How to Make People Understand, What they Don't?

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What can make people understand, that they really don't, is a puzzle that most of us would be keen to know!

Because, we, sometime, face a frustrating situation of not able to convince the other person that whatever he or she is doing doesn't make sense.

Success is About Having Confidence in Self

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"If my mind can conceive it, my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it." # Jesse Jackson

Yesterday, in the evening, I, along with my family members: Wife, and two daughters, went to a cinema hall for watching the movie 'Spy Kids'

Being a 3D movie, we were respectfully handed over the goggles while taking seats. However, for almost 15 minutes since the movie commenced, I couldn't make the head and tail out of what this 3D all about as far as the movie was concerned: Because, despite wearing goggles, it appeared to be nothing more than a regular 2D movie.

What Happens, If Anna Hazare Fails to Deliver?

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There is no doubt about the legitimacy of Team Anna's "JIHAD" against rampant corruption and that of Anna's followers from all over the country, including me, because, being a patriotic citizen of India I'm also desperately looking for a long term solution for curbing this menace.

However, watching this movement swelling up - so fast - entirely on the basis of a huge expectation of the protesters from Anna Hazare, what's worrying me now, is: What happens, if Anna fails to deliver in toto?

Did I Really Save A Life?

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More than 5 years ago, during a week day at my office, around 2 PM in the afternoon, I received a call from my wife saying that her brother-in-law, husband of her only sister, based at Kolkata, had suffered a major brain-stroke and been hospitalized in a critical condition.

She also said that he, being a central government employee, had been shifted to an empanelled hospital and the doctors were carrying our detailed investigations.

Inspiration: Thought for the Day

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Not all are destined to be happy in life, something beyond our absolute control; but making them happy whom we love, is what should be our ultimate goal. #AK

Venting out frustrations, is not a sign of unhappiness; suppressing and hiding it, definitely is. #AK

Why the Hell Is Merit, So Merit-less?

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With tons of sympathy for those socially oppressed sections of the society, how a modern youth, from a tag-less class - despite having the merits to access what she truly deserves - can explain to herself the justifications for losing a golden opportunity that could perhaps have changed the landscape of her life -- just because, someone else, by virtue of a tag and not merits, is automatically allowed to race past her?

Ask me; I have been watching this killing but silent questions on the face of dozens of students for more than a few months. You know why, because my daughter has just cleared her 12th board exam and appeared in several competitive examinations.

Is Corruption A Mass Psychological Disorder?

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20 years ago, while protesting against an army-man for forcibly occupying my seat in Dadar Guwahai Express Train, I narrowly escaped death: Just before he could open fire at me, a few co-passengers intervened and he was neutralized.

Even, while traveling by Auto-Ricksaw, I have never paid a single rupee extra so far, always insisting on paying according to meter reading.

And while doing so, I must have handed over a dozen adamant drivers to traffic police in last 10 years. But for how long we can continue doing so?

I am sure, most of us must have raised voice against corruption quite a few times in life; however, while facing a never-ending shower of corrupt practices in everyday life, people, at some point of time, stop protesting and start accepting it, assuming that what the other person is doing now they would have to do the same in another situation in future for survival.

Sadly, with this acceptance, we become part and parcel of a mass psychological disorder: 'Uncontrolled Corruption.'

In a country of 1.2 billion plus people, to ensure corruption eradication at all levels, there must be hundreds of mass training programs being conducted across the length and breadth of the country, aiming at reminding and educating people about our heritage of self-respect and tolerance.

So corruption eradication process, in addition to introducing a drastic legislative reform, should also target a mass-refinement of the citizens' belief system, which is now greatly influenced by a deadly desire of achieving an over-night financial success -- by hook, or by crook.

According to me, Anna Hazare, who is currently spearheading a strong mass movement against corruption, instead of asking the Govt for 100% agreeing to his demand should have laid the foundation by not being so adamant on inclusion of the Prime Minister under the jurisdiction of Lokpal.

However, he deserves a huge appreciation for highlighting this grave issue at national level.

I think, Anna, being very naive, is grossly misguided by his own people who're much more intelligent and I suspect them supporting Anna with a hidden agenda.

Hence, more than the issue itself, the agitation against corruption has become a ladder for going up the power-tower.

While concluding, I wouldn't mind asking my readers a simple question: Do you think, corruption is a fully blown mass psychological disorder that spares none?

Update/8.8.11: While discussing about a rampant corruption clouding the horizon of India, I don't think it would be impertinent to highlight 3 amazing examples of corrupt practices unleashed by the largest countries in the world. I have just read it on the website of Forbes. Please, click on the following link to access it -- A Tale Of Three Thefts: China, Russia, And The U.S.

Image: angelbee_07 on Flickr

Find Out that Connection, Who Can Make You Successful

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A famous proverb says: Behind every successful man - or his failure - there is a woman.

However, I believe, either in business or in service, more than that proverbial woman who's supposed to be behind every successful - or failed - man, there is a professional connection: man or woman, a client and/or a mentor, that really matters.

Not even a mountain-peak inspiration from a lady in your life - either wife, or girlfriend, or even friend - can lead you to the summit of success, until you identify a person in your professional life who can ensure an amazingly rewarding source of wealth-flow.

One of the most successful consulting firms, I had worked for a few years, did the same to reach an unimaginable height of success today: Milking out a single client.

And a current client of mine I picked up after floating my own firm, did it too, achieving a growth rate of more than 50% CAGR for close to a decade by now.

All these stories, that I write on this blog, are based of practical observations and I believe that, to be successful in life what you need more is to identify that golden connection in your professional life, who's perhaps more important than a diamond lady in your personal life.

If you don't agree, please let me know why; if you agree, then also share your thoughts!

I'm, neither a leader nor a philosopher but a common man with eyes and ears open to everything happening around me, having a noble desire to share them with as many people as I can.

If you like and learn from my experience, thanks a lot; if you don't, then share your criticism and give me an opportunity to improve.

Financial Success: Why You Must Switch On Life's Combat Mode

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Sometime, in life, you may find yourself in a devastatingly helpless situation. Most of them would be relationship conflicts, and a few -- financial.

For them who have never faced the consequences of not having enough money to make both the ends meet, nothing would appear to be more stressful than a relationship fall out.

However, for a few, who are struggling hard to clear mounting debts off and also ensure meeting the basic needs for self and dependents -- money stands out as the most important element of life.

How to Enjoy A Productive Journey to Your office

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With so many professionals commuting a long distance for reaching their office, these four strategies recommended by Kevin Purdy, if implemented, can not only make your journey a bit enjoyable but also would add values to your knowledge base.

"Getting to work can be inhumanly stressful, boring, or logistically tricky--or, sometimes, all three. Here are four ways to arrive at work calmer, smarter, and without a lame excuse for being late."

Even I also travel for more than 3 hours a day and, for long, have been following one of his suggestions: Do your self-improving “reading” while moving.

Read more about his suggestions and make those few hours highly productive.

Image: Heather Carpenter Costello on Flickr

Does India Desperately Need A Selfless Dictator?

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Just an hour ago I was standing in the que of a liquor shop and impatiently waiting for my turn, since it was a huge one.

Suddenly, a policeman, in uniform, rushed in, and by-passing the que he directly went to the counter and quickly made the purchase.

Neither me nor anyone else in the que could utter a single word of protest and he, a representative of the law-enforcement agencies in this country, conveniently made a mockery of the whole system.

Even though I decided to take his photo, but before I could take the mobile phone out of my pocket -- he vanished, may be because he knew that he was wrong!

The purpose of this post is to amplify the opinion that no legislation can bring about even a nano-change in this country, unless, we, the people of India, change our own thought processes.

Because, unfortunately India is neither a top-down nor a bottoms-up country but a combination of both.

Having seen this incident, with my own eyes, I really don't have any hope left for a drastic change in the belief system of India's powerful people. By power, I mean both economical and administrative.

But yes, there could be a solution that Manu Joseph has mildly touched upon.

If a selfless dictator takes over the reign of this country and remain un-assasinated for a few years, perhaps, only then, there would be a new India emerging out of the ashes.

Other than that, the only solution that could perhaps make some dent, is to publish every such incident that we notice in our daily life on social media platform.

Let us keep our camera-phone ready for recording whatever we find against the interest of the nation, and highlight. Only then, probably, we would be able to call ourselves true Indians.

This post, by no means, is anti-national or defamatory, but truly reflects the frustration of a common man from India and his helplessness!

Image: Cathoderaygun on Flickr

Cloud Computing: Online Data Storage Makes your Life Little Easier

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8 years ago I started subscribing to a paid online data storage system called ibackup for managing my office documents, and continued using it for more than 5 years up until the end of 2008.

It was a wonderful experience of completely bypassing hard-drive system with all data on the cloud: Cloud Computing, that I could access round the clock from my laptop, desktop and even from my blackberry -- and for that matter, any internet enabled gadget.

Mental Mistakes that You Must Avoid

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“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” -- Quote by Mark Twain.

Mental mistakes, that all of us commit, are an integral part of our life because none of us are perfect in executing the processes that constitute our existence. However, when some of them go beyond our total control, what happens is a chaotic life.

Since we are the reflection of our belief system that governs our perception about the world around us and also how we behave with both self and others, the best way to avoid creating negativity in our life is to first understand what are those factors that influence our thought processes.

Well, Henri Junttila, through an interesting article on 'Dumb Little Man,' has pointed out a few mental mistakes that perhaps need our attention and I am too happy to share his suggestions with my readers.

"In order to function in our society, we have a lot of processes, beliefs and generalizations that keep us efficient. The problem is that sometimes these automatic processes can get out of control, which happens a lot, and it keeps us doing something we don’t want to be doing."

I think apart from refining our belief system through continuous learning, we must also keep a tighter control over efficient functioning of our mental processes. I'm sure, that would surely help us build a better life.

Image: dougclow

Isn't it Better to be a Genuine Monkey, rather than A Deceptive Human?

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A question, the answer to which could be interpreted in different ways, is rattling my mind for a last couple of days: Am I a monkey, living the life of a human?

I think, I am. I mean, I truly deserve to be monkey who, by the grace of God, was illegally upgraded to humanship.

Living a life that's always been on the edge, like the monkeys who keep on struggling for survival on daily basis, I achieved what I perhaps never deserved.

After a picnic for more than 2 decades, when God unexpectedly brought me back to where I truly belong to, I realized that humans are so lucky to be ruling the World although they've spoiled it beyond repair.

As a monkey, I could live a life, living in the moment, never bothering about nor caring for tomorrow; however, as a human, despite attempting to live in the moment, I eventually ended up being neither a human nor a monkey.

Having achieved everything that a normal human can think of - and losing it too - I, frankly speaking, would have no regrets even if God pushes me back to a permanent monkeyship.

Because, then, looking at the mirror, I would see my true-self: A real monkey -- unlike a thousand who, despite being petty monkeys, are still ruling the World as humans.

So isn't it better to be a genuine monkey, rather than a deceptive human?

Image: Jonah Sparks on Flickr

Are You Confident Enough to Acknowledge Your Imperfection?

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I'm sure, very few of us would be confident enough to accept that we are imperfect despite knowing the fact that none is perfectly perfect. But, that's not how we can achieve success in life.

Psychologically, there may be an explanation for this odd behavior but, practically speaking, unless we accept our drawbacks the improvement comes to a grinding halt and we never achieve what we are capable of.

Although Carl Beuke, Ph.D. has written this article with specific reference to career improvement; however, his explanation is amazingly applicable to every field of life.

His concluding remark, "If you want to keep moving forward, you can't afford to be content with sitting still. If you want to keep improving, you can't afford to be satisfied with your current performance. Find something to improve, and do something about it." is simply breathtaking

Thanks Carl, for this brief but insightful post.

Image: rob_pym on Flickr

A Few Inspiring Success Stories that Motivate Me

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There seems to be a continuous flow of inspiration being showered on me for last 24 hours.

It started with a post - on facebook - from my engineering college classmate Paresh Shah regarding phenomenal success of Prof Arindam Chaudhury - controversial though - followed by the success story of how 10 teen entrepreneurs make millions highlighting the might of a 16 years old Indian Farrhad Acidwalla and today, reading about two 24 years Indian entrepreneurs, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, the founder of India's most successful e-commerce start-up snapdeal.com.

All of them have proved, once again, that success is the child of innovation and action and - in addition to having a down to earth attitude and never give up spirit - it can be made sustainable only through building a team of self-motivated employees who're willing to walk an extra-mile for making it happen.

Hats off to them for their own achievement and also, for inspiring me: A 50 years old entrepreneur, who's still dreaming about making it big in life -- since, he truly believes that the war over failures may begin at any age.

Image: mmc 154

Success is the Child of Innovation and Action

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Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must first set yourself on fire... Quote by Fred Shero

Success doesn't come by dreaming alone but, in addition to that, through an extra dose of a combination of cutting-edge innovation and gigantic action.

Innovation in fact, is the key, as, whatever efforts we may put in if it's on a wrong strategy we'd never achieve the desired results. Having failed in more than a dozen projects so far, who knows it better than me!

Well, for a few fortunate, the very first project proves to be economically innovative in terms of business gains. However, for the remaining, the journey to 'destination success' appears to be a never ending exploration.

Nevertheless, one important thing that I have learned, while pursuing the best understood practices for hitting the bull's eye, is: We should never allow our premature failures to drain out our passion for putting in the best efforts: Action!

So let us keep innovating and continuously, and also keep working hard. I'm sure, for them who refuse to give up in-between -- success is just a matter of time.

After all, Success is the Child of Innovation and Action.

Image: epSos.de on Flickr
Originally posted on my company blog: Leadership And Networking

Is A Change in the Interpretation of Success Inevitable?

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Most of us confuse success with achieving more and more in terms of material gains, despite denying it in public. Unfortunately, our never ending quest for possessing priceless objects: House, car - the list is endless - is the culprit. However, even priceless items do have a market price and that's pretty high.

Not so surprisingly, even quality of social connections seems to be a priority in the list of priceless possessions: Higher it is, up and through the political jungle and corporate boardrooms, more is the degree of achievement.

Well, it now appears to me that, anything that can't be measured in terms of physical existence is conveniently excluded from being considered to be successful.

Why otherwise, success of a spiritual leader is counted in terms of his degree of influence with the influential from all walks of life; and another, who even had to sacrifice his life while fighting for a genuine cause, is being looked upon as a failure?

What's happening now, is not really in line with nature's law and I have a strong feel that a massive correction in the interpretation of success is inevitable in near future.

That's how, nature would realign all forces on the earth. Until then, we, not only have to patiently wait and watch but, at the same time, do our best to make it happen -- sooner than expected.

Image: Zoe in NZ on Flickr

Talent Mis-Management: How to Kill Brand Equity of Your Organization

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Talk to any senior professional from the Industry - particularly Human Resource Department - they would tell you how difficult it has become to attract right talent from external sources. They would also tell you about quite a few innovative strategies, being implemented, that they feel would attract professionals from target companies.

Never Forget to Help Them, Who Helped You!

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One of my business associates, a senior person from corporate India, went out of the way to help me out of a situation that otherwise would have resulted into nothing less than a complete devastation of my life.

A Few Unconventional Abilities to Make you Successful

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Who doesn't want to be successful in life: Be it money, or fame, or both? But, everybody wants to play it safe, keeping ego scratch-less.

Hey, that's not possible. Sooner you realize, better it is for your own benefit.

Like all of you, I too had my ups and downs and still experiencing the impact of tidal waves that sometime take us to a treasure a island or off-load to a demon's den.

Taking A Step Backward, Doesn't Mean Defeat!

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Very few situations are close to being ideal in this World; rests are thousand miles apart from what one can conveniently call normal.

Why otherwise, Worldwide, thousands of murders are being committed; thousands of divorces are being executed and thousands of fatal accidents are witnessed?

What I Learned from A Cab Driver!

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Effective leadership examples are floating around us, in our day to day interactions, and all we need is to keep our eyes and ears open to pick them up.

A few months ago, on the occasion of my elders daughter's birthday, we decided to celebrate with a small party in a restaurant we've been visiting frequently.

`Never Give Up` on Hope: Bridge to Success!

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If our response to a situation is governed by a unique combination of genetics, upbringing and life-experience, what can we do to improve its quality for making us feel better and remain positive in life?

Genetics is in-built; upbringing is an unchangeable reality; so the only factor that can be modified is "Life Experience."

How Indian Media Made A Lion out of Mice, and Led A Tiger to the Grave!

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For last couple of months, I have been breaking my mind and soul upon validation of Baba Ramdev's genuineness for executing a self-less movement against corruption.

Well, it has been a few months since I started tracking his activities targeted at eradicating corruption from Indian system. Pinning a great hope on his dedication while unleashing a vendetta against corruption, I was perhaps more excited than anybody else.