Destiny's Torture: When Giving Up Appears Inevitable

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Sandip just called up and talked to me for more than an hour. He said, "Abhijit, I have tried my best not to give up. But now, it is the issue of making both the ends meet. I have completely exhausted all my financial resources. I can't pull on, anymore!"

"What does it mean, Sandip?" I asked.

"Abhijit, I'm in a situation where I'm unable to meet my daily expenses, forget the debts." Sandip's voice was hardly audible. "All the deals, which were more than certain to happen, have fallen through."

Destiny's Torture: Positive Attitude Can Tame A Violent Destiny

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Having published a lot about how my friend Sandip is fighting against destiny's injustice, I must say that I've already learned a few important life lessons from the way he is tackling the situation. One of them is the importance of attitude.

In my opinion, his biggest asset is his attitude. He is so positive about every negative development in his life. I'm sure, without it, he would surely have succumbed to destiny's torture by now.

Destiny's Torture: Yet another Blow to A Struggling Soul!

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Yet another blow, from ruthless destiny, to my friend Sandip. That too, when, he is fighting against the mother of all battles in terms of making both the ends meet and remain alive.

Sandip just called up, and shared with me, what, in my opinion, could easily prove fatal to any soul on this planet, when, she or he, struggling to remain alive, watches giant waves of Tsunami looming large on the horizon above the sea.

Destiny's Torture: Make Friendship with Wrong and Irreversible Choices!

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Today is Holi and obviously a holiday. I was watching TV when my mobile phone came into life. Seeing 'Sandip calling,' flashing on the screen, I immediately picked it up.

"Hi Sandip, happy holi," I said. "How was it for you, dear?"

Silenced prevailed over the other side for a few seconds and then, Sandip came in, "no holi this time, Abhijit."

Something wrong, I thought, but decided to wait and watch so that he himself comes out with what's bothering him.

Destiny's Torture: When Feelings Go Unnoticed!

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Despite his momentary breakdown, day before yesterday, while talking to me late in the night, Sandip appeared to be much more composed when he called me up yesterday to share his thoughts.

Let's listen to him...

Destiny's Torture -- A Dark Horizon with No Hope!

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The story of my friend's struggle for survival has made me so much concerned, that, I have told him to share with me on daily basis whatever he is going through.

The primary reason for this decision is to allow him vent out his frustrations, making him better prepared to face destiny's injustice. And, the second reason is to share with others the details of his fight against destiny's terrorism.

Who doesn't struggle in life, but, based on what I've heard from him, so far, he seemed to be crossing the path of fire with naked feet and for a long time.

Don't Let Down the Reputation of HR!

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When a senior HR professional, who recently received an offer from a 3 billion dollar Indian company as global HR Head, called me up to inform that he had declined the offer, because, none of his well wishers - with whom he had shared the news - encouraged him to take it up, because of the company's outstanding reputation in the market as the mother of 'Human Resource Destruction,' I sat quietly and thought it over seriously.

Frankly speaking, I have been watching this drama, for long, of the Indian company owners making a mockery of HR and sharing the same in their private circle.

How He Embraced Death, Happily!

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A decade and half ago, when Uphaar cinema hall was gutted by a devastating fire, an army officer, who got trapped along with his wife and two small children, refused to save himself by escaping through a toilet window and happily embraced death along with his family members.

This story was unfolded by his friend, who accompanied him on that fateful day and saved his life using the same escape route. He said that, if his friend had wanted to escape, he could easily have, but, he refused to leave his family behind and preferred to remain with them till last the moment.

Stop Selling Hopes!

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"Effective leaders are not born, they are built!"

Very few people dare disagree to this statement. But, having worked in corporate for a decade and half and running my own consulting firm for the same period -- which gave me the opportunity to meet and assess more than a few thousand professionals so far - I fail to agree.

I don't think you can make a lion out of a goat, even through imparting the best of behavioral trainings that you can ever think of designing and conducting for humans on earth. No way!

My Experiment with Self-Commitment!

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People make all sorts of commitments: New year resolution, promising in the name of God or even in the name of some one they love and care for, to get rid of bad and unhealthy habits like smoking and/or alcohol.

But most of the time they remain unsuccessful. Because, they never commit to self. I have realized over a period of time, that no improvement can ever happen unless we make a genuine commitment to our true self.

You are Known By the Company You Keep

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The world is full of people who are out there to get you pin down: Irrespective of whether you are going through a downturn in life or riding over the waves of success -- because they enjoy doing so.

However, at the same time, there are a many who don't hesitate to go out of the way to make you comfortable when you're passing through the worst period in life and remain genuinely faithful to you when you become successful.

Sun Rises in the East -- Chimps too Know about It!

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7 years ago we’re retained by a small Indian corporate, willing to pay the recruitment fee which was 50 pct more than the common trend at that time. To start with, Managing Director of the company established a direct communication channel with me, following up vigorously, to ensure successful completion of each and every critical assignments.

Since then we’ve been working hard for his company: Identifying right candidates from target organizations, and successfully pulling them out of their comfort zone. In that process, we must have recruited a few hundred professionals so far, including 4 of the 6 current business heads and more than a dozen of senior level executives.

How He Ruined A Promising Career, Running After Money!

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Growth opportunities light up an unrelenting desire in humans to achieve more and more - in terms of money - at any cost, sometimes through unethical practices also. One such incident I witnessed recently, and with utter disbelief!

One of the candidates I have recently recruited at senior level for an MNC client, disappeared the day after joining. Several attempts to contact him through out the day didn't produce any result.

However, when, in the evening, I sent him a SMS threatening to share his foolishness with a few senior professionals from industry, he called up and tried to explain the reason for this funny act.

How to be A True Warrior in the Battle of Life!

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"The master warrior is a man of character, a man of wisdom and insight." # Forrest E. Morgan

'Abhijit, we must complete the order in another 15 days, else..' Said my boss with a gloomy face. It was 12 O'clock in the night and we were walking down the shop floor, inspiring supervisors and workers to put in their best efforts for producing as many finished goods as possible.

To complete a prestigious order, that my boss was talking about, we had to achieve a 150 percent productivity. And that was a near-impossible task by any standard, as 20 years ago, when this scene was unfolding, automation was in fancy in India compared to what it is today.

I being in charge of both production and quality of almost half of the factory and also the accounts manager for that client, boss was completely banking on me.

Before leaving the factory I told him, 'sir, we will do it, I promise!' He gave me a tiring smile and moved away to the parking lot.

Can You Give Me the God's Mobile No?

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What an interesting meeting it was: A well-planned business presentation to a senior leader from corporate India.

With just 15 minutes allotted to me for making an impression, I was thinking and acting like a 'Bullet Train,' speeding up without applying brakes at any point, competing with the clock, and trying to highlight what normally would have taken at least half-an-hour.

Tea was served in-between but I politely refused, hoping to save a few precious minutes and continued with my supersonic presentation. Just a few seconds before the bell rang in my amygdala, indicating that the time was over, I uttered the concluding message.

The Importance of Persistence And Pressure Bearing Ability

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Persistence and Pressure Bearing Ability are two important traits/qualities, apart from a few more, that define your success in both professional and personal life.

In personal life, riding through occasional tsunami of relationship misunderstandings, if you fail to demonstrate any of these qualities, I'm sure, sooner or later, you will find yourself in a mess.

Same applies to professional life as well. In fact, here the challenges are much bigger, because, unlike your personal life, the element of long term commitment is apparently missing. Ideally it shouldn't, but practically it is, in most of the cases. So, unless you're truly committed the results would never come.

Stop Disconnecting Incoming Calls on Your Mobile Phone

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Why most of the most organized people fail to organize incoming calls on their mobile phone is a mystery that I've not been able to understand so far.

Someone calls you up when you are attending an important meeting and you, without a second thought, disconnect the call instantly. Unfortunately, it happens with me almost everyday; most of the time, when I call up my clients.

5 Check Points for Successfully Running A Partnership Venture

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A couple of months ago, I met an old friend of mine, who had floated a new company in partnership with an interesting personality. We had an useful discussion about a possible business association - between both of us - for catering to a niche area of talent search business: Retained Executive Search.

They were doing well; so was I. However, to do something much better and also bigger, I thought, the best way would be to team up with a few more experts with diverse experience -- making up for the weaknesses, that all of us individually have.

To Be Happy, Behave Like A Sports Person!

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Happiness is the most sought-after goal for all of us; however, there seems to be a lot of confusion over what happiness in life actually means!

Everyone knows that happiness is a state of mind, but what more you need to know is -- how to attain that state of mind that makes you happy.

Well, having gone through the roller-coaster drive of life - several times - suffering a series of unexpected set-backs and also achieving a lot more than what I truly deserve, I've realized:

A Good Student May Not Become A Good Teacher!

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 Someone said it, when I was too immature to understand; another said it, when I was too mature to interpret;  but never before I could realize, than now, while experiencing it myself: that a good student doesn't not necessarily become a good teacher!

Everything that I understand well would translate into rewarding actions for changing my course of life, is the biggest illusion I've ever had in life. Understanding and making others understand is vastly different than making our-self acting on it.

Live by example may stand as the best demonstration of leadership excellence, but not in creative fields -- is perhaps one of the painful realization of my life.

A Tale of Two Boys!

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During my early school days, one of my classmate Rabin,  who used to stand first in the class would always have his home work neatly done without ever giving any opportunity to the class teacher to complain against him. Rest of the class would continue to have their own share of plight in that respect.

However, one fine morning, things suddenly took a u -turn for Rabin: his home-work was incomplete; he was unable to answer  teacher's questions in the class;  in fact, his so-called confidence seemed have vanished leaving behind a skeleton of confusion and fear.

Class teacher, being habitual of citing the example of Rabin to others, was in an embarrassing situation. He was totally confused to notice this amazing transformation in Rabin within a gap of 24 hours: yesterday Rabin was as bright as none in the class, and today he appeared as dumb as none.

Justice is Inevitable

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All of us, at some point in time, invariably suffer from a series of blows from life's cruelty, may be in different ways. And, we never admit those painful memories with others because we are afraid of being ridiculed as weak character.

The realization that you are not an achiever; the sight of happiness that you failed to cherish, the life that you've failed to live, and the possibility of you being termed a complete failure in life -- is extremely painful for someone who least deserves it And, your inability to express those pains and agonies makes it even worse.

Can We Live Our True Self?

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Do we live our true self, or an image meticulously created to match a wide range of situations that we keep facing in daily life?

I think we're experts in creating a dynamic image of ourselves that keeps modifying according to the requirements  in different spheres of life but, most of the time, quite different than what we actually are.

Our external image controls the depth of relationship we have with people within our area of influence in terms of how caring and dependable we are.  We work hard to maintain this image, but how often we try to change our actual self, internally, to minimize the gap between external and internal self, is what my questions is?

Navigating through the Worst of Life

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A little over  3 years by now, I have been going through the worst phase of my life: Emotional and financial.

But gradually things are changing, at least there are some good signs visible in the distant horizon. Years of struggle against unrelenting pressure from destiny, forcing me to surrender and quit this world, appears to be coming to an end.

Having decided not to quit as a failure, I perhaps turned myself into an abnormal person. Why abnormal? Because my Struggle had been more about keeping my self-esteem intact, when there was not even a remote possibility of achieving so.

Good Content with No Promotion Fades into Oblivion

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Content is the king, none would deny it. But, like a brilliant student with no access to higher education, good content without visibility is a huge wastage of literary excellence.

Often I come across a lot of articles from small blogs which are much better than the most popular articles on high-ranking websites.

I don't deny that, like Mashable, start-ups with good content soon start gaining popularity. However, such examples are very rare.