Giving is noble

A young man traveled to Himalaya as pilgrim trip.He found a stone on the riverbed and he picked it as he knew the value of it. After returning home, he was showing the stones to his relatives and friends.One of the relatives also aware of the value of the stone and requested the young man to give it to him. 
Without any second thought, the young man gave the stone to the relative.

Some days later, the relative came back to the young man and returned back the stone. Surprised with the fact that he liked the stone very much, the young man asked him, “I know you are fond of stone, that is the reason, I have given it you. Why are you returning back now?”

The old man replied, “I know the materialistic value of this stone, but more than that there is something precious WITHIN you that enables you to give this stone to me. I wanted to possess that. That is more valuable than anything else!!

Moral:

It is not how big we are in terms of materialistic, it matters how generous we are in giving to others, either it could be knowledge, money, time etc. That attitude makes a difference between ordinary and extraordinary!

Redefining your life success with right metrics

In today’s world, everyone is madly rushing behind money and positional status and in this process, we are too much stressed out.This causes disruption in physical and relationship.One of the reason could be unconsciously we had defined the life success as money and power. That is the only metrics by which we are measuring our success.Some study suggests that if we change or add one more metrics in our definition of life success, it will change our perception of life and our actions. That metric is "THRIVING".

Thriving can be defined as prosperous or flourishing or growing in all aspects of well-being.This metric is beyond survival and 360 degrees winning in all aspects of life.

The overall of well-being (Thriving) can be attained by 

1.Nurturing yourself physically and mentally
2.Keep learning
3.Spending time yourself to listen to your inner voice
4.Giving to others
5.Distance yourself from digital noises
6.Exploring new location and people 
7.curiosity like child
8.Get enough sleeping as it improves health

In reality, coming out of survival to thriving mode requires a lot of internal perspective change about life and real growth!

Am I leading my life the way I want ?

One of the lingering questions a few of us will have at some point in time is “Am I leading my life the way I want?" .Particularly, this question come to those who had fulfilled the basic need of the survival. This question comes when there is a conflict of interest in what we are doing now and what we like to do.Some people label it as passion.

As I witnessed that  some people answered the question, led a path rightly and some people struggle to find the right answer themselves.

This calls for structured process as follows

1.First, accept this disturbance as such.You are disturbed by this question because you are destined for something else, that is good. 

2.Allow some time  for settling down as  any quick emotional decision  may  affect  the quality of life

3.Spend time privately for reflection  both on logical and emotional  outcome  of  any decision you take 

4.Seek  the help from genuine coaches who can work with you without bias  on your values/beliefs and guide you  to choose the right decision  by yourselves  

5.Experiment your passion without giving up your current path as reality will give a clarity whether your passion is sustainable or not. Based on the experience, you can decide your path.

Finally, you are the master of your life, own any decision what may come and enjoy the process!!

Being happy to be successful

  

 One day a successful businessman was called to address the gathering on the topic being happy in life.The speaker also was happily sharing his experience. On completion upon his speech, one person from the audience approached the speaker and said, “You are successful in your business that is why you are happy. You do not know how much effort I am putting to be successful, how can I be happy “

The speaker stopped him and said, “I am happy not because I am successful, it is another way round, and I am successful because I am always happy”.

This statement is profound.Being happy is a state of mind irrespective of environment or status. When the mind is happy, it can think through the ways to be successful in any Endeavour.

In reality, most of the time, we tend to be happy only and if some favorable conditions are met. There should not be any reason to be happy.It just requires awareness.

Be happy and makes other happy with your presence!

Embrace the sharks

    

 Many years ago, Japanese fishers had a business challenge with the fishes they were delivering to their customers. After capturing the fish in the sea and by the time they reach the land shore, the fish died and lost their taste. The fishermen tried different processes to keep the fishes fresh till entering the land, but could not succeed. Finally, they came with the idea to put the captured fishes in a small tank along with a small shark.

     During the travel from deep sea to land, shark used to eat a few fishes. The rest of the fishes who fought with the shark to save the life looked fresh, energetic once they reach the land shore. What made the fishes energetic and fresh? The challenges those faced through shark made them fresh and dynamic.

     In our life also, either in business or personal life, we need more challenges like going beyond comfort, trying something new which we have not done earlier, surpassing our own limitations etc.The challenges make us more engaged and active.If we get challenges only from the survival perspective, life would be miserable. If the challenges are bringing more out of us, then it would be positive pressure.

The problems and challenges are meant to bring a new personality of you. Let us embrace the real challenges or shark in our life

Why should we celebrate even small success?

    

One way of motivating ourselves is to celebrate even the small success on our own way .when we celebrate the success, the happiness feeling associated with celebration reinforces positive motivation, in turn, pushes us to achieve more.This is the psychological effect of celebration.

    At a personal level, the definition of success could be anything.For example, if you set the goal of reducing weight by 3 kg and even if achieve 1 kg reduction, that is the success and needs to be celebrated.Celebrate it on your way. It could be anything, even expressing your happiness to your dear ones. This happiness feeling will give you the motivation to reduce further weight.

    Similarly, in organizational setup, even small achievement of success towards big target must be celebrated with the team in the form communication, appreciation, gifting, etc.This will bring more positiveness inside the organization, and eventually, that becomes the culture of winning mindset.

   The point is irrespective of the size of the success; you need to celebrate and feel happy about your achievement that will give internal motivation to move up further. Your state of mind and happiness is important to achieve anything and celebration is one way of keeping you in a positive state.

Hence, strive for success and celebrate and achieve more success!!!

Do we need tough time to appreciate value ?

           Most of the time, we use to approach the aspects of life as granted. The reason could be we get  everything easily and we do not see much value in it. While everything goes right, our tendency to assume that it happens due to our brilliance or effort and hesitate to appreciate the giftedness which we have got through this life.

        To balance this mindset only, nature always plays with balance and equanimity principle. To appreciate the value of life and its blessings, challenges or difficulties are given

For example, 

When we get sick, we appreciate the value of fitness and respect the physical body
When we lose materialistically, we appreciate the value of hard earned money
When we are alone, we appreciate the value of relationships 
When we are undergoing the tough times, we appreciate the value of mental strength and self-development
We appreciate the value of light when we are in darkness

         It does not mean just to appreciate the value of life, one need to undergo all the troubles in life. With a little bit of awareness, gratitude and balanced approach, we can appreciate everything that happens in our life.

Are you grateful or regretful?

      There are only two set of people based on their perspectives about life .One is being grateful for everything and another one being regretful for everything. The first set of people looks at the life with the achievements they did so far, being grateful, happy, and look for next level growth. The Second set of people always looks for what they missed out irrespective of their achievement, becoming skeptical about themselves and lose the sight of future prospects

       One of the studies in sport reveals that, the person who won the bronze medal use to be happier than the person who won the silver medal. The reason may be that silver won person kept thinking about how he missed out the gold medal, forgetting the gift of being achieved silver, whereas the bronze won person kept feeling that he got into the medal winners list and be proud of achieving.

      The point is that aiming for high is good, but not at the cost of forgetting the current achievement and celebration. It is our mindset, how we look into the life, feeling either happy about current achievement despite challenges or cribbing about what we lost.

      Let us celebrate the current achievement of 2016, feel grateful, and aim high for 2017!

Regrets of the dying

Bronnie ware is an Australian nurse who spent many years working in palliative care, taking care of patients in the last weeks of their lives. She collected the information from dying people about their regrets, wishes, missed opportunities etc and she found a common pattern surfaced repeatedly .Based on her experience, she had written a book “Regrets of the dying people” which is a best seller.

The top five regrets emerge from the majority of the people are 

1.I wish I had courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
2.I wish I didn’t work so hard
3.I wish I had the courage to express my feelings
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
5.I wish that I had let myself be happier

Those above regrets may not be the expression of entire humanity as it is not statistical proven,yet  the sample may reflect the quality of life .Most of us are living with sub standard life against our inner deep desire .Striving for fulfillment must be a conscious decision and that requires awareness .

Let us be aware of our quality of living!

What does prevent us to express timely?

The value of “life aspects” is only when we nourish its value when it is with us. The “life aspects” could be like health, wealth, knowledge, profession, relationship etc. When something is lost, we realize the value of it or associate it with more memories.

In personal life, we use to take the people relationship as granted, especially with people in our close circles. We tend to value people after we lost them or they moved away from us. After losing, either regret about the inability to nurture the relationship or start valuing by way of praising the positive side of the personalities (as nostalgia rituals!!). Even in professional life, we use to appreciate or endorse the qualities of the person during a farewell session as a routine. The person could have enjoyed the association more with us, if he/she had been endorsed or acknowledged or appreciated for his personality when he/ she were with us.

As life is too short and uncertainty, what does prevent us from nurturing the relationship and expressing timely? We may list work pressure, lack of time, ego etc, but more than anything else, it just needs a deep awareness of the fact of life.

As someone quoted, “Sometimes the words we leave unspoken are the most important ones that should have been said” is much more valid for the relationship especially with our close circles.

Invisible traits of successful people

     A lot of books have been written about highly successful people  and  a lot of researches have  been done to understand the DNA  of being successful in any field like  business, sports, media or in politics .Most of those analysis  use to point out more about  the external  traits like hard work,persistence, people skill, communication skill and decision making ability etc.

    Those are all known to the external world and anyone can take that as benchmark to follow and replicate. In this process, a few may succeed to some extent only. When we observe the highly successful people, we can realize the most important cause for the phenomenal growth or success, but not visible to external world is their quality of thinking, continuously striving to learn more about the field and challenging their thought process for the next level. 

      We could see some people with extraordinary talent stagnate at some point due to stopping their curiosity intend in their field of work. The point is irrespective of your profession, age, talent, continuous striving or curious to learn more  about your business or profession matters a lot on your sustained growth.

    When asked about his phenomenal success, Steve jobs said, “much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” It is purely the outcome of continuous thinking, challenging and striving for excellence

Real entrepreneurial attitude

       Recently I had an opportunity to meet a very old businessperson, who has successfully built his organization and gained a very good reputation in the industry. His third generations have also stepped into the business and they are actively managing the business. Despite his ageing and health issues, he is having a habit of coming to office regularly and involving himself in important decisions.

     On seeing his passion and hard work, with curiosity, I asked, “Sir, Having created a big empire and developed the team to manage the business, are you not still happy with the growth? Why do you trouble yourself at this age? He profoundly replied, “It is not the question of happiness. I am already happy with my accomplishments, as I know where I came from, but not satisfied. My thinking is always on how to create more wealth to my employees and how to create more employment opportunities to many people.”

     I am amazed with his thought processes and witnessed the person of self-realization. The God chooses the right people for right purpose based on the thought, intention, enables right action and result!.Real growth and fulfillment is when we make our life for others. 

Real entrepreneurial attitude!

Life is all about the experience of it

Three friends went inside the forest and they lost the direction to reach back to their home village. They tried to find their way out, but none of them agreed to go one path together.

The first man said, “I use to listen to my intuition, hence I will go left direction to reach home” and he left.

The second man said, “Logically, we have to follow through our past, hence I will follow the same path as we reached “and he left to follow the old path.

The third man says himself “why should we explore different options when we are not sure, so let me climb up the tall tree and take a better look around, I will find the shortest path to my home “and he did so and found the path, went ahead, reached the destination. He thought the other people are not brilliant and smart enough like him.

Eventually other friends also reached the home, but with different experiences on the way. The first person met new people, made them as friends, with their help, he reached home. The second person had to fight a pack of wild animals and managed to reach home, but he learned how to survive in the forest.
In essence, all had reached the destination, but with different experience. Our life is also like that, we may take different decision in life which leads to different paths, at the end, what matters is the experience and perspectives we gain from the life. Let us enjoy the experience whatever the path we choose!