Three factors of success...

Today got an opportunity to attend an Sure Mantra for Success session by Swamini Vimalanandaji at Chinmaya Mission, Ann Arbor. Here are my notes from a beautiful lecture.

There are three important things for a success in life, for a person or for an organization.
1) यंत्र / Machine / Resources / Tools:
Yantra are the machines, tools that we use to make our job easy and to achieve the goal. A mobile is good example of the machine, it has a lot of potential and many times we don't realize the complete potential and hence don't use the machine to its complete potential.
The other important thing to remember about the machine is, it is for us to use and make our job/life easier, and not the other way round. Many times we become so obsessed with the machines that we become so dependent on them. All the people glued to the mobiles / Tabs / Laptops / TVs are the one who dependent on the machines and have forgotten about the priorities.

So, basically the machines are important for us and what is even more important is to how to use those machines for our advantage, that brings us to the second important factor for success -

2) तंत्र / Methodology / Policy:
As we learned from the 1st factor, machine, it is important for our success, but we need to ensure that we use them correctly, and that's when the Methodology comes in to the picture. Methodology or Policy helps us to how to use the machine effectively. If we only have the machine, without knowing how and when to use it effectively, it will be  of no use. So, a machine without correct methodology / policy is of no use. We need to set up the process of how to use the machines, the manners, the time and that only will help us to use the machine effectively. Basically, I own a car, but I cannot use it if I don't know how to drive it.

So, now we have the correct machine, we know how to use the machine effectively and we don't know why we want to use the machine. So, taking that Car example forward, I own a car, I know how to drive a car, and I don't know where to go? Will I achieve my goal, if I don't know where I want to go? That brings us to the very important and third factor of success -

3) मंत्र / Mission / Goal :
Mission defines where we want to go, and that is very important factor of our journey to success.If we don't know where we want to go then obviously it will not help whether which high class machine we have and what high standard methodology we have developed.If we have the mission, then we that by itself is enough to achieve the goal, as we will find the required resources and develop the required methodologies and achieve our mantra / mission.

My notes from Harsha Bhogle's IIMA address

After watching Harsha Bhogle's hour long address to IIMA students, i am so impressed that i wanted to write something about it, so here it is. These are just the notes from his famous and really helpful address. 

1) Always keep your mouth shut and ears open 

2) The real question that we should be asking our self, when we set a goal, a target is, what is more important the end result or the path?

• End gives us the vision 
• End becomes the driver of ambition but ambitious can create anxiety and can choke you when its time for you to perform.
• The importance of end can create a temptation to do whatever it takes to achieve it (ethics??)
• Always adhere to ethics 
• Make the process of achievement supreme make results irrelevant 
• Do the best that u can and get what u get 
• Alan Border's advice to Australian new comers "Take care of runs, dollars will take care of itself"
• Practice to give 100% every time, so when you have to give your 100% its not new to you. If you give 100% and you still fail, then you don't have to give any excuses, because you know you can not do anything more than 100%.
• कर्मणे वाधिकारस्ते माँ फलेचु कदाचन 

3) Work as hard as you can.

4) You don't have any control on what others are going to do, you only have control over your self. 

6) Always surround yourself with people who are better than you, need not be in your profession, learn from experts of other professions and apply in yours 

7) Happily bat at non strikers end, don't compete, help others look, better you will automatically look better 

8) If you have ego and anger on your side you don't need an enemy. These two things will consume your energy and destroy you. 

9) Talent can open fist or may be second door of success for you, but if you want to be achieve outstanding success then you need a great attitude.

10) Even with outstanding talent you will fail, and if u bounce back from failure its attitude 

Here is a link, if you want to watch it yourself -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaw_bKOkULM

कविता करायचा प्रयत्न -१) मने जिंका आयुश्याच युद्ध नाही

भांड्याला भांड लागतं आवाज होतो
मनाला मन भेटली तर काय वेगळं होत

सारख्याच कश्या होतील फक्त मनमिळावू गप्पा
कधी कधी वाद - भांडण तर कधी रुसवा फुगवा

देवानी पण किती छान घडवलंय आपल्याला
कान नाही पण तोंड बंद ठेवता येत सगळ्यांना

कानातून ऐकावे पण काय साठवायचे आणि काय नाही
ते आपलं आपणच ठरवावे, कारण बोलतय ते तोंड आपलं कुठे

तोंडाने बोलावे पण काय बोलायचं आणि काय नाही
त्यावर आपणच पूर्ण नियंत्रण ठेवावे, आपणच मालक ना ह्याचे

आयुष्य हे काही युद्ध नव्हे जे जिंकायचे आपल्याला
झालंच तर जिंकावी मने पण न दुखावता कोणाला

Differences in the Team!!!

"If all are thinking alike then no one is thinking."

How true it is. Many time we find that the like minded people gets closer and form a group, the family has similar likes and dislikes, and we somehow start getting the feeling that it is similar experience, that has given us similar thoughts, and that make us comfortable in each others company and hence we start enjoying it.

There is nothing wrong in having similar thoughts, if you formed those independently without any external influence. But, often you will observe that the origin of similar thoughts is not like this, it is either, if we are in power, through influencing others on how our thoughts are good; or if we don't enjoy that power in the group, we get influenced. Why do we do that? Because we want to be in the group. This is where the problem starts, now we don't add any value to the group with our brain, rather to be in the group we start manipulating the brain, and we give the input that the next person likes.

By nature a human being want to live in a comfortable environment, that is true physically and mentally. But we tend to forget, that "Personal comfort is the biggest enemy of personal development". 

Think Happy, Practice Happy, Be Happy...

'जगी सर्व सूखी असा कोण आहे, विचारी मना तूच शोधुनी पाहे'

The meaning of above master piece is simple and it goes, 'Ask who is the happiest person on Earth, ask it to your heart/soul, and you will find, it is you'. Isn't is simple, do you believe it? Even if you might answer it yes, I know deep down withing you don't trust it. Why? Well, the main reason is, we don't want to be happy. We always keep on finding excuses for not being Happy at a moment. We always want our happyness to be dependent on something, something which is not under our control. We always believe that Happyness is external thing, if someone does something, and something special happens to us then only we can be happy, is it true?
If we do a root cause of the Happyness, we found it to be internal. What we think within, what we feel within is what happyness is all about. It has nothing to do with the external things. As for our physical health, healthier the food we eat, healthier we become, similar happier the thoughts we bring to our mind happier we become. As usual, it is easy to write and hard to practice, but give it a try.

Choose your own reaction!!!

"nirlajyam sada sukhi" in English it means "an ashamed person is always happy." Now, don't stop reading further, because I am not gonna tell you to be ashamed to be happy, rather my point is to be happy, is your choice and you sure can control it.

There are always two types of things which are happening around you, one what you do and rest what others do. You can control your behavior, and hence you control your reaction, rather many times it is this end result, how you want to feel, that influence your behavior.

The difficult part is our joy and sorrow are our reaction to others behavior. Should and can we control this? My answer to both the questions is YES!

The answer to 'should' part is very important, we do need to always remember that its our life and we should decide what makes us happy or unhappy,this is nothing but owning our life in true sense.
Once you believe in the the fact that it is your right, then the second part of the question is, can we really do it? Simple answer is yes, but remember this is a journey, and it is tough one, but be sure the destination is worth it so give it a try.

Now two things which we need to check for others behavior are can we control it and second thing is can we influence it. If we can control or even influence the behavior then we should give it a try and try to put it on the right track. If we can neither  control nor influence the behavior then we are left with just one option and that is to accept it.

You will see that many things that disturbs us falls in the category where we have to simply accept it and move on. It is really very difficult to acknowledge this fact that there are many things which we simply have to accept, without any choice. Does that mean we are weak? Yes, we are, should we get disturbed for this, no just accept it!

Also please remember that we are discussing about the behaviour of others, it has nothing to do with your capability. The 'weakness' which is referred in above paragraph can actually become our strength if we really start detaching our reaction from others behaviour.

Communication :)

Communication is one thing that all living creatures are doing routinely, and is also one thing that many human beings complained about! Why is communication so important and why is it also an issue???
I want to walk you through a typical life of a person from the birth to may be until he/she starts attending the college.There are three important phases of a life that I want to focus on -1
Phase-I: Birth until a child can talk.
Phase-II: From the moment child learns to talk but without judging.
Phase-II: From the moment child starts deciding what to tell and whom.

Phase-I: Birth until a child can talk. In this phase a child can not talk and I am sure you might know many parents who have children in this phase of life, so how often do they complain about their child's limitation of communication? Do they say, that the child doesn't clearly tells them what she wants, what she like, why is she crying? Parent don't complain in this phase about the communication of a child, even though in this phase the only mode of communication for the child are non-verbal. That funny face, smile, cry, and many more symbols are what used by the parents to learn about the child's likes, dislikes, comforts, discomforts and so on. Is it not a difficult phase for parents? Sure it is, but do they enjoy it? Sure they do! Why? I think the answer is in the fact that they are so much available for their kid, they want to pick each and every signal a kid is sending out and they want to analyse it and learn from it about their kid. So the main things are time, attention and willingness to learn from the kid.

Phase-II: This is also a enjoyable phase for parents, your loved ones now starts talking and it talks about everything to you, she repeats you, she talk on things that make no sense to you, she many times embarrasses you in front of others by asking some difficult questions. Do parents complaint about too much communication? Again the answer is, many cases no! Parents do enjoy this phase of the parenthood too, and again they spend lot of time listening to kids, pay attention to what they say, and now teach them about language.

Phase-III: This is a very crucial phase for any parents.Your son or daughter have grown up and now they decide what to tell and to whom. They are no more those innocent creatures who will spill out everything to you about every thing. This is the phase of kids where many parents complain about their kid, not telling them or may be more worried about their communication or lack of communication. This does not happen with all the parents, and lets create two groups of the parents now, lets say AL-type and PL-type.
AL parents don't have much complains about their kids communication in this Phase-III, while PL parents  are more worried and complains about the lack of communication with their grown ups.So, why this happen?
AL, are 'Active Listeners': This group gives enough time, and attention to the one who is talking, they don't form the opinion based on their experience or perception but rather try to learn from the next person what exactly is happening and then when asked play a role of mentor, without judgement or prior opinion.

PL, are 'Pretend Listeners': Instead of listening to next person what she is telling and then forming an opinion, this group create its own opinion based on what they perceive. They are not more interested in what next person is telling if it is not enforcing their views. This group quickly jump to the conclusion, and without the next person asking it start dictating the next moves.

As you can see, AL group gives enough time, attention and try to learn from the next person while PL group also gives enough time, but pay attention to where they want to and don't want to learn but wants to teach. Because of this different approach, AL keep on building the trust while PL keep on loosing the trust, and trust is the one major thing which is required if we need open communications. The moment we realise that there are some hidden agenda, and the next person is trying to using us to get what they want, we start to keep few things to our self and that creates a barriers between the communication. That's why I will also like to call PL a 'Police Listeneres', we don't want to tell everything but we try to be diplomatically right in our communication so we don't want to upset them, but also wants to protect us.

Now, forget about parenting and kids and all, don't you see this happening in your team, in corporate world or in school, or in casual groups.So the question to you is, are you AL, Active Listener or PL, Police Listeners? Becausee, it is based on this choice of yours the next person is going decide what type of communication he/she is going to have with you. So, take a wise decision and enjoy the communications!