Know yourself; that is your first Karma

We end up spending too much of time to understand what is around us, but you will have hard time to reply this question “Do you know yourself?”

The question has lot of practical value as well as spiritual value.

I would take a practical approach towards answering this question, this might help you do a self-analysis.

I won’t be surprised after doing a self-discovery or knowing yourself you will find a totally different person living within you.

OK, so let me ask you this.

When did you felt an electrifying current within you? Off course on a positive side of this effect :-).

Memorize why did you felt that? (Write that activity somewhere please, I will ask this again) .

As per my experience, when we have such extreme feeling, that is the activity we have loved more than anything else in life.

Next question , When was the last time you felt so relaxed that the whole body weight of yours came to almost zero?

(This questions is not for physics lovers, I don’t want to learn that zero gravity theory again :-) )

So you remember what made you feel like this? (Write that activity somewhere, I might remind this again)

Let me ask you a little difficult question now.

When was the last time you did something and you felt like you are almost committing a crime?

(Write that activity and we can take this later in this blog)

What is the thing you do with lot of physical or mental stress and you still don’t feel tired?

What is opposite to that? Where you do a bit and feel bored/tired/stressed vry quick?

(Write all those aside please)

Now here is the clue.

The activities we love to do, where we feel an electrifying current within us, those are the things that excite us, and we should choose such things to align our career towards that activities. Believe me , you will be a most successful person.

The activities that relax you more than anything else, we should do it frequently, regularly. By doing it at frequent intervals, you will improve your happiness index or in other words you will be happiest person on the earth.



The act that deprives you, that make you feel like a criminal are the acts you should avoid doing. It could be a very minute thing, it may not be a crime actually but if it breaks your moral down, that is a crime because you are making yourself unhappy by doing such. So why to repeat such acts.



The acts that make you feel bored/stressed very quickly are the acts actually not meant for your kind of personality.

Something where you never felt like tired, you keept doing it without looking at the clock, are the acts where you should try your career.

The exercise for you is this, write it or memorize it where you felt great and when did you not.


Gradually you will know where your expertise lies and what else is meaningless for you.

Considering the spiritual side of knowing yourself, it said that we are all unique and born with our unique capabilities.


We are all Gems but it’s just the time we have to discover ourselves, the sooner we do it, the quicker we reach to our destined places.

Good luck for self discovery. Know yourself and you will know your God Very soon :-)

Positive Self Talk, A friend for Life

Self talk is like an auto installed program which is installed in the computer of your Brain.
You have been using it unknowingly for many years but you never realized its good and bad uses.


So in so many terms you have never explored the potential of Self Talk.


I would like you to think over it today and experience a great benefit of Positive Self Talk.
Why Am I Saying Positive Self Talk?


Because you have been using Negative side of Self Talk more than Positive Self Talk.?


How and When?


Well every time, almost every day we have been talking to ourselves and telling us something those are not really positive words.


I won’t get parking space today :-(


I might get fined by Traffic Police :-{


I might lose this :-|


Aren’t you saying this to yourself? That’s what we call Negative Self Talk.
Such negative self talk leads to undesirable results.


But we can change our life by changing our Self Talk program.

Slowly and gently but gradually we have to convert our self talk from negative to positive.


Gentle start should be good, don’t panic and never tell yourself that you should not think negative, If you tell this to yourself “don’t think negative”.. you are increasing your panic by criticizing yourself. 


Start gentle, start slow but start steady. Just change the words that you speak to yourself.


How?


Positive Self Talk is a process of installing smaller updates to your installed program in brain 
Instead of saying “I wont get a parking space” please say “I will most likely get a parking space today” .  Keep saying this to yourself daily.


And some day that “most likely” will become “I will sure” once you have matured in positive self talk.


Positive self talk is a scientific process, telling positive things to yourself will bring positive changes in life.


Consider Self talk as a nearest and dearest friend lives with you all the time. Would you prefer to tell him/her negative words or positive words?


Of course you won’t talk negative to your nearest friend, then why not to speak positive to self?


Positive self talk is a slow and steady process, so keep saying good and positive words to yourself daily and you will notice a great positive change in your life.

Inspirational Quotes : Words of wisdom : Volume I

Let me Share some Inspirational Quotes: Words of Wisdom, they have been inspiring my life for long. I hope you will like it also.
I will share the words of wisdom in different volumes, this is Volume I.

 "Never say no when a client asks for something, even if it is the moon. You can always try, and anyhow there is plenty of time afterward to explain that it was not possible."

-- Cesar Ritz, hotelier

 "No matter what it is, pick yourself up and go on to the next project."

-- Shelley Duvall, actress

 "Don't let yesterday take up too much of today."

-- Will Rogers, humorist

 "If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere."

-- Frank A. Clark

 "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."

-- Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist 

 "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

-- Johann von Goethe 

 "Envisioning the end is enough to put the means in motion."

-- Dorothea Brande, Writer 

 "The first part of success is "Get-to-it-iveness"; the second part of success is "Stick-to-it-iveness.""

-- Orison Swett Marden, Editor, Success Magazine

 "When you dare to dream, dare to follow that dream; dare to suffer through the pain, sacrifice, self-doubts and friction from the world."

-- Laura Schlessinger, talk-show host

 "To see what is right and not do it is a lack of courage."

-- Confucius, philosopher 

I hope the words of wisdom would make difference in your life. If you want to further read how change works in life, check my post on Change Management. 

And if you have fear of Life, You should read my post regarding Fear of Life

Enjoy the life, keep watching for volume II of Words of Wisdom

Cricketing the Life: Let’s play

Let me take you on a journey of Life at the vehicle of Cricket, the most popular game in India. This game has always inspired me to live a better life; I would like to take an opportunity to share my thoughts on the how cricket can inspire the life.


The Toss : This is the matter of luck, who wins the toss is only decided by the almighty god, so as with life, where have you born and when, is decided by someone you don’t know but you have born that is the truth :-), so the only option you have is “Let’s Play, Let’s live this wonderful Journey of Life”


Batting First: Here the bowler is the life and circumstances; you are the batsman. You need to be sure that you have to play a long innings, so staying on crease is important.  The bowler is solid so as the life and circumstances, you got to play every ball to score runs on the pitch of life, leaving the balls alone is like leaving the opportunities going away from you.



You are not playing alone: You have to score runs but you cannot do it alone, you have your team mates, so in life your partner, your friends, your team mates and well-wishers, play well and let others play, let them help you and your team to score well. Relationship matters a lot in life and game.


Keep moving: Score ones and twos when the bowler like life is bowling tough deliveries;  stick to the crease if the life like bowler is at its best performance, you need to wait for weak deliveries to hit your boundaries. Not all the deliveries are meant for boundaries but we know in a match of life, boundaries like success do come and it should keep coming in longer and shorter formats. Develop patience and hit the bowl when situations are favorable.



Last over, few bowls remaining: This is the time to hit very hard; it’s now or never, score as much as you can so that you can defend this score later. Life also has such incidents where you have to do your best, perform or perish. Every single run counts, every single effort counts in life.


Let us Bowl Now : This is the different perspective of life, throw challenges to your life like batsman, you need to deliver the best to beat the tough life like batsman, make sure any of the batsman ( read challenges of life here) of this difficult life doesn’t succeed. Beat the difficulties, get the stumps of every problems of life and you know the match is yours if you have beat the opponents (problems/difficulties) at every aspect of game.



Cheer the team: Every player is important, you need a good wicket keeper to cover the stumps, you need few good fielders to cover the field, a good batsman to stay longer with you, so as you need friends, philosophers and guides to help you succeed. Cheer all the people helping you to win the game of life.


The best Moments: Remember the best catch of yours, the best batting innings and the great over that you bowled. Life is about the best moments, keep those memories with you and remind yourself that you can repeat those performances once again, every time in your cricket like life.


Man of the Match: So now you have played well, you deserve the man of the match award, look back and see how import it is to play well, bat well, bowl well and field well. It all matters in game of the life where every good moment lived well can lead you to the man of the match award.

Enjoy the Life like Cricket and Cricket like Life:-)

Interesting Read : Change Management

Stay Focused, Stay Objective

Our surroundings try to influence us every bit of time, it’s up to us what to take and what to neglect. That is what called focused approach or an Objective thinking practice.
Communication with others and communication with yourself will give you an indication of whether you are talking subjective or objective.

Let’s first understand what subjective thinking is
1. A thought or discussion which is based on an individual. Example “Mr. X is not a good person, Mr. Y is a nice guy, Mrs. Z doesn’t like me”
2. A discussion about any living or non living entity, “This table is good,”, “That politician is not bad”…
3. A criticism towards an individual or organization or a process. Discussion about the problem is also a subjective discussion.

Now if above is subjective, what is objective thinking
1. A discussion bound to an entire process or organization or society or nation.
2. A discussion or a thought regarding a solution of a problem.
3. A discussion or a thought not about a person but the circumstances that made a person good or not good.

Why objective thinking is better than Subjective thinking?
The objective thinking means we are talking about the unfriendly circumstances that could be improved and any living and unloving entity could get the benefit of improvement.

The objective thinking lets us stay focused to overall objective and rather than thinking individuals, we can think of whether the objective is being sufficed or there are barriers to suffice it.

The objective thinking keeps us away from being in judgmental role for any human being or non human being. The judgments are always relative and may get influenced by so many circumstances.

There is really no need to be subjective about others and worry on behalf of them. 

The subjective thinking keeps us away from our creative thinking.

The subjective thinking can take us away from overall objective and it may indulge us in unnecessary controversies.

We should be Objective bound and not subjective bound. An objective bound thinking can keep us focused towards individual or organizational goals. Subjective thinking will do opposite of it.

So let’s take a call, let’s think what was the purpose of our existence at one place (at our role, our position), do the best we can to suffice the objectives of our life, our organization, our society, our nation and then the universe.

All the above entities are expecting us to do better than the best and its only possible if we think only about objectives and keep ourselves focused on meeting the goals and stay away from individualism.

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.