Towards Resurgent & Responsible India

An old English proverb says – Listen to advice and accepts instructions, and in the end you will be wise. The weakest part of each person is where he or she thinks himself or herself the wisest. In the words of great basketball coach John Wooden. “It is what we learn after we think we know it all that really counts.” Those who are teachable and continually seek to improve and grow rarely contract the disease of pride. Great American leader, inventor, writer Benjamin Franklin taught – “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” Education and transportation are tolls that get us to our destination. We need transportation as long as we live, so do we need education. As modes of transportation has evolved and changed over the years, so have the tools for education. Internet is the facilitator for transport of knowledge. The moment you think you know a lot about a particular subject or topic, just google the topic, subject or term and you will find millions of p...

कलिः शयानो भवति संजिहानस्तु द्वापरः । उत्तिष्ठस्त्रेता भवति कृतं संपाद्यते चरंश्चरैवेति ॥ Sleeping is like Kaliyug, waking up and coming to senses is like Dwapar, getting up and standing is like Treta and getting involved in work and being active is like Krityug (Satyug), therefore you must continue moving. These words of wisdom are from our ancient text Upanishad , advising that movement is the constant endeavor of life. Where moving is not an option it is the only choice. Life is like trying to go up a downward escalator in that if you are not stepping up (putting forth effort), you’re going down. Life is not like a stairway upon which you can reach a certain step and then stop and maintain your position. Just like any animal or plant, it is either growing or decaying, so we are either progressing or regressing in life. You cannot be at a standstill. Every day at night you should ask yourself, was there anything new which I learnt, created, contributed, impro...

American author, Robert Allen says “Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone”.   All of us wish to stay within our comfort zone; there is a huge inertia which pulls us from moving out of our comfort zone. Our mind helps us invent all kind of logic to convince us not to move. Ghosts come out from the closet of mind and start showing us the fear of failure, fear of rejection; they do everything possible to stop us from laying our hands on the most potent tool of success called initiative. What is initiative? Writer Cameron C. Taylor, illustrates it brilliantly - “It is doing the right thing without being told. But next to doing the thing without being told is to do it when you are told once.. but their pay is not always in proportion. Next there are people who never do a thing until they are told twice; such get no honors and small pay. Next, there are those who do the right thing only when necessity kicks them from behind, and these get indifference instead of ...

Few posts earlier I have written a piece on - contribution being a virtue and a cornerstone in the edifice of success. Being creator is an attitude. See within yourself, ask question and introspect and find out, if you are just a consumer or a creator. Creator of any resource that you consume, it could be material like wealth and job or could be intangible like thoughts and ideas. I said it’s an attitude; attitude is like a seed that just needs fertile ground to germinate and grow. You may not be a creator at this very moment, but if you have an attitude of being a creator you shall certainly be part of the elite club of creators. If you believe in scarcity and a fixed number of resources, you will focus on distributing the limited wealth among society fairly. You will not focus on creation because what currently exists is all there will ever be. Instead of trying to develop a way to divide the current pie, we should focus on creating a new pie big enough for all to share. People ...

“The price of greatness is responsibility”   - Winston Churchill In my previous posts I shared some laws of success desired to execute a professional tasks - such as decision, commitment, planning, execution etc. But every law every attribute is underlined with the paramount attribute of responsibility. Every time we make a choice, we are either obeying or disobeying a law of success. As we obey the laws of success, we move to a more successful state of happiness, peace, power, freedom and prosperity. As we disobey the laws of success, we move to a state of sadness, weakness, bondage, and misery. Each moment we are progressing toward one of these two states. This gift of choice is like fire: if properly used, it can create warmth and life; if improperly used, it can burn or even kill. With each choice comes a consequence. No amount of rationalizing or complaining will alter the consequence. Choice and consequences are two ends of the same stick. If you pick up one en...

God has given us two ears to listen and one mouth to speak, so we should listen twice as much, at least, as we speak; something all of us have been listening since childhood, but most of us fail to apply the age old wisdom. The more listening you do, the smarter you will become, the better you will be liked, and the better conversationalist you will be. A good listener always winds up far ahead of a good talker in the affections of people. This is because a good listener always allows people to hear their favorite speakers, themselves. Being a good listener is the outcome of many small actions, and to become a good listener sometime you need to tweak some of your behavioral and attitudinal attributes. Anybody worth listening to is worth looking at, look at the person who is talking. Eyes give natural feedback. Leaning towards the speaker demonstrates your intent of being keen in what he wishes to share, appear as if you don’t want to miss a single word. While listening, as...

Your communication with people is only effective if your communication is received by the person with whom you intend to communicate. People would listen to you, if they think listening to you would give them some benefit. When you are talking to people, pick out the most interesting subject in the world to them to talk about? Themselves. When you talk to them about themselves they will be deeply interested and utterly fascinated. They will think well of you for doing this. When you talk to people about themselves, you are rubbing them the right way. You are working with human nature. When you talk to people about yourself, you are rubbing people the wrong way and working against human nature.   Take these four words out of your vocabulary – “I, me, my, mine” for those four words, substitute one word, the most powerful word spoken by the human tongue – “you”. So when talking to others, talk about them, and get them talking about themselves. So to be skilful ...

Your audience sees you before they start listening to you. And your body starts communicating with your audience much before you start communicating through your speech. The way you walk, shake hands, the way you sit. Body language can be an excellent tool and can synergize with your speech and make it very effective, or if not used or ignored, can spoil your effort. Gestures and body movement are like spices in a soup – they can either add or distract, depending on how much you use. You need to be cautious about your gestures and movements. But before doing anything about them you should first be aware about their existence, which you can do by watching the video recording of your test presentation. You need to look for following – ·          If you are rattling coins or keys in your pocket. ·          If you are twisting your ring ·          If you are s...