Showing posts with label success. Show all posts
Showing posts with label success. Show all posts

BE LIKE WATER

 Be like water.

There's no stopping it.

No matter how tiny the

trickle, it's going to get somewhere!

                                          -  Ruskin Bond

 The central character of our life is moving.  Sometimes we stagnate with disgust, frustration and altercation  which is the root cause of  burnout feeling.  The whole wisdom lies in internalizing the knowledge and wisdom gained in day to day life and sometimes from the experience of others.  When you recognize a problem, reduce it into writing so that your mind is compelled to work on it.

Writing has  therapeutic benefits. That's why  psychologists advise you to maintain a journal.   Write something daily so that the expression is refined and thoughts are solidified for execution.

 The Great Greek Philosopher Heraclitus  says that “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” Whether you believe it or not, life is a continuous flow. Trillions of cells in your body change the chemical composition of your body every nano-second.

When Nature, doesn't allow you to stagnate, why you think so !

HOW TO BE A STRONGEST MAN ?

The strongest man in 
the world is the man who
stands alone

                         - Thomas H. Huxley

Muscle power alone can't denote potency.  Right proportion of mind power with it takes you to the winning path.

 Being strong and sturdy means having self-conviction, perseverance, inexhaustible desire to overcome all the obstacles.

The real test is when you get a series of failures but still keeps your head high with one more attempt.  In this process, some times, you are forced to be alone and  failures cloud your  enthusiasm.  Then turn your mind, remind yourself with these  immortal words of Late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam :

F.A.I.L means : First Attempt In Learning
E.N.D. means  : Effort Never Dies
N.O means      :  Next Opportunity.

The world would always respect those who are real-life heroes instead of reel-life heroes. Mahatma Gandhi personifies this   quality.  This fragile and wiry man shook the British Empire with his one point agenda of  ousting British Raj from India through non-violent path.


So be the strongest, physically, mentally, morally and ethically !

FAILURE IS SPRING BOARD TO SUCCESS


Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” ― Abraham Lincoln

Success is a journey and not a destination. In fact, there is no straight jacket formula for success. Though somebody may inspire you, but to succeed you must tread your own path.

Abraham Lincoln is a bundle of failures before he ascended the presidency of the United States :

- Lost job, 1832
- Defeated for legislature, 1832
- Failed in business, 1833
- Sweetheart (Ann Rutledge) died, 1835
- Had nervous breakdown, 1836
- Defeated for Speaker, 1838
- Defeated for nomination for Congress, 1843
- Lost re-nomination, 1848
- Rejected for Land Officer, 1849
- Defeated for Senate, 1854
- Defeated for nomination for Vice-President, 1856
- Again defeated for Senate, 1858
- Elected President, 1860


To embrace success, there is no requirement of formal education or you need not born with a silver spoon in mouth. What you need is a burning zeal to excel in your area of interest. In fact those who learn from their experience are on a much better footing.

Tony Robbins, America's most admired Personality Development guru says that "Success is truly the result of good judgment; good judgement is the result of experience; and experience is often the result of bad judgement. "

Most people wrongly connote success with wealth or material possessions. But in the course of journey, money could be one of the byproducts, but not the end product. Andrew Carnegie, the 19th Century American Steel magnate says that "The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else which he is entitled. " He further adds that " The average person puts only 25% of his energy and ability into his work. The world will take off its hat to those who put in more than 50 % of their capacity and the world will stand on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%.

In fact, success can be attained in any branch of labour. Andrew Carnegie started his life as a factory worker but rose to the pinnacle of success. He says that "your thoughts are your capital".

Success means aim for the highest. Late Steve Jobs, the iconic Apple Inc. CEO is a college dropout, but reached to the top of the ladder of success by creating the world's most valued company.

Jobs whose iPhone and iPad created flutters says that "Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. "

Napoleon Hill who wrote "The Law of Success” in 1928 revolutionized the concepts of creating wealth, self-improvement and achieving goals. He spent 20 years by interviewing over 100 most successful people in America and found the following 15 characteristic traits for Success:-

1. Golden Rule : Do unto others as you would have done unto you.
2. Tolerance.
3. Profiting by failure.
4. Cooperation
5. Concentration
6. Accurate thinking
7. Pleasing personality
8. Habit of doing more than Paid For
9. Self Control
10. Enthusiasm
11. Imagination
12. Initiative & Leadership
13. Habit of saving
14. Self Confidence
15. Definite Chief Aim

So the subtle lesson is: Material goals are not the end of the road, beyond which there is something richer which Abraham Maslow termed as "Self Actualization". So everybody must strive to reach to that arena and be closer to Reality.

DO MORE THAN WHAT YOU ARE BEING PAID FOR

 

The whole paradigm of HRD revolves around one concept : How to improve the productivity of an employee ?

The company delegates this responsibility to Human Resources Department (HRD) whose job is to strive to improve the work atmosphere and mindset of employees through a host of measures to increase their productivity. Before anything worthwhile is injected into their veins, the first thing they have to do is, change their value system.

Employees have to be motivated in such a way that their performance matters not only to their professional lives but bring a perceptible change in their personal lives as well. They have to be convinced that beyond money, there are some invaluable things which the money can't buy. So it is a soul-stirring exercise for which a firm ground work needs to be laid.

Normally the employee thinks that he or she should work to the extent of being paid for. Whenever, anything requires beyond his/ her normal competence and effort, he/ she simply throws the ball in the court of their seniors. Due to this, the poor soul lags behind in terms of promotions and other incentives/ avenues.

Here comes the world of difference. He is wise who plunges into action before anybody pushes him. The person who is in cocoon never realizes the credence of this lesson.

America's acclaimed author Napoleon Hill in his famous book " How to sell your way through life" says that one should have the habit of doing more than one is paid for his job. In a chapter exclusively devoted for this concept, Hill dwelt at length on how Henry Ford though is a poor and less educated, but by following this unorthodox principle, became a giant automobile maker of America.

So you can ignore this advice at your own peril.

CHANGE THE JOB TO SATISFY THE INNER 'YOU'


It is a virtual hell to continue in a job when your heart is craving for some other dream profession.

Doing a job is of course for those needy bucks. But, settling with less than what you ought to be should not be accepted as a fate.

Most people think that they should have high IQ (Intelligence Quotient) to score high in life. But, what is needed more than IQ is, RQ i.e. Risk Quotient. It is the ability to endure the risk and explore the uncharted territories. You can otherwise call it the amount of guts required to take a bold decision to tread a path for success.

But in the most of Indians, this RQ is abysmally low, because they are the poor souls to satisfy with what they have in their hand, than a desire to climb up in life. In this respect, our Western counterparts are on a much better footing.

A study reveals that any American adults changes his or her job on an average 7 times in their life time. By doing so, they make a wise choice and settle with the best they deserve.

There are countless people who leave their glittering careers only to settle in their dream professions. Chetan Bhagat, India’s legend novelist left his plum job as an investment banker to transmute his passion into a writing career.

So the home point is, drive your passion into a viable venture and monetize your abilities and the first pre-requisite is to increase the risk appetite or R.Q !

DREAMER TO ACHIEVER

Rural India is not dearth of talent. A strong drive to achieve puts you on higher pedestal and treads a path to success. It is immaterial where you are born with a social and economic condition you have inherited. What matters is the quantum of fire in your belly.

Some people perish in the course of their struggle and only few will rise to dictate their destiny.

Dodde Anjaneyulu belongs to the second lot. This pride of Andhra achieved his father's dream of becoming IAS in  2010 Civil Service Examination (CSE)  and got 278th rank. His father who was a watchman in a sleepy village: Jammikunta in backward Telangana region  inspired his son to become Collector and the son took his father's dream to heart, despite abject poverty.

Anjaneyulu through arduous efforts shined in academics and thereafter completed his engineering graduation in 2005. He settled as a software professional for 2 years to accumulate the needy bucks  for the Civil Services Exam preparation. Though the sudden death of his father in 2007 somewhat crippled him, but it solidified his resolve to embark his goal.

Getting selected to IAS is no mean achievement. Every year, around 4 lac aspirants compete the CSE out of which only ten thousand aspirants clear their preliminaries and very creamy few i.e. 1000 finally gets selected for IAS, IFS, IPS and other allied Group A & B Services. So it is all merit and hard work that matters. Anjaneyulu through this covetous achievement, once again proved to the world that a fire in the belly do wonders.

After reading his story in a local Telugu paper Saakshi dated 19 Nov 2011,  I was totally moved. The way his mother broke down after seeing her son’s achievement would strike a chord with any reader. It is palpable to understand the emotions of a mother who wept out of ecstasy, but felt sorry because her husband was no more to see their son's grand achievement. It is a soul-stirring story I ever read in my life.

After reading about Anjaneyulu, I could not resist without congratulating him. But how? That question haunted me for a while. Had it been 20 years earlier, I might have crushed my desire. But the Information Age prompted me to find ways. So I jumped into action and searched for his email ID in the Google. Being an internet buff, it was not a difficult task and I managed to get his Facebook link through which I got his e-mail ID. Immediately, I sent an email congratulating him for his achievement. It was so exhilarating that he not only acknowledged my mail quickly but spoke to me over phone with a full of gratitude and humility.

I read somewhere that the great tragedy of life is not death, but what we let die inside of us (talent) while we still  live. Anjaneyulu deeply engraved his father's dream to become IAS by which he not only proved a darling child to his parents, but a shining star to the millions of aspirants.  

ARE U A GOSSIP MILL?


No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
                                    
                            - Bertrand Russell

A large chunk of leisure time is spent unproductively by majority of us in gossip. If two people meet, they talk less of themselves and more of the world.

If you involve more in gossip, you will be in utter  chaos. Indulging in such unproductive and futile talk not only seep your energies but also negativity corrodes your system. Instead, you could use those energies for self-reflection so that you can tread a path of
success.

Socrates gives a Triple Filter Test to overcome this problem:

One day an acquaintance met Socrates and said, “Do you know what I just heard about your friend?"

Hold a minute, Socrates replied. “Before telling me anything, I’d like you to pass a little test. It is called the Triple Filter Test.

Triple filter?

That is right, “Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be good idea to take a moment and filter what you are going to say. That’s why I call it the triple filter test. "

The first filter is TRUTH. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?

"No," the man said, “actually I just heard about it and ...."

All right, “said Socrates.” So you don't really know if it is true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of GOODNESS. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?

"No, on the contrary...”

"So, Socrates continued,” you want to tell me something bad about him, but you are not certain it's true. You may still pass the test though, because there’s one filter left: the filter of USEFULNESS.

Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me? "

"No, not really. "

"Well, concluded Socrates, “if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?

If everybody prevails on the wisdom of Socrates, we could channelize such unproductive energies for more
creative pursuits.

YOU ARE UNIQUE AND SPECIAL

 


                   Winston Churchill Biography
            Prime Minister, Journalist (1874–1965)


'We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow-worm.'

                                                   - Winston Churchill

Since my college days (1989/90) onwards, I am in the habit of taking note of great people's quotes which inspire me. My selection of quotes is such that they not only ignite me when I read them with the strength of thousand elephants and also to whoever read them.

The above quote of Former British Prime Minister is one of my all time favorite quotes. It reflects his personality and confidence on himself. History witnessed that he rallied his people during World War II and led his country from the brink of defeat to victory.

Like Churchill, everyone must have faith in himself/herself which becomes the bedrock of success in any activity they undertake. So work on your goals and show to the world what you could achieve!