Life is Beautiful-2011

Here goes the 2010: One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But...

Sun Tzu – The Art of War (Part-II)

Sun Tzu declares that the most detested act in wars is all but one thing; arrogance. There is no one in the battle field more likely to be killed and defeated than an arrogant soldier. Arrogance is a habit which costs dearly and is remorseful. To be a successful person in all battles, it is imperative to appreciate the power of knowledge. Knowledge means knowing everything there is to know about one’s self and that of the adversary. This is preparation in its epitome. Going in the field with less or no knowledge about the enemy is pretty much like venturing into a hungry lion’s den with no shield on weapon. Preparation through knowledge and understanding the adversary is the most crucial skill. Essentially, it is to be learned as soon as possible with maximum deftness. Tzu has further stressed...

Sun Tzu – The Art of War (Part-I)

There are times in life when things are going smooth and one as snug as a bug. Then there are times when things are topsy turvy instead of hunky dowry. And then there are times when things aren’t going anywhere. At those perilous times, it is the real make or break period, a cliffhanger. To understand to tackle antagonist people and adverse situations is a very important human skill which need be learned but, sadly, is not emphasized much. This gives rise to a multitude of problems which otherwise can be decreased or maybe altogether avoided. Few people in history have provided answer to this problem more beautifully than the ancient Chinese General Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu was much more than a military general for he was a philosopher too. A thinking general is a rarity itself. He believed that...

Jack Welch – The Rebel with a Cause (Part-II)

Jack Welch’s General Electric was massive in size. To further infuse motivation to the 300,000 + work force at GE, Welch introduced another maxim that every employee should consider that GE at the moment has only 10% share in the market and then they must devise methods and strategies to increase their market share. The greatest benefit of this brainstorming was the initiation of the concept of whole sum service delivery. Till that time GE simply used to sell equipment, now it started to provide the whole line of accessories along with the principal equipment. In his effort to curb faulty products, welsh raised the standard of quality control by introducing the much touted TQM benchmark of Six Sigma. Despite being already a very big player in the global economy, Welch took steps to increase...

Jack Welch – The Rebel with a Cause (Part 1)

Jack Welch may probably be considered the most quoted and most celebrated former CEO alive. He was Chief Executive Officer of a huge enterprise living in great comfort and luxury, but that’s another story. The jack Welch we are interested in is the person who rose among the ranks of General Electric, then world’s second largest multinational and remained its CEO from 1981-2000. Welch, since his earliest days in GE in 1960’s was dissatisfied with the work environment at GE. He was a radical to the core and tried in his capacity to change the form of bureaucracy which worked in an exhaustingly monotonous fashion. Welch’s belief that even the simplest of achievements should be acknowledged and properly celebrated hence created quite a racket and commotion. All this was a little nuisance...

Brian Tracy – My Heart Will Go on (Part-I)

Brian Tracy stands out in the long queue of personal developments and success coaches due to his relentless pursuit of goals throughout his life. As humble as it may seem Brian Tracy had come a long way in his life to the place where he is today. Brian has given us the lesson of discovering our strengths and plotting achievable yet daring goals throughout our lives. These goals are what he believes keep people going. Before discovering Brian’s secrets to his nirvana, it is best to familiarize ourselves with who Brian Tracy really is and what was his struggle all about. Brian Tracy came off a financially deprived family in Canada and lived off charity and alms for a long time. Life was difficult for Tracy who worked long and hard since young age to make ends meet. He did all sorts of odd...

Brian Tracy – My Heart Will Go On (Part-ii)

Brian Tracy notices with great disappointment that despite their utility, goal setting is not one of the prime concerns in the education system and is seldom taught as at tool of vital importance. Less than one percent of the entire population writes down their goals and reviews them on periodic basis. Needless to say, goal setting has received very little welcome from society but it could be due to simple ignorance rather than intentional blind eye. Tracy suggests that the reason goals should be set is that they provide a two-fold benefit. Firstly they induce discipline and a will to act and secondly they serve as periodic reminders which help us tune our speed and effort. Goal setting is so valuable because of their immense motivational power. Nothing makes one more glad than becoming a winner...

Richard Wiseman; The Art of Getting Lucky

Psychology is the study of human behavior and mental processes. It strives to understand what people do and why they do what they do. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from University College, London has been working long and hard to ascertain a specific form of human construct and its impact on the lives of people. Wiseman’s prime focus was what it is referred to as luck. As convenient as it may sound luck is not a divine bestowment upon a person. Contrary to wide held belief Wiseman endeavored to find what makes some people lucky and consequently leaves the rest of the bulk as unlucky. He began his search with an aim to understand the different fundamental differences in the lives, cognitive abilities, perceptions, attitudes, and reactions among people who consider themselves lucky and...

Andrew Carnegie; the Making of Modern World’s First Billionaire (Part II)

Apart from being civil to his staff and making them at ease he also made sure they were handsomely rewarded. One of his employees Charles Schwab, a plant manager with an exceptional skill of motivating and encouraging was paid a million dollar per annum making him the first American to be paid so handsomely. It was his gift of dealing with workers which earned him his money’s worth. Same Mr. Schwab inspired Jim Rohn and then Anthony Robbins and generations of motivational gurus to come. Another lesson worth learning is that people can earn an extra dollar with a skill which is not necessarily related to their work, it can be anything which is sought after and that the greatest force which gets a person going is the force of motivation. A motivated person can do manifold tasks more diligently...

Andrew Carnegie; the Making of Modern World’s First Billionaire (Part I)

21st century, as someone said somewhere once, would be full of those people who become famous for 60 minutes. Few men could manage to mark their name in the pages of history in a way which inspires awe and inspiration for times to come. Andrew Carnegie was one such man. His family was the first to establish libraries in a time when love for education and that too public, for all, was nowhere to be found. There were universities but public libraries, scarce. When Andrew’s grandfather established a small library in their home town in Scotland, it was the first of its kind and in later years when Andrew became rich and famous, he nurtured the love for books and this led him to donate generously in establishing libraries and even a university. Carnegie understood that for a cultured attitude...