it. Only an achiever teaches you WHY to achieve your dreams too.

Don’t give up being consistent, eating healthy, working out, seeing the dreams, chasing dreams, falling, failing, rising, running.

Think big. Think wise. 

Don’t wait because it’s not proven or because no one else has done it yet. Someone always starts something new and then others follow.

You might be following it successfully but the happiness that the creation brings is not there in the following. It’s okay being the follower, to be safe, but as a side hustle, create something. Be a creator with the context of delivering great value to the world.

If everyone would start creating something positive, imagine how much could be created.

It’s easy and fun to follow, it takes stress taking capacity, daring, skills and dreams to create.Create something.

When the media, the people, and the politicians were talking about how dangerous Covid-19 is and how it is going to disrupt our lives, we became negative about the whole situation. The governments around the world brought the lockdown and though it’s debatable whether the lockdown was effective, it certainly made people scared about what’s going on and what will happen now. 

As soon as the lockdown was lifted, and though the cases for Covid-19 are increasing, people are turning positive. Why? Because now the newspapers are having positive news about how the economy has started reviving, the politicians have started talking positive and the people have started going to work and businesses.

Above two scenarios, clearly shows, how your surrounding affects your attitude. This makes it very important on what kind of news you read and believe, what kind of politicians you listen to, and what kind of people you surround yourself with.

Do you want to stay positive? Go ahead and read the newspapers or watch television that shows positive side of life, listen to the politicians who aren’t cashing on the situation at your cost and surround yourself with the people who aren’t throwing their garbage to you.

When you don’t allow others to throw garbage in your house, why do you allow others to throw their mental garbage in your mind?

Be with the people who are positive. It’s your choice to be positive or not. Choose wisely.

Many times we hear and talk that I want to do this or that. Only if I know where to start from.

My friend, you have already started. By thinking that you want to do something, you have taken the first step. Now keep going, stop thinking and start taking actions and convert your actions into the Himalayan efforts and then see that whatever you wanted to achieve is possible.

Don’t get into the trap of work life balance if you have massive goals. No one achieve anything trying to balance life until they made it. First achieve what you want and then think of the balance.

That awesome life is awaiting you, the life of your dreams. All it’s asking is for you to put the Himalayan efforts.

Want to transform yourself? Your way of working? Your thought process? Here are two things you can do. One is external and another one, internal.

The people that make you feel good but suggest nothing to improve you are good but look beyond them. Get into the tribe, that, when needed makes you feel good, rest of the time, keep throwing you the challenges to be better on what you are doing, even better are those who also guide you on how you can be better and stand for support when needed.

Build self-control. In one easy step, control what you are eating. If you can control what you eat, you are on the way to have very stronger self-control.

Try these two tricks and set yourself to the transformation.

PS. Someday, we will talk on the other regulars; wake up early, read books, be polite, work-out regularly, acquire knowledge.

We all believe in one cause that we consider our purpose, for which we live. Like how some people say, eat to your heart, in any case, one day we all are going to die, then why not die doing what you enjoy?

Though your purpose can keep changing from time to time. What is the most important matter today, might change tomorrow. But what is your purpose today? What is that if today is your last day, you will want it to happen. Live for that purpose. Make it come true, today. Do whatever it takes to make it happen. If we live our life that way, every day, we will always live in the present working on our purpose.

By the way, do share, what is most important for you today? For me, to gather as much knowledge as I can and put it into action while laughing out to my heart.

When you write, talk, present ideas or are making a point, make sure that your topic and relevant examples are contemporary or futuristic.

Putting topic and examples that are contemporary or futuristic ensures your audience will be attentive to your talk. Present them with stale topics, and you won’t be able to generate any enthusiasm in your audience.

That is why the movies, dramas, blogs, stand up comedies and even politics speak about current or future affairs as they know that’s how you connect with the audience and get their attention.

The awesome feeling today: Seeing people in the streets, cars on the roads, doing shopping, going to offices, and people living freely again. A stark contrast to what the city was two weeks ago.

While, no one is sure if the lock down was meaningful and if the unlock is a good idea, one can definitely see mix of relief and some concern for the safety on everyone’s face.

The freedom that we are so used to and for which we were never grateful most of the time, has all together a new meaning. Now, we all are more grateful for our freedom and understand how lucky we are to be living on our own terms, most of the time.

Welcome to the new grateful freedom. Let’s make sure, along with enjoying this freedom, we also do it responsibly.

Once you pick what you want to do, figure out where you have to start from. Then focus on practicing, if needed by doing it for free. Make sure your audience gets some value and in the return, you will get to do some practice. Sharpen your skills while practicing.

While you are giving it for free, on the other hand, you are converting yourself from an amateur to a professional performer. An amateur might get success occasionally but the science and the art of consistent performance are forte of a professional. And with consistent performance, comes extraordinary success.

Keep working towards building yourself up for that extraordinary success in your life.

We take decisions from our emotions and then rationalise them with the logic.

This is true about everything humans do. We get hang on to our ideas, business, relations, cause we support, politicians we vote, clothes we wear, things we buy, and everywhere else.

Smarter are those, who know that they don’t have to rationalise their decisions, instead to accept that it wasn’t the brightest thing to do. Instead of rationalising, move ahead if you want to be a winner in the life.

It’s just our fear that makes us believe, the things are permanent. While in the fact, nothing is permanent. And while we all know this, very few actually accept the impermanence. Those who does excel in the life because they get rid of the fear and live the life of their dream.

Are you living your dreams or stuck in the loop called permanent? Break the barriers and achieve inhuman grandeur. Make sure you live the life of no regret.

Lately, I am reading and thinking a lot about duality and have settled with the notion that everything is in the form of duality. And how acceptance of duality can bring peace.

If I love to sleep on the weekend and you love to go outdoors, both are fine. Neither could be termed as right or wrong.

Likewise, if I prefer to be up at 4:30 am and sleep by 10:00 pm, and you prefer to be up at 9:00 am and sleep at 2:00 am, both are fine.

I can be materialistic and you can be non-materialistic.

I prefer to withdraw to myself and prefer self-time, and you can be an outgoing person who loves to hang out with friends and family.

I could be aesthetic and you could be unaesthetic. And we can live together peacefully with our own notion.

Even nature has duality, we have day and night, sun and moon, winter and summer, spring and autumn, breathe in and breathe out.

This is the duality for me. When we focus on what we believe in and stop converting others to accept our idea. When we accept that two types of people, two different ideas, two believes can co-exist, that the duality is real, we will be at ease with everyone and everything.

I have started seeing situations in terms of how awesome at least one thing happened to me in that situation.

In the current situation, the best thing that happened to me is, that I have started talking to myself a lot. This leads me to understand myself more than ever and understanding myself leads me to accept myself even more for what I am. And accepting myself, made me stop judging myself.

And what I realized is that the above sequence has an impact on me for others too. I am more understanding of other’s situation and has more acceptance towards the people for what they are.

After all, we all are different, and respecting each other’s individuality is what makes it easier for everyone.

We don’t listen to what is said, we hear what we imagine it to be.

Many times it has happened, when someone is saying something to me, I pick it the way I want. This is based on my imagination and fear. Because of the fear of rejection and of imagination that I might be criticised, my mind imagine it’s own version, instead of what has been told.

This equally is true the other way too, sometimes if someone criticises, my mind takes positivity of it because I imagine it that way.

What does that mean? Is it all in the head? We hear only what we want to hear based on our past experiences, fear and imagination.

As the events started favoring someone in the business and people start talking how the person got lucky all of a sudden, my first thought always is, that he has been doing it for years, and what is being tagged as “luck”, is his hard work, his patience. And now after all these years, the “luck” finally looked at him.

You have to respect this “luck” that comes from the consistency and determination of a business person for doing it for years, before making it big.

Someone’s success always looks like luck, while our own success always is the result of the hard work. Be consistent in your own work, be creative, be determined, and luck will one day show up at your doors, too.

Everyone is ill-tempered, they cut your talk in between, they ask you to leave the meeting if you appear to be busy, they make it sure that you realize your mistake (even if it’s not), they keep praising others’ work but not yours.

When you see that everyone is doing this, remember you might be doing the same to others too. We only realize when it happens with us, and not when we do with others.

While I am the type of person who stick around no matter what, i also have learnt for what cause to stick around.

Only some things are worth your time and energy for extended period of time, don’t make that a rule for the things that are not your goals or if it doesn’t fit your new goal. That doesn’t mean the thing or the matter isn’t important, it might be important for someone and may not be for you.

While you have to be still like a mountain, you also have to flow like a river. Choose as the situation demands. Be wise.

Life already is a blessing if you are alive, if you are walking, if you are talking, if you have access to the clean water, if you have food to eat if you have a bed to sleep.

Everything else is a desire, not the need. Count your blessings, you have a lot to be happy about.

How to outgrow your fear?

Stop thinking, start acting. Actions kills the fear.

Do what really scares you. Once you have done it, it won’t be scary anymore.

Do what your instinct says not to do. Because many a times, it’s just out of the fear.

Stand-up for yourself even if the opponent is way mightier.

Break the barriers, that fears you.

Get uncomfortable with your situation and feel fearful.

Don’t give up, unless it is about the life and death.

Love yourself, that would kill your fear.

Have those around you, who encourage you to be fearless.

Share what do you do to outgrow your fear?

As the CEO of August Infotech I have learned many things over a decade and a half and most important is the sales.  

I always compare sales to sports, sales meetings to sports matches, and salesman to the sportsman.

A sportsman has a simple formula for success in a match. What is this formula and how can a salesman use this formula for a successful sales meeting?

This simple formula is “preparation” and “practice“.

A sportsman does a lot of preparation before the actual game, starting from learning about the weather, competitors, ground situation, to mapping their own strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, a salesman should always prepare before the meetings, starting with learning about the prospect’s situation, their pain, the prospect’s likes and dislikes, to the competition the salesman is facing.

Likewise, before any game, sportsman practices hard in the nets. Similarly, a salesman should always practice before the meetings, from how to introduce himself, to how to greet others, what kind of questions could be asked and what answers he would give, to how to conclude the meeting, and what would be the next steps.

Just like in the sports, in the sales too, more you prepare and practice, luckier you get.

The matters that open up the gaps should be dealt with immediately. Avoiding would just open up the gap wider. More you delay, further, it widens and more it widens, outsiders start seeing these gaps, and then everyone will jump in with their own agenda.

This is true for all the big matters we see around, in personal life, in the business, in the society, and in the world. We should learn from the past and should fill the gaps as we see them.

Life is never about the big challenges, it’s all about the smaller ones, that we avoid and make them so big that it becomes impossible to deal with them.

Be aware and be wise.

There is a huge difference between doing self assessment and asking others for the feedback. While it’s important to have others feedback time to time, it is even more important to have self assessment of the given feedback too, as everyone gives feedback based on their experience plus from their point of view. It is wise to act only after doing proper self assessment.

Even better? Your heart knows everything, talk to it and you will know what is needed to be done.

Give your time and money only to the charity you are one hundred percent committed to.

Doing emotional charity doesn’t work as you aren’t committed to the cause and unlike thé businesses there is no refund policy.

I have felt this a couple of times, what about you?