The Fear, The Life and You

Fear is not an unknown entity to all of us. We have fear of losing, fear of future, fear of failure and sometimes fear of fear also :-)

I will not try to remove that fear from the roots but I am very much interested to redefine it for simplicity and better life perspective.

In most of the cases the fear gets worse when we don’t act on the factors that stimulate the fear within us.

So the best medicine of fear is “Act today so that you are not afraid of tomorrow”.

Exam fear, if we are prepared and if we can prepare better, why not to prepare ourselves today.

Presentation fear, the audience is not going to kill us if we are not making a good presentation but we are afraid because we are unprepared J why are you going unprepared?

Fear of lenders, can’t we prepare a schedule of payments to make sure we are on time? Or even if we are going to miss the dates of payment, it’s good to communicate and reschedule the payments and remove the fear.

Fear of not meeting expectations, did you set the expectations right at the other end? Did you communicated well to the person who expected something from you?

Fear of Child from the Parent, Why the child can be honest to the parent about their mistakes, no one would be unhappy if we show our honesty towards mistakes. The parents should be honest and transparent with their children so they inspire the love of parent and child, fear at either end would harm the relationship. Neither parent nor the child would prefer to do injustice to each other. So why to be afraid of being honest?

Fear of Losing, when we are afraid of losing, either we have a lack of confidence or we are always expecting a win, let me ask you this, can anyone win always? Then why there is a fear of loss?


We have to bring our confidence and positivity at its peak level so that one or two loses or few more should not let us down, keep moving and have courage to face the loss.  Winning is not important, it’s important that how we play the game of life, living with fear would certainly ruin the joy of life.

If we are ready, prepared and confident today, we can make this “Fear” an unknown entity tomorrow.  Even if we are not prepared, not ready, less confident, no worries please.

Let’s accept the situation with courage and prepare ourselves next time. Fear should not kill us; we have to kill the fear.

Reinventing Yourself

Reinventing Yourself

This is the exercise everyone should do at least once in a life; this would be surely a life changing experience. Reinventing yourself could open up your own self and seeing the different perspectives of the life.

First Step: Check Your Happiness Index

Have you ever asked yourself, Are you Happy?

If not, do it now. Happiness is the root of everything happens in your life.

If you are not happy, there is something wrong that needs a correction as soon as possible.

I hope you won’t blame the circumstances or the fate/destiny for your happiness.

Happiness is the way you take good and bad things in your life and how well you act on it.

No one can make you sad if you really don’t want to be.

So first and foremost thing you should do is, find what is wrong, act on it, correct it so you can improve your happiness index.

Step Two: Do what you like to do

Do you know what you like most to do? If not, please find that first :-)

Doing what you like daily/weekly/monthly would surely improve your happiness index.

If you are not doing, think what you like to do, what you liked to do in past.

You will find something you liked to do earlier but due to time/circumstances/constraints you are now unable to do.

Doing such small things might have been a reason behind your success in past and if you stop doing so, you may not taste the success in future.

Till the time I was keeping my routine playing, tv and some house hold, I could achieve good in my 10th standard, but I stopped doing that in pressure of 11th and 12th standard, I could not do wonders. A lesson learnt, do what you like to do, this will release your pressure of performance.

Step Three: Find your specialty and leverage that

Very few of us do internal analysis of us to find what we are good at. Perhaps some good friends and well-wishers tell us about our good things. We should listen to that voice that says you are good at this… and seek an opportunity in that career.

There is a difference between what I should be doing and what my specialty is. Peer pressure will ask you to do what you should be doing and your inner soul would be always pushing you towards your special god gifted inner skill.

I was writing code of software for few years of my life till I realized I am good at marketing and management. It took some time but once the realization has happened I have never looked back.

People have done wonders when they have done what they are good at.

Leadership Simplified

All of us have a hidden leader within us and that comes out only when we take more responsibility. Leadership is all about taking more than individual capability and making sure it’s done as desired with the help of ours and subordinates.

I would like to describe key factors of leadership that would simplify this subject for newly elected leaders or someone aspiring to be a leader in future.

Put yourself to other's shoes: This is the first lesson, leadership is not about me, and it’s about we. Leadership is not about how I want to do; it’s about how people would do it the way we want them.

Understanding people and circumstances, considering their capabilities, pros and cons of them and utilizing them for wellbeing of the tasks assigned to them.

Comparison is the killer.  Never compare subordinate with yourself. You might be a superstar but you were not like that from day one, so if you really want to compare, do it right with right age and experience. Do not compare people with people, not all of us are same.

Do not Under Estimate or Over Estimate: not everyone in your team has same capabilities, but you should always know your people well. Load them with difficult task and see who comes out well in the test. Use that person for difficult tasks who does it quick and smart. Few are good at small things only, let them do that and be happy with that.

Over expectations could turn out to be nightmare, if you over expect from an average person, you might end up losing the person or putting the person in solid mental state.

Judging people is the key, put right people at right job.

Plan it well: Plan your resources, plan your time, plan almost everything before you can move ahead. Because you may fail but plan will not.

Let your subordinate involve in plan, ask them their availability, they should agree with your plan, check with senior management about their inputs. Check your calendar, whether, holidays in country, holidays of customers and all that matters to your tasks.

Such plans with above factors will be less vulnerable for failure.

Providing a correct career path to subordinates: You cannot move ahead without replicating yourself. So do not shy away from sharing your success secrets with people under you.

Give them the vision for the career path. They would love you if they see they are improving with you and they are on right track to replace you some day and you replace your senior.

Human Factor, use it right:  all of us like to have love, warmth and respect. Deal with your subordinate with those factors but make sure you are being fair.

Being too sweet could be a disaster and being bitter won’t help. The best way out is being fair.  Practice of being fair with people, being fair means evaluating people on standards set by organization or expecting something that is promised by individuals themselves.

Example : Mr. X promised to finish some task tomorrow, and tomorrow comes, he wants to go home early without making sure he finished the promised task or not, here you need to deal with him stating that stick to your promises, or don’t promise unless you can really make it.

Here you were not being sweet like to let him go without finishing, you were not harsh that you could order him to do it anyhow, but you made him realize that it’s important to keep promises. This is called being fair.

Be friendly with people with you but expect a respect from them, get close to them but let them know that you are a bit ahead and you have to be; because only then you can take them to next level.

Don’t just look back, Look forward: This is management perspective. Leaders are responsible to senior management also, so keeping senior management in confidence is important.

You are the one, who would make the management’s dreams come true along with your dreams, so “being a Yes Man/Woman” is important. Management loves those leaders.

In a nutshell taking responsibilities, drawing a right plan, using senior management’s experience, utilizing the given work force efficiently and improving your mental state every day is all we call a “Leadership simplified”

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.

An Interview with Life

I would like to present some of the glimpse of my recent interview with Life

Life : What do you expect from me?
Me : Oh a lot.

Life : Good, describe few so I can give you some.

Me : Three things at least, 1. Price 2. Popularity 3. Peace

Life : great, So how soon you want the Price ( Money )?

Me : hmm very smart, As soon as possible?

Life : Ok and then, who and how will you use it?

Me : simple, will spend, save and make more money for me and family?

Life : And then?

Me : then what? I will soon become popular because of my money?

Life : So you believe money can make you popular? Have you heard about Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabh bhai patel, George Washington, Thomas Alva Edison?

Me : Yes great personalities. They are remembered now and forever.

Life : Yes Me too remember them because they lived the best of the life ever, I asked the same question from them that I asked you and the answer was different.

Me : Hmm so you have been asking this question  to all, well what was their answer?

Life: will tell you later, so what next after popularity?

Me : Oh nice question, I will be a Happy person, I will get Peace then after.
Life : I don’t think so, remember Lady Diana ( wife of prince Charles, wasn’t she popular ) and how she died in lack of peace in life? Gurudutt ( the great indian actor), Meena Kumari ( great indian actress) All of them had money and popularity but they didn’t had peace in life.

Me : Oh my god and I thought money and popularity can give me a peace in life.

Life : No my child, that is wrong perception.

Me : Then what should I do to get the peace?

Life : You know the answer, peace is within you and in your activities.

Me: But what do I do to get the peace? I Don’t understand

Life: Ok let me ask you simple thing? Have you ever served water to some one ? How do you feel then?

Me: I feel good to give but giving is the peace?

Life: Nope the joy of giving and doing something for someone is peace and doing an act that could benefit a group of living being is peace.

Me: So I should do social service? Then when should I care for my family?

Life: Your family will ask only what you give them, if you give less they expect less if you give more, they expect more. Now it up to you that you are giving more money to them or giving more happiness to them. Try to give them both and see where they are happy. With money or with moments of happiness?
Exercise: Take family to a super mall, do lot of shopping, then eat in expensive cuisine, watch movie in expensive theater, come back home and keep a note of level of happiness.

Then next time take them to a simple park or just a peaceful place, talk a lot about good old days, take their opinion on past and future, plan something for future together ( after retirement life etc ) and then note the level of happiness. Make sure you do it free flow without planning anything, just let the moment go by and you and family can enjoy it.

No need to tell me where you found the more happiness.. You know the answer.
Me : Hmm will try this, probably I know what you mean.

Life: I have given meaning to everyone’s life, there is a purpose behind living, when you know it then we might not have to schedule interview again.

Me : But one last thing, shouldn’t I earn money then?

Life : You can but create a wealth where everyone benefits. Remember God has made you capable to earn the money because there are various who are not fortunate to earn like you do.
Anyway, thanks for your time, God Bless You.