Integrity, A Passion for Life

Ever thought of doing something really good and not waiting to get reward of it?
This is something we are going to explore in today's chapter. The Integrity.

Doing right and Doing something that is not just helping me/myself but that helps others,
that is a responsibility of a great soul. let me try to put few things forward where we can apply the great formula.

At Work ( my obvious start :-) )
Most of us know the demand of our profession, Something that we can improve but we are not approaching that.
Most of us are waiting till the next reminder comes on table. aren't we?

Sometimes we know how to make things better but we wait till we are asked to do?
let me ask you a difficult question now... Why are we waiting to be asked?

The law of integrity works in reverse direction than the above mentioned human fundamental behavior.

Do it right and do it now if it helps you, or it helps others or it helps organization.
But here comes the twist of story..... Do not do it if it was just an act of getting noticed.

An integral step towards good being is always gets noticed without saying but we got to have  patience.

Example 1 : Every organization has some process related scope of improvement.
Certain things do not require a high level permission to change things little bit and make it efficient. A responsible professional can solve it and when the time comes, he/she can take the credit.

Example 2: Stopping others to do something wrong could save the organization from major/minor loss. When there is a right time, nothing wrong to pin point that how an individual helped the company.

A Home ( I love this area :-) )
We all do what is expected from us at Home, Sometimes we don't do what is expected :-(
Do we do something that is not expected but could be a great thing for Home and Family?
Do we take initiatives to make the house hold processes little better?
If we do it, we try to look around and see if someone noticed it or not?

Most of us are very serious about what all is related to Home,
But Integrity rule is  "Do the best, Do it better than before without letting Family know that you did this, You started this first and others followed. "

Example 1 : Taking an insurance for home, takes a bit of money but could be a savior in case of disaster. ( sorry i am not selling an insurance here :-) i thought this is a good example. ) Do we wait till the senior member ask us to do or do we do it without even letting other's know it.

Example 2 : Contribution for family or household expense/investment. We can encourage others by putting major contribution from our end and let others follow. because we are integral part of family. ( this doesn't apply to a family of 2 or around but if you are younger one, you can inspire the elder with your integral actions)

At Society and Nation ( You cannot ignore this )
We forget many times that we are integral part of our society and our nation.
The routine hinders our responsible citizen living within us.
But that doesn't mean that we are allowed to go away from our responsibilities towards nation and our society.
Do we see something going wrong in society and still we ignore it, just to avoid difficulties for ourselves?
Do we see there is a scope of improvement in something routine in society and still we don't try and we think... what the hell going to change if i change today?

The law of integrity says "Change if you think it can help society, A good society build good people like you and me", we can create a platform for others by taking initiatives in society.

Example 1 : I ask people to wait in a queue if there is a heavy rush for certain things. That helps all to get things on time and with peace of mind

Example 2 : Planting trees and encouraging others to do it would be a great way of showing your integrity towards society and nation.

It's not difficult to build an Integrity but we just have to have passion for this.

value creation does pay off

Value creation applies to all level of working professionals from a small business to big business or even an employee or consultant. Value creation has been discussed so far in terms of business and organizations only, but I would like to take first step to describe it for both, business and worker.

As an employee, let me explain how you can create a value for yourself.
1.    Your attitude can create a higher level of value in you; your employer would love to retain you forever if you have created an inspiring personality within you. If your efforts contribute higher towards the growth of the institution you are working for, you have created a value for you.

2.    Your professional skills helps you increase your market value, find out what is most demanding skill in the market, learn it, create a report, present to management and see how it does a miracle for you. Good communication could be a great skill to have. 

3.    Improve your efficiency, quality and quantity of the work over a period of time, so your employer doesn’t have to think twice when he reviews your profile.

4.    Taking additional roles and responsibilities will surely help you improve your value at workplace.

For Entrepreneurs on how to create value for their organization
1.    Install a process in the organization for almost every function
2.    Create profitable model of business
3.    Project yourself well and your organization as a growing organization
4.    Provide the best quality service
5.    Make yourself available to customer
6.    Retain customers for longer period

If you have created a value in your business, in your role, in your skills, personality, there is always someone to pay a good price for it.

Decision Making, Difficult or Simple?

Making a decision, right or wrong but they do change lot of things in our life. It’s difficult job but there are scientific ways to make it more systematic and less painful.

Let me describe few to help you

1.    Ask yourself that if your Yes will be more beneficial or your No would be more meaningful for certain decisions.

2.    Calculate the advantages and disadvantages of Saying Yes or Saying No. Put that on paper. so It becomes easier to read and decide if this decision will give more benefits or more problems for you in future.

3.    Put up long term benefits and long term issues on paper based on decision.. what is more important for you.

4.    Is the decision is inline with your passion or your dreams you have been seeing with open eyes, if yes then take a step forward but if its just a timely thing and short term, think twice. Its better to take the pain and run without the decision than taking it and keeping burden of it on your shoulders.

5.    If 1 to 4 seems to be confusing, tell your problem to your nearest friend, tell him to view the situation as he was you and what he would have done if this was the situation.

6.    Don’t keep decision long pending, it hurts when things are not moving and you are ignoring or delaying them.

7.    Don’t follow others blindly unless your inner voice accepts decisions

8.    Don’t consider other’s situation for certain decisions, because different people make different decisions in same situations. Closely monitor your situation and analyze points 1-4, if the benefits are higher then go ahead and if things are not showing promising, pull out the things.

9.    Have a faith on your Blink, your first reaction. For whatever decision you make, what was the first reaction came into the mind. Was it yes.. Then ask yourself why this was yes and if it was No why your first voice from inside was no.. You will get the answer.

10.    Build strength within you and make yourself 100% available mentally when you take a decision, because half hearted things never work well in long term decisions.

I have tried the tricks above and it has helped me to take certain decisions well, you may try and tell me if things work for you as well.
Take bold decisions, even if they hurt in short term, they give good long term benefits.

Take the pain and maximize the gain

The most difficult phase of life gives the best lessons of living; hard lessons could not be learned without facing the obstacles. Probably that is the reason there are few successful people, very few by luck and most of them are by virtue of taking lot of pain and sustaining it till they are successful.

Why should you take the pain? Life could be lived easier and in a most comfortable state. What is the need of thinking a lot and taking actions on it?
There is a need; because you wanted to be uncommon, you wanted to be focused and you wanted to get all what others could not. Why not?

What does it mean by taking a pain? Who should take it?
Taking a pain is doing something extra that others didn’t, thinking something more which others could not, working little hard which was avoided by others. Challenging your own abilities and overcoming the conditioning is also as good as taking a pain. It should taken by someone who wants to come out of the crowd.

What is something extra? Can’t it be just smart work?
Something extra could be related to hunger of learning more in less time, experimenting something new while still working on the routine. Believing in your own abilities and taking more responsibility than others is also called taking more pain. Smart workers can do it even better but smart work is not a synonym of hard work. While smart work can always lessen the amount of work, hard work gives an inner happiness of accomplishing something.

What is the gain? When should you expect it?
The gain could be a visible change in your living standard, your designation at job, a change of social status or an invisible gain like sustaining power in difficulties. A top level executive, A top level politician, a top level sports person or a spiritual guru could be seen as the gainers, they are those who have taken a pain of working harder than others, thinking different than others, caring more than others and surpassing all obstacles due to their higher experience in relative domains. The timing of gain may vary from a day to a year to a decade or more depending on your area of expertise and amount of pain you have taken. The more pain you take it, the more gain you get it, the more early you take a pain, the faster could be the result.

Example 1 : You are a marketer, you want to clinch a deal, so you are working on presentation, the day is over but presentation is not, you have taken a pain of leaving your sleep behind and completed the presentation, guess what? You made a good presentation and success comes to you, even if this deal is not worked out, you have an exception material which could be used for many other presentations.
You could have made excuses to your boss saying it was late night and your wife was not well so presentation was not over…..no pain and no gain…

Example 2 : You are an office executive, you are taking more responsibilities, due to that you leave office late, you are becoming the point of criticism because not all stay late, not all are taking more responsibilities. So what, if you are ok to take a pain, you get a bigger gain directly or indirectly, by getting recognition in the organization, a designation, and opportunity of learning more in less time and above all you become a close aid of management. You can escape all this pain saying all lot of stories, I have a family, I have friends, I stay too far, I am not healthy… no pain and no gain.


Exercise for you : Go out and find the people who have gained more, study their life and their past, note down t heir pains and compare their current gains. Have a great life ahead.